Performance of WebRTC in the context of a decentralised storage solution

Distributed Hash Table-based storage solutions provide a secure means for the storage and retrieval of data. While DHTs present interesting features, specifically around their inherently decentralised nature, in contrast to most Internet services, they also experience a significant reduction in performance when the latency increases between two peers. The challenge of latency is a particular concern for mobile users, and those using cellular connections to the Internet, which typically encounter higher network latencies than users on fixed-line wired connections. This paper proposes that the challenge can be partially mitigated by using the DHT only once, for peer discovery, to coordinate the initiation of data transfer directly between two peers using WebRTC. This raises potential for the deployment of such techniques in the near future, on account of the widespread availability of WebRTC technology in modern Internet browsers, both on desktop and mobile platforms