Interactive Connectivity Establishment
NAT traversal is why WebRTC calls fail. ICE is how browsers find a working path between peers. Know it when debugging call connectivity failures.
What It Defines
Defines ICE — the protocol for establishing peer-to-peer connections through NAT and firewalls. Used by WebRTC to gather candidates (host, srflx, relay), prioritize them, and check connectivity.
Canonical (Normative)
Convenient (Practical)
The canonical publication point for finalized RFCs. If a protocol is standardized as an RFC, the RFC Editor text is the normative final reference. Published by the IETF, IRTF, IAB, and independent stream.
Related Specs
Video calls (Meet, Zoom web), voice calls, peer-to-peer file transfer, and collaborative tools. The browser API surface for real-time A/V communication.
STUN is how WebRTC discovers the public-facing address for peer-to-peer connections. Every WebRTC deployment needs a STUN server.
~15-20% of WebRTC calls require TURN relay because both peers are behind symmetric NAT. Without TURN, those calls fail silently.