Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                         Z. Sarker
Request for Comments: 8888                                   Ericsson AB
Category: Standards Track                                     C. Perkins
ISSN: 2070-1721                                    University of Glasgow
                                                               V. Singh
                                                           callstats.io
                                                             M. Ramalho
                                                          AcousticComms
                                                           January 2021


     RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) Feedback for Congestion Control

Abstract

  An effective RTP congestion control algorithm requires more fine-
  grained feedback on packet loss, timing, and Explicit Congestion
  Notification (ECN) marks than is provided by the standard RTP Control
  Protocol (RTCP) Sender Report (SR) and Receiver Report (RR) packets.
  This document describes an RTCP feedback message intended to enable
  congestion control for interactive real-time traffic using RTP.  The
  feedback message is designed for use with a sender-based congestion
  control algorithm, in which the receiver of an RTP flow sends back to
  the sender RTCP feedback packets containing the information the
  sender needs to perform congestion control.

Status of This Memo

  This is an Internet Standards Track document.

  This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
  (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
  received public review and has been approved for publication by the
  Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Further information on
  Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841.

  Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
  and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
  https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8888.

Copyright Notice

  Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
  document authors.  All rights reserved.

  This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
  Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
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  publication of this document.  Please review these documents
  carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
  to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
  include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
  the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
  described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

  1.  Introduction
  2.  Terminology
  3.  RTCP Feedback for Congestion Control
    3.1.  RTCP Congestion Control Feedback Report
  4.  Feedback Frequency and Overhead
  5.  Response to Loss of Feedback Packets
  6.  SDP Signaling
  7.  Relationship to RFC 6679
  8.  Design Rationale
  9.  IANA Considerations
  10. Security Considerations
  11. References
    11.1.  Normative References
    11.2.  Informative References
  Acknowledgements
  Authors' Addresses

1.  Introduction

  For interactive real-time traffic, such as video conferencing flows,
  the typical protocol choice is the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP)
  [RFC3550] running over the User Datagram Protocol (UDP).  RTP does
  not provide any guarantee of Quality of Service (QoS), reliability,
  or timely delivery, and expects the underlying transport protocol to
  do so.  UDP alone certainly does not meet that expectation.  However,
  the RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) [RFC3550] provides a mechanism by
  which the receiver of an RTP flow can periodically send transport and
  media quality metrics to the sender of that RTP flow.  This
  information can be used by the sender to perform congestion control.
  In the absence of standardized messages for this purpose, designers
  of congestion control algorithms have developed proprietary RTCP
  messages that convey only those parameters needed for their
  respective designs.  As a direct result, the different congestion
  control designs are not interoperable.  To enable algorithm evolution
  as well as interoperability across designs (e.g., different rate
  adaptation algorithms), it is highly desirable to have a generic
  congestion control feedback format.

  To help achieve interoperability for unicast RTP congestion control,
  this memo specifies a common RTCP feedback packet format that can be
  used by Network-Assisted Dynamic Adaptation (NADA) [RFC8698], Self-
  Clocked Rate Adaptation for Multimedia (SCReAM) [RFC8298], Google
  Congestion Control [Google-GCC], and Shared Bottleneck Detection
  [RFC8382], and, hopefully, also by future RTP congestion control
  algorithms.

2.  Terminology

  The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
  "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
  "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
  BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
  capitals, as shown here.

  In addition, the terminology defined in [RFC3550], [RFC4585], and
  [RFC5506] applies.

3.  RTCP Feedback for Congestion Control

  Based on an analysis of NADA [RFC8698], SCReAM [RFC8298], Google
  Congestion Control [Google-GCC], and Shared Bottleneck Detection
  [RFC8382], the following per-RTP packet congestion control feedback
  information has been determined to be necessary:

  RTP Sequence Number:  The receiver of an RTP flow needs to feed the
     sequence numbers of the received RTP packets back to the sender,
     so the sender can determine which packets were received and which
     were lost.  Packet loss is used as an indication of congestion by
     many congestion control algorithms.

  Packet Arrival Time:  The receiver of an RTP flow needs to feed the
     arrival time of each RTP packet back to the sender.  Packet delay
     and/or delay variation (jitter) is used as a congestion signal by
     some congestion control algorithms.

