Voice over IP Fundamentals, Second Edition

Chapter 6. IP Tutorial

Many of the benefits of voice over IP (VoIP) are derived from the use of Internet Protocol (IP) as the transport mechanism. To truly understand these benefits, you must first understand what IP actually means. What are the behavioral characteristics of IP, and what does an IP packet look like? These questions, and a few others, are answered in this chapter.

Before you can understand what IP can do for you and ways you can run applications through IP, you must first become familiar with the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model and how it applies to IP.

OSI Reference Model

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) developed the OSI reference model in the early 1980s. OSI is now the de facto standard ...