UDP Multicast Video Conferencing

UDP Multicast (User Datagram Protocol) is a data transfer protocol in which signal transmission is carried out directly from a user to a user, by-passing the video conferencing server, which significantly takes the load off the network and the video conferencing server.

During a regular group video conference data transmission is carried out in sequence from one participant through the service server to all the other participants of a conference. This scheme is universal and most reliable in combination with the widely used methods of Internet security.

However, as the traffic passes through the server, several issues appear:

• Server load is significantly increased;
• Existing bandwidth of the current channel is narrowed, as it requires N*N streams constantly available in the channel, where N is the number of video conference participants (every participant uses one stream to transmit signal to the server which sends it to N-1 other conference participants).

When UDP packages can be directly transmitted between the endpoints, UDP Multicast technology allows participants to exchange data directly with each other. This becomes possible with the help of retranslation hub (concentrator) or switching equipment (switch or router) with support for UDP Multicast technology. In this case only the N number of data streams will be present in the channel in accordance with the number of video conference participants.