  Packet Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) Marking:  If ECN
     [RFC3168] [RFC6679] is used, it is necessary to feed back the
     2-bit ECN mark in received RTP packets, indicating for each RTP
     packet whether it is marked not-ECT, ECT(0), ECT(1), or ECN
     Congestion Experienced (ECN-CE).  ("ECT" stands for "ECN-Capable
     Transport".)  If the path used by the RTP traffic is ECN capable,
     the sender can use ECN-CE marking information as a congestion
     control signal.

  Every RTP flow is identified by its Synchronization Source (SSRC)
  identifier.  Accordingly, the RTCP feedback format needs to group its
  reports by SSRC, sending one report block per received SSRC.

  As a practical matter, we note that host operating system (OS)
  process interruptions can occur at inopportune times.  Accordingly,
  recording RTP packet send times at the sender, and the corresponding
  RTP packet arrival times at the receiver, needs to be done with
  deliberate care.  This is because the time duration of host OS
  interruptions can be significant relative to the precision desired in
  the one-way delay estimates.  Specifically, the send time needs to be
  recorded at the last opportunity prior to transmitting the RTP packet
  at the sender, and the arrival time at the receiver needs to be
  recorded at the earliest available opportunity.

3.1.  RTCP Congestion Control Feedback Report

  Congestion control feedback can be sent as part of a regular
  scheduled RTCP report or in an RTP/AVPF early feedback packet.  If
  sent as early feedback, congestion control feedback MAY be sent in a
  non-compound RTCP packet [RFC5506] if the RTP/AVPF profile [RFC4585]
  or the RTP/SAVPF profile [RFC5124] is used.

  Irrespective of how it is transported, the congestion control
  feedback is sent as a Transport-Layer Feedback Message (RTCP packet
  type 205).  The format of this RTCP packet is shown in Figure 1:

     0                   1                   2                   3
     0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |V=2|P| FMT=11  |   PT = 205    |          length               |
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |                 SSRC of RTCP packet sender                    |
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |                   SSRC of 1st RTP Stream                      |
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |          begin_seq            |          num_reports          |
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |R|ECN|  Arrival time offset    | ...                           .
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    .                                                               .
    .                                                               .
    .                                                               .
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |                   SSRC of nth RTP Stream                      |
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |          begin_seq            |          num_reports          |
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |R|ECN|  Arrival time offset    | ...                           |
    .                                                               .
    .                                                               .
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |                 Report Timestamp (32 bits)                    |
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

         Figure 1: RTCP Congestion Control Feedback Packet Format

  The first 8 octets comprise a standard RTCP header, with PT=205 and
  FMT=11 indicating that this is a congestion control feedback packet,
  and with the SSRC set to that of the sender of the RTCP packet.

  Section 6.1 of [RFC4585] requires the RTCP header to be followed by
  the SSRC of the RTP flow being reported upon.  Accordingly, the RTCP
  header is followed by a report block for each SSRC from which RTP
  packets have been received, followed by a Report Timestamp.

  Each report block begins with the SSRC of the received RTP stream on
  which it is reporting.  Following this, the report block contains a
  16-bit packet metric block for each RTP packet that has a sequence
  number in the range begin_seq to begin_seq+num_reports inclusive
  (calculated using arithmetic modulo 65536 to account for possible
  sequence number wrap-around).  If the number of 16-bit packet metric
  blocks included in the report block is not a multiple of two, then 16
  bits of zero padding MUST be added after the last packet metric
  block, to align the end of the packet metric blocks with the next
  32-bit boundary.  The value of num_reports MAY be 0, indicating that
  there are no packet metric blocks included for that SSRC.  Each
  report block MUST NOT include more than 16384 packet metric blocks
  (i.e., it MUST NOT report on more than one quarter of the sequence
  number space in a single report).

  The contents of each 16-bit packet metric block comprise the R, ECN,
  and ATO fields as follows:

  Received (R, 1 bit):  A boolean that indicates whether the packet was
     received.  0 indicates that the packet was not yet received and
     the subsequent 15 bits (ECN and ATO) in this 16-bit packet metric
     block are also set to 0 and MUST be ignored.  1 indicates that the
     packet was received and the subsequent bits in the block need to
     be parsed.

  ECN (2 bits):  The echoed ECN mark of the packet.  These bits are set
     to 00 if not received or if ECN is not used.

