Prepare your network
To provide high-quality video meetings with Hangouts Meet, you need to set up your network so that Meet can efficiently communicate with the Google infrastructure.
You should:
- Make sure Meet traffic has a short path to the internet.
- Avoid proxies, packet inspection, protocol analyzers, and quality of service (QoS)
- Measure and optimize latency, bandwidth, and your Wi-Fi network.
Set up your network
Step 1: Set up outbound ports for media traffic
- For media (audio and video), set up outbound UDP ports 19302–19309 using the Chrome WebRTC UDP Ports setting.
- For web traffic and user authentication, use outbound UDP and TCP port 443.
Step 2: Whitelist URIs
The core Google services need full network access. If there are restrictions or filtering policies for users on your network, give network access to (whitelist) the following URI patterns using port 443.
For web traffic, APIs, feedback reports, logs upload, and connectivity setup patterns:
- https://*.google.com/*
- https://*.googleapis.com/*
- https://*.gstatic.com/*
- https://*.googleusercontent.com/*
For live streaming patterns:
- https://*.googlevideo.com/*
- https://*.youtube-nocookie.com/*
- https://*.ytimg.com/*
Step 3: Whitelist Google media IP address ranges
Meet traffic is secured and encrypted, so there is no need to restrict traffic to the G Suite IP addresses.
However, if you have network constraints that require you to restrict traffic, you can whitelist Meet’s media servers. These IP ranges are used exclusively for Meet so you can identify video meeting traffic used with your organization’s G Suite account and deprioritize Hangouts traffic from consumer accounts.
Whitelist Meet's media servers using the following set of IP ranges:
- IPv4: 74.125.250.0/24
- IPv6: 2001:4860:4864:5::0/64
Note: These IP ranges are only for media (audio and video) and do not correspond with the URIs listed above in Step 2.
Step 4: Review bandwidth requirements
Calculate minimum Meet bandwidth requirements
Bandwidth requirements per participant
The bandwidth used by Meet varies to provide the best experience on participants’ networks.
| Average bandwidth per participant | ||
|---|---|---|
| Meeting type | Outbound | Inbound |
| HD Video | 3.2 Mbps | 1.8 Mbps |
| Audio only | 12 Kbps | 18 Kbps |
| Ideal bandwidth per participant | ||
|---|---|---|
| Meeting type | Outbound | Inbound |
| 2-person HD video meetings | 3.2 Mbps | 2.6 Mbps |
| Group video meetings | 3.2 Mbps | 3.2 Mbps |
Estimate peak number of concurrent participants
Determine the number of concurrent participants based on how important video calling is at each site, as shown in the following table.
| Importance of video meetings | Peak number of concurrent video meetings |
|---|---|
| High | 10–20% |
| Normal | 1–4% |
| Low | 0.01–0.5% |
For example, if video meetings are of high importance, estimate that 20% of the users at that site will use Meet. If video meetings are of low importance, only 0.5% of people at that site might be in a video meeting at the same time.
Bandwidth requirements per live stream viewer
If your organization live streams video meetings, the ideal bandwidth for each viewing participant is 2.6 Mbps. The default high-quality video setting is 720p and is used if the participant has enough individual bandwidth.
If sufficient bandwidth is not available, viewers can also optionally choose to reduce the Meet video quality.
| Meet video setting | Inbound bandwidth required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 720p | 2.6 Mbps | Default high quality setting results in the best user experience |
| 480p | 1.5 Mbps | |
| 360p | 1.0 Mbps | |
| 240p | 0.5 Mbps | Results in a poor viewer experience and is not recommended |
Best practices
Using proxies
We strongly recommend that you do not use proxy servers for Meet traffic.
Proxying traffic adds latency and can cause Meet to automatically reduce the video and audio quality. Meet performance is best when the latency between the client and Google back end is lower than 100 ms. Also, Meet provides the same benefits for video traffic that a proxy does, so a proxy isn’t needed.
If proxy servers must be used in your network
If you have a clear use case that absolutely requires the use of a proxy, understand that proxy servers can severely impact performance and make sure:
- To whitelist Meet traffic in the proxy configuration.
- Meet uses the Chrome Proxy settings.
- The network bypasses the proxy for Meet outbound ports.
The Socket Secure (SOCKS5) internet protocol is not currently supported.
The following recommendations apply to typical office environments. A wireless engineer should evaluate more complex environments, such as manufacturing floors, areas with high levels of radio frequency (RF) noise, or sparsely covered spaces.
Carefully review the following considerations during the design, deployment, and operation of wireless networks used by Meet.
2.4 GHz versus 5 GHz RF bands
We recommend to not deploy and operate Meet over the 2.4-GHz band of a wireless network as it’s typically heavily used. The 2.4-Ghz band is also less reliable because it has 3 non-overlapping channels, typically high noise levels from nearby interfering networks, and extra interference from other devices.
Design and deployment considerations
For the wireless network, think about capacity rather than coverage.
- Manage cell size—Control cell size by the transmit power of the access point (AP). Deploy smaller cells where more devices are expected, such as meeting rooms and auditoriums, to increase capacity. Use bigger cells to provide general coverage on the office floor.
- Disable low rates to improve RF usage efficiency and force a client’s handover to the closest AP while roaming between APs.
If a wireless network’s SSID is available on both bands (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz), the network should force clients onto the 5-GHz band.
To allow advanced features, such as seamless roaming between APs and proper RF management, a wireless network should be centrally managed and operated—not a collection of standalone APs.
Finally, perform a post-deployment wireless survey to confirm wireless coverage in the spaces where Meet is typically used.
WMM best practices
To support reliable Meet communication over wireless networks, you should implement Wireless Multimedia Extensions (WMM).
Meet traffic needs to be classified by one of the following ways:
- The wireless controller or AP based on the Meet-specific protocols and ports.
- The Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) field value set by other network equipment. Use DSCP if you have sufficient trust in the network.
While full WMM support (including clients) is required to provide bidirectional QoS, you can configure it at the network level (on the controller or AP) to give significant benefits. Meet traffic should be assigned to the audio or video queue on the wireless AP or controller and be preferred over other classes of traffic.
QoS best practices
Don’t use QoS
If QoS must be used
Limit Meet traffic
-
Sign in to your Google Admin console.
Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).
-
From the Admin console Home page, go to Apps
G Suite
- Click Meet settings.
- On the left, select the organizational unit you want to manage. For all users, select the top-level organizational unit.
- Select a Default video quality option:
- Adjust automatically (default)—The bandwidth is adjusted for network and system conditions to provide the best possible quality.
- Limited video bandwidth—Uplink bandwidth is limited to 1 Mpbs by default to limit bandwidth usage.
- Audio only—Video is turned off by default. Users can manually turn on their camera, but uplink video will be limited to 1 Mbps by default.
- Apply the settings:
- If the setting is for the top-level organizational unit, click Save.
- If the setting is for a child organizational unit and is different than the parent, click Override.
G SuiteWe do not recommend using QoS in your Meet network. If you must control Meet bandwidth usage at the network level to reserve or limit traffic for Meet, see QoS best practices.
