SIP response codes – Difference between ‘603 Decline’ and ‘486 Busy Here’
While lecturing on SIP response codes, I’ve had several students ask for an explanation of the case usage for a ‘603 Decline’ and a ‘486 Busy Here’.
The short answer is that all 6xx responses will terminate SIP dialog, and any pending searches. Alternatively, a 486 response would indicate that the user is not available at a particular request-URI.
I have constructed a video that demonstrates the difference between these two responses. It might even answer a few questions you didn’t even know you had.
In the following YouTube video, Examining the 486 ‘Busy Here’ and 603 ‘Decline’ SIP response codes, I have 3 phones connected to the same SIP proxy, Kamailio, and running a trace with Wireshark.
SIP Downloads *.pcap
This video mentions two accompanying (*.pcap) files. These can be found here: (posting soon)