  Arrival time offset (ATO, 13 bits):  The arrival time of the RTP
     packet at the receiver, as an offset before the time represented
     by the Report Timestamp (RTS) field of this RTCP congestion
     control feedback report.  The ATO field is in units of 1/1024
     seconds (this unit is chosen to give exact offsets from the RTS
     field) so, for example, an ATO value of 512 indicates that the
     corresponding RTP packet arrived exactly half a second before the
     time instant represented by the RTS field.  If the measured value
     is greater than 8189/1024 seconds (the value that would be coded
     as 0x1FFD), the value 0x1FFE MUST be reported to indicate an over-
     range measurement.  If the measurement is unavailable or if the
     arrival time of the RTP packet is after the time represented by
     the RTS field, then an ATO value of 0x1FFF MUST be reported for
     the packet.

  The RTCP congestion control feedback report packet concludes with the
  Report Timestamp field (RTS, 32 bits).  This denotes the time instant
  on which this packet is reporting and is the instant from which the
  arrival time offset values are calculated.  The value of the RTS
  field is derived from the same clock used to generate the NTP
  timestamp field in RTCP Sender Report (SR) packets.  It is formatted
  as the middle 32 bits of an NTP format timestamp, as described in
  Section 4 of [RFC3550].

  RTCP Congestion Control Feedback Packets SHOULD include a report
  block for every active SSRC.  The sequence number ranges reported on
  in consecutive reports for a given SSRC will generally be contiguous,
  but overlapping reports MAY be sent (and need to be sent in cases
  where RTP packet reordering occurs across the boundary between
  consecutive reports).  If an RTP packet was reported as received in
  one report, that packet MUST also be reported as received in any
  overlapping reports sent later that cover its sequence number range.
  If feedback reports covering overlapping sequence number ranges are
  sent, information in later feedback reports may update any data sent
  in previous reports for RTP packets included in both feedback
  reports.

  RTCP Congestion Control Feedback Packets can be large if they are
  sent infrequently relative to the number of RTP data packets.  If an
  RTCP Congestion Control Feedback Packet is too large to fit within
  the path MTU, its sender SHOULD split it into multiple feedback
  packets.  The RTCP reporting interval SHOULD be chosen such that
  feedback packets are sent often enough that they are small enough to
  fit within the path MTU.  ([RTCP-Multimedia-Feedback] discusses how
  to choose the reporting interval; specifications for RTP congestion
  control algorithms can also provide guidance.)

  If duplicate copies of a particular RTP packet are received, then the
  arrival time of the first copy to arrive MUST be reported.  If any of
  the copies of the duplicated packet are ECN-CE marked, then an ECN-CE
  mark MUST be reported for that packet; otherwise, the ECN mark of the
  first copy to arrive is reported.

  If no packets are received from an SSRC in a reporting interval, a
  report block MAY be sent with begin_seq set to the highest sequence
  number previously received from that SSRC and num_reports set to 0
  (or the report can simply be omitted).  The corresponding Sender
  Report / Receiver Report (SR/RR) packet will have a non-increased
  extended highest sequence number received field that will inform the
  sender that no packets have been received, but it can ease processing
  to have that information available in the congestion control feedback
  reports too.

  A report block indicating that certain RTP packets were lost is not
  to be interpreted as a request to retransmit the lost packets.  The
  receiver of such a report might choose to retransmit such packets,
  provided a retransmission payload format has been negotiated, but
  there is no requirement that it do so.

4.  Feedback Frequency and Overhead

  There is a trade-off between speed and accuracy of reporting, and the
  overhead of the reports.  [RTCP-Multimedia-Feedback] discusses this
  trade-off, suggests desirable RTCP feedback rates, and provides
  guidance on how to configure, for example, the RTCP bandwidth
  fraction to make appropriate use of the reporting block described in
  this memo.  Specifications for RTP congestion control algorithms can
  also provide guidance.

  It is generally understood that congestion control algorithms work
  better with more frequent feedback.  However, RTCP bandwidth and
  transmission rules put some upper limits on how frequently the RTCP
  feedback messages can be sent from an RTP receiver to the RTP sender.
  In many cases, sending feedback once per frame is an upper bound
  before the reporting overhead becomes excessive, although this will
  depend on the media rate and more frequent feedback might be needed
  with high-rate media flows [RTCP-Multimedia-Feedback].  Analysis
  [feedback-requirements] has also shown that some candidate congestion
  control algorithms can operate with less frequent feedback, using a
  feedback interval range of 50-200 ms.  Applications need to negotiate
  an appropriate congestion control feedback interval at session setup
  time, based on the choice of congestion control algorithm, the
  expected media bitrate, and the acceptable feedback overhead.

