Post Views: 25,799

2-Day Instructor-Led Hands-On Lab Course
Available through Web-Based Live Delivery or On-Site Delivery
Minimum 10 Students – Maximum 16 Students

What Students are saying about this class:

“Instructor presents everything very clearly and enthusiastically”
“Like how the instructor periodically comes back to the same core concepts to reinforce them”
“The best part was learning about all of the most useful features and tools in Wireshark, and the hands on exercises in the lab were particularly good at highlighting how to get the most out of the tool. Also Andy Walding is and EXCELLENT instructor he did an excellent job of covering the most important aspects of the tools and protocols and he has a very deep understanding of the subject material.”
“The Online School is a great resource, I’m glad to know that this school exists!”

Course Description

Voice over IP problems can involve signaling, media, network performance, configuration, interoperability, or some combination of all of them. Wireshark gives technicians and engineers the packet-level evidence needed to see how a VoIP call is established, how voice media is transported, and where problems begin.

The Wireshark Voice Edition is a hands-on packet-analysis course focused specifically on understanding and troubleshooting Voice over IP communications. Students use Wireshark to examine both sides of a VoIP conversation: the control plane, where calls are established and managed, and the data plane, where the actual voice media is transported.

Using a layered approach, students learn how to configure Wireshark for voice analysis, identify VoIP calls, analyze SIP and SDP signaling, examine RTP and RTCP media streams, investigate gateway protocols such as MGCP, and evaluate the network conditions that affect voice quality. Students also explore codecs, QoS markings, latency-related concerns, echo, and other factors that can influence the user experience.

The emphasis throughout the course is on evidence-based VoIP troubleshooting. Rather than relying solely on call symptoms or device logs, students learn how to use packet captures to reconstruct call behavior, distinguish signaling problems from media problems, correlate events across protocols, and determine what the packets actually prove.

This course helps answer questions such as:

What does a successful VoIP call look like at the packet level?
How can Wireshark identify and analyze VoIP calls?
How do SIP and SDP establish and negotiate a voice session?
How are RTP and RTCP used to transport and monitor voice media?
How can packet analysis distinguish a signaling problem from a media problem?
What role do media gateways and Session Border Controllers play in VoIP communications?
How do packet loss, delay, QoS, codecs, and other network conditions affect voice quality?
How can Wireshark help isolate the source of a VoIP problem?

Course Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

Develop practical hands-on skills using Wireshark to analyze Voice over IP communications.
Analyze SIP and SDP signaling protocols.
Analyze RTP and RTCP media protocols.
Properly configure Wireshark for VoIP analysis and troubleshooting.
Use Wireshark tools and features that are particularly valuable when investigating VoIP calls.
Apply the layered networking model to voice packet analysis and protocol dissection.
Distinguish between VoIP control-plane and data-plane communications.
Use packet-level evidence to investigate VoIP call behavior and performance.

Audience

This course is designed for networking and telecommunications professionals who need a solid practical understanding of Wireshark and its application to Voice over IP analysis.

Ideal participants include:

Sales and technical marketing professionals working with VoIP technologies
Central-office and field technicians who need to capture and analyze VoIP traffic
Operations personnel responsible for network configuration, monitoring, and support
Network design engineers who use Wireshark as a voice troubleshooting and analysis tool
Technical sales professionals who need to correlate product features with actual protocol behavior
Technical marketing professionals who want a deeper understanding of Wireshark and VoIP
Network administrators

The course is particularly valuable for technicians, engineers, operations teams, support personnel, and other professionals who need to determine why a VoIP call failed, why voice quality degraded, or what actually occurred during a call.

Course Prerequisites

This course is designed for anyone who needs the skills and knowledge required to use Wireshark for Voice over IP analysis.

Previous experience with voice networking and network operations is helpful, but prior Wireshark experience is not required.

Students should attend with a laptop computer running Windows, macOS, or Linux.

When the course is delivered in a classroom where suitable computers are provided, a student laptop may not be required.

Course Materials

Students receive a PDF Course Student Guide. Packet captures and supporting voice-analysis exercises are also provided through the CellStream Online School of Network Sciences.

Course Outline

Section 1: Course Introduction and Logistics

Section 2: Defining Voice over IP

Functions of POTS and TDM network elements
VoIP components and their functions
Voice and data convergence and the protocol stack
Defining VoIP and understanding its challenges
How Wireshark supports packet-voice analysis
Scanning for and identifying VoIP calls
Understanding the VoIP data plane
Understanding the VoIP control plane

Section 3: Introduction to the Wireshark Application

LAB 1: Installing or Upgrading Wireshark®
Wireshark overview, toolbar, and user interface
Using Wireshark Expert information
LAB 2: Performing a Basic Packet Capture
Wireshark file operations and ring buffers
LAB 3: Saving and Loading Trace Files
Capture-filter procedures and techniques
LAB 4: Applying Wireshark Capture Filters
Display-filter procedures and techniques
LAB 5: Applying Wireshark Display Filters
Marking and ignoring packets

Section 4: Customizing Wireshark for Voice

Editing Wireshark program and protocol preferences
Viewing and editing packet-coloring rules
Viewing and editing configuration profiles
LAB 6: Creating an Initial Wireshark Voice Profile

Section 5: Analyzing the VoIP Control Plane

Understanding what VoIP signaling must accomplish, including DTMF
Defining the Session Initiation Protocol
SIP addressing and components
SIP presence
SIP message types and protocol operation
Reviewing SIP logs
LAB 7: Examining the SIP Process in Wireshark
Session Description Protocol
SDP session and media types
Reviewing SDP information
LAB 8: Examining the SDP Process in Wireshark

Section 6: Analyzing the VoIP Data Plane

Understanding what the VoIP data plane must accomplish
Review of speech codecs
Encoding voice into packets
Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) functions and packet dissection
RTP source identifiers
RTP payload types
LAB 9: Examining RTP in Wireshark
RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) functions and packet dissection
RTCP Sender Reports and other RTCP packet types
LAB 10: Examining RTCP in Wireshark

Section 7: Media Gateways

Defining the purpose of the media-gateway function
Gateway protocol types
MGCP overview
Primary MGCP commands
MGCP operational fundamentals and reference information
Session Border Controllers and their functions
LAB 11: MGCP Protocol Analysis in Wireshark

Section 8: Packet Voice Performance

Elements that affect packet-voice quality
Primary factors affecting VoIP performance
VoIP performance benchmarks
Defining Quality of Service and its fundamental tools
Packet classification
Class selectors and codepoints
VLAN QoS marking
Defining and analyzing echo
LAB 12: VoIP QoS Experiment and Configuration
VoIP diagnostic reference
Example VoIP problems

Course Availability:

View the course calendar and browse for our schedule. It will show scheduled courses and available dates for scheduling.

CSI-HO-020-D – Explore Packet Analysis with Wireshark – Voice Edition – 2 Day