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WebRTC P2P vs TURN Relay Bandwidth.

Telecommunications sizing tool calculating infrastructure egress penalties when peer-to-peer video calls fail NAT traversal, forcing traffic through backend TURN relay servers.

## The WebRTC Illusion

WebRTC allows browsers to stream live video directly to each other peer-to-peer (P2P), completely bypassing backend servers and avoiding all bandwidth charges. However, corporate firewalls and strict NAT (Network Address Translation) configurations often block these direct connections.

### FAQ

**Q: What happens when P2P fails?**
A: The connection silently falls back to a TURN server (Traversal Using Relays around NAT). Your backend takes the video stream from User A and manually forwards it to User B. If 18% of your users are behind strict corporate firewalls, you suddenly owe massive egress fees to your cloud provider for a video service you thought was free.