5.  Response to Loss of Feedback Packets

  Like all RTCP packets, RTCP Congestion Control Feedback Packets might
  be lost.  All RTP congestion control algorithms MUST specify how they
  respond to the loss of feedback packets.

  RTCP packets do not contain a sequence number, so loss of feedback
  packets has to be inferred based on the time since the last feedback
  packet.  If only a single congestion control feedback packet is lost,
  an appropriate response is to assume that the level of congestion has
  remained roughly the same as the previous report.  However, if
  multiple consecutive congestion control feedback packets are lost,
  then the media sender SHOULD rapidly reduce its sending rate as this
  likely indicates a path failure.  The RTP circuit breaker
  specification [RFC8083] provides further guidance.

6.  SDP Signaling

  A new "ack" feedback parameter, "ccfb", is defined for use with the
  "a=rtcp-fb:" Session Description Protocol (SDP) extension to indicate
  the use of the RTP Congestion Control Feedback Packet format defined
  in Section 3.  The ABNF definition [RFC5234] of this SDP parameter
  extension is:

          rtcp-fb-ack-param = <See Section 4.2 of [RFC4585]>
          rtcp-fb-ack-param =/ ccfb-par
          ccfb-par          = SP "ccfb"

  The payload type used with "ccfb" feedback MUST be the wildcard type
  ("*").  This implies that the congestion control feedback is sent for
  all payload types in use in the session, including any Forward Error
  Correction (FEC) and retransmission payload types.  An example of the
  resulting SDP attribute is:

          a=rtcp-fb:* ack ccfb

  The offer/answer rules for these SDP feedback parameters are
  specified in Section 4.2 of the RTP/AVPF profile [RFC4585].

  An SDP offer might indicate support for both the congestion control
  feedback mechanism specified in this memo and one or more alternative
  congestion control feedback mechanisms that offer substantially the
  same semantics.  In this case, the answering party SHOULD include
  only one of the offered congestion control feedback mechanisms in its
  answer.  If a subsequent offer containing the same set of congestion
  control feedback mechanisms is received, the generated answer SHOULD
  choose the same congestion control feedback mechanism as in the
  original answer where possible.

  When the SDP BUNDLE extension [RFC8843] is used for multiplexing, the
  "a=rtcp-fb:" attribute has multiplexing category IDENTICAL-PER-PT
  [RFC8859].

7.  Relationship to RFC 6679

  The use of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) with RTP is
  described in [RFC6679], which specifies how to negotiate the use of
  ECN with RTP and defines an RTCP ECN Feedback Packet to carry ECN
  feedback reports.  It uses an SDP "a=ecn-capable-rtp:" attribute to
  negotiate the use of ECN, and the "a=rtcp-fb:" attribute with the
  "nack" parameter "ecn" to negotiate the use of RTCP ECN Feedback
  Packets.

  The RTCP ECN Feedback Packet is not useful when ECN is used with the
  RTP Congestion Control Feedback Packet defined in this memo, since it
  provides duplicate information.  When congestion control feedback is
  to be used with RTP and ECN, the SDP offer generated MUST include an
  "a=ecn-capable-rtp:" attribute to negotiate ECN support, along with
  an "a=rtcp-fb:" attribute with the "ack" parameter "ccfb" to indicate
  that the RTP Congestion Control Feedback Packet can be used.  The
  "a=rtcp-fb:" attribute MAY also include the "nack" parameter "ecn" to
  indicate that the RTCP ECN Feedback Packet is also supported.  If an
  SDP offer signals support for both RTP Congestion Control Feedback
  Packets and the RTCP ECN Feedback Packet, the answering party SHOULD
  signal support for one, but not both, formats in its SDP answer to
  avoid sending duplicate feedback.

  When using ECN with RTP, the guidelines in Section 7.2 of [RFC6679]
  MUST be followed to initiate the use of ECN in an RTP session.  The
  guidelines in Section 7.3 of [RFC6679] regarding the ongoing use of
  ECN within an RTP session MUST also be followed, with the exception
  that feedback is sent using the RTCP Congestion Control Feedback
  Packets described in this memo rather than using RTP ECN Feedback
  Packets.  Similarly, the guidance in Section 7.4 of [RFC6679] related
  to detecting failures MUST be followed, with the exception that the
  necessary information is retrieved from the RTCP Congestion Control
  Feedback Packets rather than from RTP ECN Feedback Packets.

