P2P multi-point videoconferencing on the internet

Abstract

This paper presents the implementation, optimization and experimental execution details of a fully distributed peer-to-peer multipoint videoconferencing system. Each conference participant may have asymmetric and dissimilar bandwidth connections to the Internet. The solution does not require additional hardware, as in multipoint control units, or network infrastructure support such as multicast. The architecture of the developed prototype system along with the details of the protocol optimization is discussed. Several performance results are presented.