Book excerpt: This book presents a review of the latest advances in speech and video compression, computer networking protocols, the assessment and monitoring of VoIP quality, and next generation network architectures for multimedia services. The book also concludes with three case studies, each presenting easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions together with challenging hands-on exercises. Features: provides illustrative worked examples and end-of-chapter problems; examines speech and video compression techniques, together with speech and video compression standards; describes the media transport protocols RTP and RTCP, as well as the VoIP signalling protocols SIP and SDP; discusses the concepts of VoIP quality of service and quality of experience; reviews next-generation networks based on the IP multimedia subsystem and mobile VoIP; presents case studies on building a VoIP system based on Asterisk, setting up a mobile VoIP system based on Open IMS and Android mobile, and analysing VoIP protocols and quality.