8.  Design Rationale

  The primary function of RTCP SR/RR packets is to report statistics on
  the reception of RTP packets.  The reception report blocks sent in
  these packets contain information about observed jitter, fractional
  packet loss, and cumulative packet loss.  It was intended that this
  information could be used to support congestion control algorithms,
  but experience has shown that it is not sufficient for that purpose.
  An efficient congestion control algorithm requires more fine-grained
  information on per-packet reception quality than is provided by SR/RR
  packets to react effectively.  The feedback format defined in this
  memo provides such fine-grained feedback.

  Several other RTCP extensions also provide more detailed feedback
  than SR/RR packets:

  TMMBR:  The codec control messages for the RTP/AVPF profile [RFC5104]
     include a Temporary Maximum Media Stream Bit Rate Request (TMMBR)
     message.  This is used to convey a temporary maximum bitrate
     limitation from a receiver of RTP packets to their sender.  Even
     though it was not designed to replace congestion control, TMMBR
     has been used as a means to do receiver-based congestion control
     where the session bandwidth is high enough to send frequent TMMBR
     messages, especially when used with non-compound RTCP packets
     [RFC5506].  This approach requires the receiver of the RTP packets
     to monitor their reception, determine the level of congestion, and
     recommend a maximum bitrate suitable for current available
     bandwidth on the path; it also assumes that the RTP sender
     can/will respect that bitrate.  This is the opposite of the
     sender-based congestion control approach suggested in this memo,
     so TMMBR cannot be used to convey the information needed for
     sender-based congestion control.  TMMBR could, however, be viewed
     as a complementary mechanism that can inform the sender of the
     receiver's current view of an acceptable maximum bitrate.
     Mechanisms that convey the receiver's estimate of the maximum
     available bitrate provide similar feedback.

  RTCP Extended Reports (XRs):  Numerous RTCP XR blocks have been
     defined to report details of packet loss, arrival times [RFC3611],
     delay [RFC6843], and ECN marking [RFC6679].  It is possible to
     combine several such XR blocks into a compound RTCP packet, to
     report the detailed loss, arrival time, and ECN marking
     information needed for effective sender-based congestion control.
     However, the result has high overhead in terms of both bandwidth
     and complexity, due to the need to stack multiple reports.

  Transport-wide Congestion Control:  The format defined in this memo
     provides individual feedback on each SSRC.  An alternative is to
     add a header extension to each RTP packet, containing a single,
     transport-wide, packet sequence number, then have the receiver
     send RTCP reports giving feedback on these additional sequence
     numbers [RTP-Ext-for-CC].  Such an approach increases the size of
     each RTP packet by 8 octets, due to the header extension, but
     reduces the size of the RTCP feedback packets, and can simplify
     the rate calculation at the sender if it maintains a single rate
     limit that applies to all RTP packets sent, irrespective of their
     SSRC.  Equally, the use of transport-wide feedback makes it more
     difficult to adapt the sending rate, or respond to lost packets,
     based on the reception and/or loss patterns observed on a per-SSRC
     basis (for example, to perform differential rate control and
     repair for audio and video flows, based on knowledge of what
     packets from each flow were lost).  Transport-wide feedback is
     also a less natural fit with the wider RTP framework, which makes
     extensive use of per-SSRC sequence numbers and feedback.

  Considering these issues, we believe it appropriate to design a new
  RTCP feedback mechanism to convey information for sender-based
  congestion control algorithms.  The new congestion control feedback
  RTCP packet described in Section 3 provides such a mechanism.

