Case Study: Reducing Virtual Meeting Costs and Bandwidth Consumption with Multicast Streaming
Background
Most enterprises today are moving back to office environments, meaning employees are no longer watching company meetings from home or on the road as frequently as before. This shift has placed new demands on corporate IT departments concerning network capacity and cost. As employees return to physical offices, companies are experiencing a surge in internal video streaming demands, leading to increased pressure on corporate IT infrastructure. Unlike the remote-work era, where video traffic was distributed across various home networks, today’s meetings must be supported by on-premise networks, intensifying bandwidth challenges.
A large multinational corporation hosts frequent all-hands meetings, training sessions, and executive updates. Traditionally, they relied on a virtual meeting platform where each participant received a separate unicast stream. However, as the company grew, so did the challenges of bandwidth consumption, costs, and accessibility for remote offices with limited network capacity.
Challenges with Traditional Virtual Meeting Platforms
The company had to support as many as 5,000 concurrent users, each demanding an individual unicast stream. Consequently, this resulted in substantial bandwidth usage, as every participant was allocated a 4 Mbps stream, culminating a combined 200,000 Megabytes (200 Gbps) of traffic accross the network. This created a significant burden on the corporate network.
Additionally, network bottlenecks became a persistent issue, requiring large entry points to handle the growing traffic. Without significant infrastructure upgrades, congestion led to reduced performance for other critical business applications. Employees in small branch offices or remote locations with limited internet bandwidth struggled to sustain each a 4 Mbps stream, resulting in buffering, degraded video quality, and unreliable connections.
Furthermore, scaling costs quickly became a burden. With 5,000 participants, each requiring a unicast stream, the organization faced increased bandwidth costs and expensive CDN services to ensure smooth delivery. Scaling beyond this number would have meant additional licensing fees and infrastructure investments, making the existing approach unsustainable.
Key Benefits of Multicast Streaming
The drastic reduction in bandwidth consumption was one of the most immediate advantages. Unlike the unicast model, which required 20 Mbps capacity for the live streams to enter the network, the multicast approach utilized a single 4 Mbps stream, regardless of the number of viewers. This meant that 5,000 participants consumed the same bandwidth as a single user, significantly improving network efficiency. Think of traditional unicast streaming like 5,000 people individually requesting the same video from the internet, each generating separate traffic. In contrast, multicast works like a public broadcast where all viewers tune into a single, shared signal. This fundamental difference enables massive bandwidth savings.
The corporate network also saw optimized performance as the need for large-scale infrastructure upgrades was eliminated. Network congestion was alleviated, ensuring smoother operations for other business-critical applications. Employees in remote and small offices benefited greatly, as they could easily receive the multicast stream without overwhelming their network. The browser-based playback functionality ensured seamless access without requiring additional software or hardware.
From a financial perspective, licensing and operational costs were significantly reduced. The company no longer needed to pay per-seat licensing fees for every participant, leading to substantial cost savings. Additionally, dependency on expensive Content Delivery Network (CDN) services and cloud hosting fees was minimized, further enhancing cost efficiency.
Results and Impact
After implementing the multicast agent solution, the company observed a 90% reduction in bandwidth costs compared to the traditional virtual meeting platform. Network congestion issues were eliminated, improving overall IT infrastructure efficiency. Employees, whether in headquarters or remote offices, enjoyed a smoother and uninterrupted streaming experience. Additionally, operational expenses decreased due to reduced software licensing and cloud service costs. By shifting to multicast, IT teams no longer had to worry about network bottlenecks during high-profile meetings. The solution reduced the need for expensive infrastructure upgrades, freeing IT resources to focus on more strategic initiatives rather than troubleshooting bandwidth limitations.
The Multicast Agent Solution
The company deployed a multicast-based streaming solution to tackle these challenges via the Multicast Agent. In contrast to the conventional method, which sends each participant a distinct unicast stream, the multicast agent helps provide a single multicast stream to all users. This significantly lowered network load and costs while enhancing the efficiency of content distribution throughout the organization.
Conclusion
For organizations conducting large-scale virtual meetings, training sessions, or live corporate broadcasts, multicast technology offers a cost-effective and scalable alternative to traditional unicast-based virtual meeting platforms. Enterprises that continue to rely on unicast-based streaming will face increasing bandwidth costs and network congestion as in-office video consumption grows. The Multicast Agent eliminates excessive bandwidth consumption, reduces costs, and ensures seamless access for all employees, including those in remote offices with limited connectivity. Organizations that adopt multicast now will be better positioned to handle the next evolution of corporate communications while optimizing network resources.
Illustration: Audience of a live broadcast in different locations.