RFC 3556 (rfc3556) - Page 3 of 8
Session Description Protocol (SDP) Bandwidth Modifiers for RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) Bandwidth
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 3556 SDP Bandwidth Modifiers for RTCP Bandwidth July 2003
For the RTP A/V Profile [2], which specifies that the default RTCP
interval algorithm defined in the RTP spec [1] is to be used, at
least RS/(RS+RR) of the RTCP bandwidth is dedicated to active data
senders. If the proportion of senders to total participants is less
than or equal to RS/(RS+RR), each sender gets RS divided by the
number of senders. When the proportion of senders is greater than
RS/(RS+RR), the senders get their proportion of the sum of these
parameters, which means that a sender and a non-sender each get the
same allocation. Therefore, it is not possible to constrain the data
senders to use less RTCP bandwidth than is allowed for non-senders.
A few special cases are worth noting:
o If RR is zero, then the proportion of participants that are
senders can never be greater than RS/(RS+RR), and therefore
non-senders never get any RTCP bandwidth independent of the
number of senders.
o Setting RS to zero does not mean that data senders are not
allowed to send RTCP packets, it only means that they are
treated the same as non-senders. The proportion of senders (if
there are any) would always be greater than RS/(RS+RR) if RR is
non-zero.
o If RS and RR are both zero, it would be unwise to attempt
calculation of the fraction RS/(RS+RR).
The bandwidth allocation specified by the RS and RR modifiers applies
to the total bandwidth consumed by all RTCP packet types, including
SR, RR, SDES, BYE, APP and any new types defined in the future. The
for these modifiers is in units of bits per second
with an integer value.
NOTE: This specification was in conflict with the initial SDP
spec in RFC 2327 which prescribes that the for
all bandwidth modifiers should be an integer number of kilobits
per second. This discrepancy was forced by the fact that the
desired RTCP bandwidth setting may be less than 1 kb/s.
At the 44th IETF meeting in Minneapolis, two solutions were
considered: allow fractional values, or specify that the units for
these particular modifiers would be in bits per second. The
second choice was preferred so that the syntax would not be
changed. The SDP spec is being modified [4] to advance to Draft
Standard, and will allow this change in semantics.
Casner Standards Track