9.  IANA Considerations

  The IANA has registered one new RTP/AVPF Transport-Layer Feedback
  Message in the "FMT Values for RTPFB Payload Types" table [RFC4585]
  as defined in Section 3.1:

  Name:         CCFB
  Long name:    RTP Congestion Control Feedback
  Value:        11
  Reference:    RFC 8888

  The IANA has also registered one new SDP "rtcp-fb" attribute "ack"
  parameter, "ccfb", in the SDP '"ack" and "nack" Attribute Values'
  registry:

  Value name:   ccfb
  Long name:    Congestion Control Feedback
  Usable with:  ack
  Mux:          IDENTICAL-PER-PT
  Reference:    RFC 8888

10.  Security Considerations

  The security considerations of the RTP specification [RFC3550], the
  applicable RTP profile (e.g., [RFC3551], [RFC3711], or [RFC4585]),
  and the RTP congestion control algorithm being used (e.g., [RFC8698],
  [RFC8298], [Google-GCC], or [RFC8382]) apply.

  A receiver that intentionally generates inaccurate RTCP congestion
  control feedback reports might be able to trick the sender into
  sending at a greater rate than the path can support, thereby causing
  congestion on the path.  This scenario will negatively impact the
  quality of experience of that receiver, potentially causing both
  denial of service to other traffic sharing the path and excessively
  increased resource usage at the media sender.  Since RTP is an
  unreliable transport, a sender can intentionally drop a packet,
  leaving a gap in the RTP sequence number space without causing
  serious harm, to check that the receiver is correctly reporting
  losses.  (This needs to be done with care and some awareness of the
  media data being sent, to limit impact on the user experience.)

  An on-path attacker that can modify RTCP Congestion Control Feedback
  Packets can change the reports to trick the sender into sending at
  either an excessively high or excessively low rate, leading to denial
  of service.  The secure RTCP profile [RFC3711] can be used to
  authenticate RTCP packets to protect against this attack.

  An off-path attacker that can spoof RTCP Congestion Control Feedback
  Packets can similarly trick a sender into sending at an incorrect
  rate, leading to denial of service.  This attack is difficult, since
  the attacker needs to guess the SSRC and sequence number in addition
  to the destination transport address.  As with on-path attacks, the
  secure RTCP profile [RFC3711] can be used to authenticate RTCP
  packets to protect against this attack.

11.  References

11.1.  Normative References

  [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
             Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

  [RFC3168]  Ramakrishnan, K., Floyd, S., and D. Black, "The Addition
             of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to IP",
             RFC 3168, DOI 10.17487/RFC3168, September 2001,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3168>.

  [RFC3550]  Schulzrinne, H., Casner, S., Frederick, R., and V.
             Jacobson, "RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time
             Applications", STD 64, RFC 3550, DOI 10.17487/RFC3550,
             July 2003, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3550>.

  [RFC3551]  Schulzrinne, H. and S. Casner, "RTP Profile for Audio and
             Video Conferences with Minimal Control", STD 65, RFC 3551,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC3551, July 2003,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3551>.

  [RFC3711]  Baugher, M., McGrew, D., Naslund, M., Carrara, E., and K.
             Norrman, "The Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP)",
             RFC 3711, DOI 10.17487/RFC3711, March 2004,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3711>.

  [RFC4585]  Ott, J., Wenger, S., Sato, N., Burmeister, C., and J. Rey,
             "Extended RTP Profile for Real-time Transport Control
             Protocol (RTCP)-Based Feedback (RTP/AVPF)", RFC 4585,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC4585, July 2006,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4585>.

  [RFC5124]  Ott, J. and E. Carrara, "Extended Secure RTP Profile for
             Real-time Transport Control Protocol (RTCP)-Based Feedback
             (RTP/SAVPF)", RFC 5124, DOI 10.17487/RFC5124, February
             2008, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5124>.

  [RFC5234]  Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
             Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC5234, January 2008,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5234>.

  [RFC5506]  Johansson, I. and M. Westerlund, "Support for Reduced-Size
             Real-Time Transport Control Protocol (RTCP): Opportunities
             and Consequences", RFC 5506, DOI 10.17487/RFC5506, April
             2009, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5506>.

  [RFC6679]  Westerlund, M., Johansson, I., Perkins, C., O'Hanlon, P.,
             and K. Carlberg, "Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN)
             for RTP over UDP", RFC 6679, DOI 10.17487/RFC6679, August
             2012, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6679>.

  [RFC8083]  Perkins, C. and V. Singh, "Multimedia Congestion Control:
             Circuit Breakers for Unicast RTP Sessions", RFC 8083,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC8083, March 2017,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8083>.

  [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
             2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
             May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

  [RFC8843]  Holmberg, C., Alvestrand, H., and C. Jennings,
             "Negotiating Media Multiplexing Using the Session
             Description Protocol (SDP)", RFC 8843,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC8843, January 2021,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8843>.

