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The Internet Stream Protocol (ST) is a family of experimental protocols first defined in Internet Experiment Note IEN-119 in 1979, and later substantially revised in RFC 1190 (ST-II) and RFC 1819 (ST2+). The protocol uses the version number 5 in the version field of the
Internet Protocol The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. ...
header, but was never known as IPv5. The successor to IPv4 was thus named
IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communication protocol, communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic ...
to eliminate any possible confusion about the actual protocol in use.


History

The Internet Stream Protocol family was never introduced for public use, but many of the concepts available in ST are similar to later
Asynchronous Transfer Mode Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a telecommunications standard defined by American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and ITU-T (formerly CCITT) for digital transmission of multiple types of traffic. ATM was developed to meet the needs of ...
protocols and can be found in
Multiprotocol Label Switching Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a routing technique in telecommunications networks that directs data from one node to the next based on labels rather than network addresses. Whereas network addresses identify endpoints the labels identif ...
(MPLS). They also presaged
voice over IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...
. ST arose as the transport protocol of the
Network Voice Protocol The Network Voice Protocol (NVP) was a pioneering computer network protocol for transporting human speech over packetized communications networks. It was an early example of Voice over Internet Protocol technology. History NVP was first defi ...
, a pioneering computer network protocol for transporting human speech over packetized communications networks, first implemented in December 1973 by Internet researcher Danny Cohen of the
Information Sciences Institute The USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI) is a component of the University of Southern California (USC) Viterbi School of Engineering, and specializes in research and development in information processing, computing, and communications techn ...
(ISI) as part of ARPA's Network Secure Communications (NSC) project. First specified in 1979, ST was envisioned as a connection-oriented complement to IPv4, operating on the same level, but using a different header format from that used for IP datagrams. According to IEN-119, its concepts were formulated by Danny Cohen, Estil Hoversten, and James W. Forgie. The protocol was notable for introducing the concepts of
packetized voice Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet ...
(as used by voice over IP), a
talkspurt In digital telephony, a talkspurt is a continuous segment of speech between silent intervals where only background noise can be heard. Segmenting speech streams into talkspurts allows bandwidth to be conserved by not sending excess data in silent ...
(a continuous segment of speech between silent intervals), and specified delay and drop-rate requirements for packet services. It was implemented in the
Voice Funnel The Voice Funnel was an experimental high-speed interface between digitized speech streams and a packet switching communications network, in particular the ARPANET. It was built in the time frame from 1979 to 1981. It may be viewed as an early Voice ...
. Its second version, known variously as ST-II or ST2, was drafted by Claudio Topolcic and others in 1987 and specified in 1990. It was implemented in the
Terrestrial Wideband Network {{more footnotes, date=June 2019 The Terrestrial Wideband Network was a DARPA-sponsored experimental network designed to support research in high-speed networking protocols and distributed multimedia applications. It was built and operated by BBN ...
and its successor, the
Defense Simulation Internet {{more footnotes, date=June 2019 The Defense Simulation Internet (DSI) was a specialized, wide-area network created to support Distributed Interactive Simulation and videoconferences. It was sponsored by DARPA, and built and operated by BBN Tec ...
, where it was used extensively for distributed simulations and videoconferencing. This version later formed the core technology for transporting voice calls and other realtime streams within Canada's
Iris Digital Communications System The Iris Digital Communications System, also known as the Tactical Command, Control, and Communications System (TCCCS), is a tactical communication system used by the Canadian Army. It was a pioneering system that integrated voice and data communic ...
. The final version of ST2, which was also known as ST2+, was drafted by the IETF ST2 Working group and published in 1995 as RFC 1819. ST2 distinguishes its own packets with an
Internet Protocol The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. ...
version number 5, although it was never known as IPv5. ST uses the same IP address structure and the same link layer protocol number (ethertype 0x800) as IP. In
datagram A datagram is a basic transfer unit associated with a packet-switched network. Datagrams are typically structured in header and payload sections. Datagrams provide a connectionless communication service across a packet-switched network. The del ...
mode, ST packets could be encapsulated with IP headers using protocol number 5.


See also

*
IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communication protocol, communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic ...
– Internet Protocol Version 6


References

{{reflist , 64em


Bibliography

* Cohen, D., "Specifications for the Network Voice Protocol", Technical Report ISI/RR-75-39, USC/Information Sciences Institute, Marina del Rey, CA (Mar 1976). * Cohen, D., "A Network Voice Protocol NVP-II" and "Sample NVP/ST Scenarios" (unpublished memorandums), USC/Information Sciences Institute, Marina del Rey, CA (Apr 1981). *Topolcic, C., Park, P., Draft of "Proposed Changes to the Experimental Internet Stream Protocol (ST)", BBN Laboratories, Cambridge, MA (Apr 1987). Internet Protocol Audio network protocols