Optimization of SIP session setup delay for VoIP in 3G wireless networks

Wireless networks beyond 2G aim at supporting real-time applications such as VoIP. Before a user can start a VoIP session, the end-user terminal has to establish the session using signaling protocols such as H.323 and session initiation protocol (SIP) in order to negotiate media parameters. The time interval to perform the session setup is called the session setup time. It can be affected by the quality of the wireless link, measured in terms of frame error rate (FER), which can result in retransmissions of packets lost and can lengthen the session setup time. Therefore, such protocols should have a session setup time optimized against loss. One way to do so is by choosing the appropriate retransmission timer and the underlying protocols. In this paper, we focus on SIP session setup delay and propose optimizing it using an adaptive retransmission timer. We also evaluate SIP session setup performances with various underlying protocols (transport control protocol (TCP), user datagram protocol (UDP), radio link protocols (RLPs)) as a function of the FER. For 19.2 Kbps channel, the SIP session setup time can be up to 6.12s with UDP and 7s with TCP when the FER is up to 10 percent. The use of RLP (1, 2, 3) and RLP (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1) puts the session setup time down to 3.4s under UDP and 4s under TCP for the same FER and the same channel bandwidth. We also compare SIP and H. 323 performances using an adaptive retransmission timer: SIP outperforms H. 323, especially for a FER higher than 2 percent.