SnoW: Serverless n-Party calls over WebRTC

TL;DR

SnoW introduces a serverless WebRTC system enabling multi-party audio and video conferencing without media servers, using various communication models to optimize performance and user experience on diverse devices.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel peer-to-peer WebRTC architecture supporting multiple communication models, including Mesh, SFU, and MCU, without relying on media servers.

Findings

Merged streams enhance user experience on low-resource devices

Peer-to-peer architecture supports multiple communication models

Limited merged streams improve performance

Abstract

We present a novel WebRTC communication system capable of hosting multi-party audio and video conferencing sessions without a media server. We implement various communication models based on the needs and capabilities of the communicating parties, and show that we can construct the equivalent of Mesh, SFU, and MCU WebRTC networks in our peer-to-peer architecture. In our evaluation we conclude that using a limited number of merged streams can improve the user experience significantly, in particular if low-resource devices are involved.