RFC 3550: RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time Applications

Publisher

IETF / RFC Editor

URL

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3550

Published

2003-07-01

Updated

unknown

Accessed

2026-09-25

HTTP status

200

License

IETF Trust Legal Provisions (BCP 78); no-redistribution; short excerpts and locators only

Source notes citing this source

• RFC 3550 recommends that the fraction of session bandwidth added for RTCP be fixed at 5%. in context
• An RTCP reception report block carries a 24-bit cumulative number of packets lost since reception began, in addition to the per-interval fraction lost. in context
• In an RTCP reception report block, the 8-bit 'fraction lost' field is the fraction of RTP data packets from the source lost since the previous SR or RR was sent, expressed as a fixed-point number with the binary point at the left edge. in context
• RFC 3550 computes interarrival jitter as a running estimate smoothed with gain 1/16: J(i) = J(i-1) + (|D(i-1,i)| - J(i-1))/16, where D is the difference in packet spacing at the receiver compared with the sender. in context
• RFC 3550's guidance on analyzing reports treats packet loss as tracking persistent congestion and interarrival jitter as tracking transient congestion, so rising jitter can indicate congestion before it becomes loss. in context
• The RTCP interarrival jitter field is a 32-bit estimate of the statistical variance of RTP packet interarrival time, measured in RTP timestamp units rather than milliseconds. in context
• RFC 3550 states that sending reception feedback to all participants lets someone observing problems evaluate whether those problems are local or global, which is the basis for comparing reports from different receivers to localize a bad segment. in context
• RFC 3550 recommends a fixed minimum RTCP reporting interval of 5 seconds. in context

Cite this source record

APA

WarmTransfer. (2003, July 1). RFC 3550: RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time Applications. WarmTransfer. https://warmtransfer.net/knowledge/sources/rfc-3550-rtp-c

BibTeX

@misc{warmtransfer-rfc-3550-rtp-c,
  title  = {RFC 3550: RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time Applications},
  author = {{WarmTransfer}},
  year   = {2003},
  url    = {https://warmtransfer.net/knowledge/sources/rfc-3550-rtp-c},
  note   = {IETF / RFC Editor, accessed 2026-09-25}
}