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The Real Time Transport Control Protocol (RTP control protocol or RTCP) is based on the periodic transmission of control packets to all participants in the session, using the same distribution mechanism as the data packets. The underlying protocol must provide multiplexing of the data and control packets, for example using separate port numbers with UDP. RTCP performs four functions:
1. RTCP provides feedback on the quality of the data distribution. This is an integral part of the RTP's role as a transport protocol and is related to the flow and congestion control functions of other transport protocols.
2. RTCP carries a persistent transport-level identifier for an RTP source called the canonical name or CNAME. Since the SSRC identifier may change if a conflict is discovered or a program is restarted, receivers require the CNAME to keep track of each participant. Receivers may also require the CNAME to associate multiple data streams from a given participant in a set of related RTP sessions, for example to synchronize audio and video.
3. The first two functions require that all participants send RTCP packets, therefore the rate must be controlled in order for RTP to scale up to a large number of participants. By having each participant send its control packets to all the others, each can independently observe the number of participants. This number is used to calculate the rate at which the packets are sent.
4. An OPTIONAL function is to convey minimal session control information, for example participant identification to be displayed in the user interface. This is most likely to be useful in "loosely controlled" sessions where participants enter and leave without membership control or parameter negotiation.
Functions 1-3 SHOULD be used in all environments, but particularly in the IP multicast environment. RTP application designers SHOULD avoid mechanisms that can only work in unicast mode and will not scale to larger numbers. Transmission of RTCP MAY be controlled separately for senders and receivers for cases such as unidirectional links where feedback from receivers is not possible.
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