What is Peer-to-Peer Video Conferencing: Pros and Cons

Do you know that the share of employees working remotely worldwide has increased significantly, rising from 20% in 2020 to 28% in 2023?

Remote working has its fair share of advantages, and that’s why it is preferred by most employees, especially IT professionals (around 67% of tech industry employees work remotely). While it offers benefits, like fewer trips to the office and better work-life balance, it has disadvantages, like lack of connectivity between employees.

Human interaction builds a sense of loyalty and teamwork, and it is not possible for teams working in geographically dispersed locations. Are you stressed that remote working may hamper productivity and collaboration among team members?

Peer-to-peer (P2P) is a way for video calls to establish a reliable connection. Video conferencing technology is essential for almost every modern organization, from managing remote employees to completing cross-time zone deals.

Let’s understand what is peer-to-peer video conferencing and consider its benefits and drawbacks to decide if it’s the ideal video conference solution for you.

What is Peer-to-Peer Video Conferencing?

Is it possible to communicate with someone without using an intermediary platform? It is indeed feasible to conduct peer-to-peer communication using video through a peer-to-peer video conferencing platform.

Peer-to-peer video conferencing is a technology that generates a real-time audio and video data stream between two or more devices directly without the use of external servers or the cloud. By communicating its IP address to the meeting host’s computer directly, the device may act as a server and start a call.  

Smaller groups can share files easily because they will be instantly connected to the peer-to-peer video network. Additionally, there is no delay, maintaining a seamless connection between them.

P2P video conferencing is all possible because of WebRTC. It is an communication protocol for video conferencing API and SDK and serves as a framework to start real-time data communication within the web browser. 

As you can see in the above image, developers using WebRTC uses a signalling server to set up the call. This includes metadata exchange (media capabilities and other network-related information) between the two devices. Now, WebRTC performs ICE (Interactive Connectivity Establishment) to find the best way two devices can connect, and then the devices starts begins exchanging data. 

What About Cloud-Based Video Conferencing? 

Now, you may be wondering how P2P video conferencing is different from cloud-based video conferencing. Let’s see how the two differ from each other

Cloud-based video conferencing routes video calls from the device to an off-site server or to any third party that connects via the server. By commuting the data from one link and the other, this, in turn creates the video call.

It is critical to understand that the main difference lies in video conferencing signals. The signals have to go somewhere, so in cloud-based video conferencing, they are routed to a server off-site from the devices to which you are hoping to connect. So, basically, your video feed is distributed to an external server. 

However, in P2P video conferencing, the connection is directly established with the devices you are hoping to connect. There is no outside server in this connection; it is just you and the person you are talking to.

How Does Peer-to-Peer Video Conferencing Work?

Peer-to-peer video conferencing is an architecture that is easy to understand and implement. One of the methods is through WebRTC, which implements Secure Real-Time Transport Protocol for audio and video stream, and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) for data channels.

The WebRTC method looks good if it is the case of a local area network. If the clients are hidden behind a NAT (Network Address Translation), which is a possibility that peers will use if they are no public internet, then, devices will not have IP addresses of each other.

To overcome this issue, the STUN Server is used that helps to detect a peer’s public network address information and establish a P2P network connection behind a NAT.

If the peer is behind a firewall, then the TURN server comes in to help. The devices can exchange feed through the TURN server and it functions just like a standard media server. 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Peer-to-Peer Video Conferencing

There is nothing that only comes with a set of advantages. If you think that P2P video conferencing is all beneficial since it establishes a direct connection between devices and is the perfect business solution, then hold your horses. Let’s understand the advantages and disadvantages of making well-informed decisions regarding P2P video platforms.

Advantages of Peer-to-Peer Video Conferencing

Here are the following benefits of peer conferencing:

• Bandwidth: The P2P design determines whether or not there is a low bandwidth issue if the server receives any data from the client. If so, then you will get sufficient flexibility to adapt to that specific video streaming service as necessary.
• Easy to Reconnect: In the event that a connection issue arises during a video conference, participants can easily disconnect and reconnect at any time. The conference call will then go uninterruptedly for the rest of the call.
• High Affordability: The direct communication between the two ends of P2P video conferencing makes it incredibly easy to administer. As a result, it primarily offers low-cost communication services.
• Increased security: No centralized server is prone to attacks. For this reason, some people believe that P2P video conferencing is more secure than server-based systems. You can utilize end-to-end encryption to improve security further.

Disadvantages of Peer-to-Peer Video Conferencing

Despite these benefits, P2P video conferencing has a few drawbacks to take into account:

• Instability with More Attendees: Adding more participants to a peer-to-peer conference call can burden the peer network and trigger the connection quality to decline.
• Internet Creates Quality Issues: P2P conferences will function well as long as the other participants’ internet connections are strong and stable.
• Limited scalability: P2P video conferencing offers a challenge to developers who want to expand their clientele to include more people. P2P’s decentralized structure becomes a drawback in this respect. 

Are P2P Video Conferencing Solutions Good For Your Business?

Indeed, peer-to-peer video serves as an effective communication tool that has revolutionized the business landscape. Still, it is essential to consider both the pros and cons of making a decision.

P2P video conferencing relies on a fast internet connection and offers minimal latency. However, it is essential to understand the drawbacks of P2P video conferencing solutions. Surely, P2P video platforms are a great and secure way to share files and communicate in real-time, but only to a smaller group of people.

As soon as more people join the P2P video call, you will require more bandwidth and network speed to keep the connection stable. Usually, 1:1 calls require a minimum of 2.0 Mbps outbound (upload) and 2.5 Mbps inbound (download).

However, if there are four or more people, participants will require at least 3.2 Mbps outbound (upload) and 3.2 Mbps inbound (download). So, the quality of P2P video calls depends entirely upon the security and speed of each connection.

Most video conferencing solutions use cloud-based methods since it overcomes all the P2P video conferencing issues. It eliminates stability issues and allows it to scale easily and affordably. All thanks to the central processing area for the call to run through! 

How MirrorFly Video Conferencing Benefits Businesses? 

Benefit from high-quality video calls and conferences through MirrorFly’s Video Calling API. You can host your video conferencing application on your servers or MirrorFly’s cloud server. We offer a unified video conferencing platform packed with 1000+ features to support all your online meeting purposes.

• Video conferencing with end-to-end encryption (secure HTTPS and SSL encryption using standards PKI) to protect your business transactions
• It comes with multi-browser support, cross-platform support, telephony compatibility, SIP interoperability, and SIP trunking.
• The APIs and SDKs are customizable; you will have full control of the source code.
• It can be easily integrated into 140+ platforms with ready-market and minimal downtime.
• The dashboard provides real-time analytics and reports related to data management, data consumption, active directory, and user interactive details. 

The Bottom Line

Peer-to-peer video conferencing is one of the best business solutions if you want to connect with your remote team, whether for daily meetings or training sessions. However, we suggest you make the decision between P2P and cloud-based video platforms very carefully. 

We would recommend going for a P2P video platform if you are connecting to a remote team of less than 4 or 3 members. You should go for cloud-based video conferencing platforms if you require scalability in the number of participants.