There's one more thing to talk about and that's whether we're using UDP (User Datagram Protocol) or TCP (Transmission Control Protocol).

When multicasting, ICE uses UDP as its transport, and all the numbers and discussion above applies. However, when unicasting via Rallypoint connections, ICE uses TCP as its transport. Like UDP, TCP has its own overhead associated it (things like as link establishment, packet acknowledgements, heartbeats, and whatnot).

When we use Rallypoints, TCP is used to convey packets using Transport Layer Security. TLS imposes further overhead which needs to be taken into account.

Unfortunately, when using TCP and TLS, calculating bandwidth utilization is somewhat nondeterministic in that bandwidth utilization can vary somewhat based on network conditions. The values illustrated in the tables below (those showing TCP over TLS) are calculated as an average, of sorts, of multiple measurements of actual traffic taken under Internet conditions. We've then combined those calculations with the observed values to arrive at what we believe to be best representative of what unicast traffic utilization looks like. Of course, your mileage may vary.