In the months since it was publicly introduced, WebRTC has captured the interest of a number of major companies and start-ups have begun to support the real-time Web-based communications standard. Aside from the major players like Google and Mozilla, companies such as Digium, Bistri, Wreally Studios and Fresh Tilled Soil have all introduced solutions based on WebRTC. Even Microsoft, which is regarded as something of a dinosaur these days, has done some work on the standard, introducing its own CU-RTC definition.
Still, the list of companies actively supporting WebRTC is actually quite small compared to the number of companies which are completely unprepared for the technology. In fact, Phil Edholm, president and founder of PKE Consulting, recently wrote that most players in the enterprise telecom space are largely unaware of WebRTC.
That's unfortunate, because these companies especially need to be ready for WebRTC. But what can telecommunications companies do to be prepared for the change WebRTC will bring? According to Dmitry Dragilev, tech evangelist at Boston-based user experience design firm Fresh Tilled Soil — a creator of demos showcasing the capabilities of WebRTC — it's all about providing fast, consistent data service because, without it, users will have to contend with frequent disconnects and generally poor service.
"Make it possible to make a video call with cell data service, that would be amazing," said Dragilev in an e-mail exchange.
Indeed, since WebRTC is HTML5 based, it is extremely mobile friendly; Chrome Beta for Android already supports WebRTC calling, in fact. Fortunately, mobile operators' data woes already have a well-known solution: small cells. But with the attitude of some operators in the U.S. — AT&T is notoriously against video-enabled chat use on its network — this solution may not be as simple as it seems.
There are ways around this, though, as Dragilev — along with Paul Greenlea, senior front-end developer and strategist at Fresh Tilled Soil, and Robert Nyman, a tech evangelist for Mozilla — recently demonstrated in a Mozilla Hacks blog post. In order to solve the added latency typical of mobile data, the authors of the post employed configurable properties to keep bandwidth use down.
This solution is as simple as placing an optional hash tag at the end of the WebRTC chat URL: "#res=low" enforces low resolution video streaming, while "#res=hd" allows for high definition streaming. Meanwhile, other configurable properties offer control over parameters including frames per second.
Furthermore, operators can take a more active approach to WebRTC by leveraging one of the many WebRTC gateways that have been popping up recently from companies such as Huawei, GENBAND and Mavenir. These gateways act as a bridge between the Web and telecommunications networks, allowing operators to integrate WebRTC with RCS capabilities.
Edited by
Rich Steeves
