An SDP sent to indicate capabilities rather than to make an offer sets every port to zero precisely so that it cannot establish media if something interprets it as an offer or answer, and its session id must be unique for each such message.

Checked 2026-09-15

The usage of port zero makes sure that an SDP formatted for capabilities does not cause media streams to be established if it is interpreted as an offer or answer.
Vendor
IETF
Product
SIP
Subsystem
SDP offer/answer
Deployment
not restricted
Region
not restricted
Release range
RFC 3264
Checked
2026-09-15

Sources

Cite this note

APA

WarmTransfer. (2026, September 15). SDP offer answer and codec negotiation: source note sdp-oa-capability-sdp-uses-port-zero. WarmTransfer. https://warmtransfer.net/knowledge/claims/sdp-oa-capability-sdp-uses-port-zero

BibTeX

@misc{warmtransfer-claim-sdp-oa-capability-sdp-uses-port-zero,
  title  = {SDP offer answer and codec negotiation: source note sdp-oa-capability-sdp-uses-port-zero},
  author = {{WarmTransfer}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://warmtransfer.net/knowledge/claims/sdp-oa-capability-sdp-uses-port-zero},
  note   = {Source note sdp-oa-capability-sdp-uses-port-zero, checked 2026-09-15}
}

Read in context