  [RFC8859]  Nandakumar, S., "A Framework for Session Description
             Protocol (SDP) Attributes When Multiplexing", RFC 8859,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC8859, January 2021,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8859>.

11.2.  Informative References

  [feedback-requirements]
             "RMCAT Feedback Requirements", IETF 95, April 2016,
             <https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/95/slides/slides-95-
             rmcat-1.pdf>.

  [Google-GCC]
             Holmer, S., Lundin, H., Carlucci, G., De Cicco, L., and S.
             Mascolo, "A Google Congestion Control Algorithm for Real-
             Time Communication", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
             draft-ietf-rmcat-gcc-02, 8 July 2016,
             <https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-rmcat-gcc-02>.

  [RFC3611]  Friedman, T., Ed., Caceres, R., Ed., and A. Clark, Ed.,
             "RTP Control Protocol Extended Reports (RTCP XR)",
             RFC 3611, DOI 10.17487/RFC3611, November 2003,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3611>.

  [RFC5104]  Wenger, S., Chandra, U., Westerlund, M., and B. Burman,
             "Codec Control Messages in the RTP Audio-Visual Profile
             with Feedback (AVPF)", RFC 5104, DOI 10.17487/RFC5104,
             February 2008, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5104>.

  [RFC6843]  Clark, A., Gross, K., and Q. Wu, "RTP Control Protocol
             (RTCP) Extended Report (XR) Block for Delay Metric
             Reporting", RFC 6843, DOI 10.17487/RFC6843, January 2013,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6843>.

  [RFC8298]  Johansson, I. and Z. Sarker, "Self-Clocked Rate Adaptation
             for Multimedia", RFC 8298, DOI 10.17487/RFC8298, December
             2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8298>.

  [RFC8382]  Hayes, D., Ed., Ferlin, S., Welzl, M., and K. Hiorth,
             "Shared Bottleneck Detection for Coupled Congestion
             Control for RTP Media", RFC 8382, DOI 10.17487/RFC8382,
             June 2018, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8382>.

  [RFC8698]  Zhu, X., Pan, R., Ramalho, M., and S. Mena, "Network-
             Assisted Dynamic Adaptation (NADA): A Unified Congestion
             Control Scheme for Real-Time Media", RFC 8698,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC8698, February 2020,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8698>.

  [RTCP-Multimedia-Feedback]
             Perkins, C., "RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) Feedback for
             Congestion Control in Interactive Multimedia Conferences",
             Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-rmcat-rtp-cc-
             feedback-05, 4 November 2019,
             <https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-rmcat-rtp-cc-
             feedback-05>.

  [RTP-Ext-for-CC]
             Holmer, S., Flodman, M., and E. Sprang, "RTP Extensions
             for Transport-wide Congestion Control", Work in Progress,
             Internet-Draft, draft-holmer-rmcat-transport-wide-cc-
             extensions-01, 19 October 2015,
             <https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-holmer-rmcat-transport-
             wide-cc-extensions-01>.

Acknowledgements

  This document is based on the outcome of a design team discussion in
  the RTP Media Congestion Avoidance Techniques (RMCAT) Working Group.
  The authors would like to thank David Hayes, Stefan Holmer, Randell
  Jesup, Ingemar Johansson, Jonathan Lennox, Sergio Mena, Nils
  Ohlmeier, Magnus Westerlund, and Xiaoqing Zhu for their valuable
  feedback.

Authors' Addresses

  Zaheduzzaman Sarker
  Ericsson AB
  Torshamnsgatan 23
  SE-164 83 Stockholm
  Sweden

  Phone: +46 10 717 37 43
  Email: [email protected]


  Colin Perkins
  University of Glasgow
  School of Computing Science
  Glasgow
  G12 8QQ
  United Kingdom

  Email: [email protected]


  Varun Singh
  CALLSTATS I/O Oy
  Annankatu 31-33 C 42
  FI-00100 Helsinki
  Finland

  Email: [email protected]
  URI:   https://www.callstats.io/


  Michael A. Ramalho
  AcousticComms Consulting
  6310 Watercrest Way Unit 203
  Lakewood Ranch, FL 34202-5122
  United States of America

  Phone: +1 732 832 9723
  Email: [email protected]
  URI:   http://ramalho.webhop.info/