Developing applications for Internet telephony: a case study on the use of parlay call control APIs in SIP networks

Applications offered to end users as value-added services, or more simple, services, are crucial for the survival and success of service providers. Two main sets of standards have emerged for Internet telephony: H.323 from the ITU-T and SIP from the IETF. Unfortunately, the related application development frameworks are rather weak. Parlay, a set of standard object-oriented and signaling protocol-neural APIs, is an alternative. It allows applications to access network functionality, including call control, in a controller manner. Call control makes it possible to establish, modify, and tear down calls. It is the main functionality offered by Internet telephony networks. We have built a call control application in a SIP environment, using the call control APIs offered by Parlay. The application is a multiparty game. This article describes the case study. The mapping of the APIs onto SIP is presented, and its implementation is described. Related work reviewed, and the lessons learned are discussed. Parlay call control APIs are suitable for application development in Internet telephony. However, well isolated extensions are needed to realize their full potential.