WebRTC browser communications standard has several hurdles to clear
By Paul Krill, InfoWorld
More automation is on tap for the Web as the Web RTC initiative would enable standards-based real-time communications in the browser, benefiting applications like e-commerce, phone and video calls, and peer-to-peer file-sharing. Theoretically, developers would no longer need third-party workarounds for these activities. But WebRTC continues to endure growing pains, with issues to be worked out to make it compatible with different browsers and systems.
Google, Mozilla, and Opera have been key sponsors of WebRTC; AT&T, Cisco Systems, and Plantronics are advocates as well. WebRTC "has the potential to really change the internet," says Google's Hugh Finnan, director of product management for Chrome. "When you think about that, [with] just a few JavaScript APIs and as little as 15 lines of JavaScript code in an HTML page, you can create a simple one-to-one video conferencing solution; this has the potential to be as important to the Web as HTML was in the beginning."
The technology has varying degrees of support among browsers: The Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera browsers today have limited support for WebRTC, and Microsoft and Apple have not disclosed their plans for plans for WebRTC in Internet Explorer and Safari, respectively, says Cisco Fellow Cullen Jennings. (Microsoft has submitted its own counterproposal, Customizable, Ubiquitous Real-Time Communication over the Web, or CU-RTC-Web, to the W3C WebRTC working group.)
Enabling WebRTC for mobile devices also will require some work. "Mobile's important," Jennings says.
Questions also remain about which video codec to use. Right now, H.264 and VP8 are the leading candidates, Jennings says. "It's very unclear about what will happen with all of that," he says, stating a preference for a royalty-free codec.
Still, WebRTC is winning some fans. "As a software developer, I think it's the logical next step in Web development," says Bogdan Ciuca, a software engineer at telecommunications vendor Broadsoft. "Everything's moving toward real-time communications."
Paul Krill is an editor at large at InfoWorld, focusing on coverage of application development (desktop and mobile) and core Web technologies such as HTML5, Java, and Flash.
Leading software companies can’t agree on a unified VoIP standard
Comment by Alexander Kravchenko, VP, SPIRIT DSP
As noted in a recent Infoworld article, the WebRTC initiative still faces major challenges due to its incompatibility with browsers and operating systems of leading software companies – Apple and Microsoft. While Google, Mozilla and Opera do not renounce an idea of compatibility for WebRTC programming code, their browsers still only partially support it. Apple and Microsoft do not intend to include the WebRTC voice and video transfer in either the Internet Explorer or Safari browsers, respectively.
The Internet is moving toward real-time communications, but development of a common standard for this movement is taking much longer. Software products for communications via the Internet using Google voice engine are still limited by certain browsers (i.e., Google Chrome and Firefox) and operating systems (i.e., Android). This makes cross-platform communications impossible for subscribers with Apple (Safari) or Microsoft (Internet Explorer) browsers, which occupy more than a half of today’s worldwide browser market.
The reason for this incompatibility is not just a technology issue. With the use of broadband mobile Internet access increasing, software giants are eager to seize their market share from carriers and promote their own voice and video over IP (VVoIP) protocols. Understanding their vulnerable position and taking into account the rising popularity of VoIP and other Over-the-top (OTT) services, most carriers do not want to support Microsoft, Google, or Apple VoIP products.
Traditional big players in the telecom market prefer to license VVoIP software products from independent developers like SPIRIT, which support the carrier protocol RCS (Rich Communication Services). RCS provides carriers with a reliable base for standardization and effective competition against OTT phone services. A telecommunications provider should enable subscribers to make calls irrespectively of operator and type of device at the recipient’s end (i.e.: phone, smartphone, tablet PC, notebook or other device), which is only possible through unified standards.
As an example, let's look at the Indian telecommunications giant, Reliance. Reliance has licensed and is planning to use SPIRIT's engine in its RCS-compatible video softphone for transmitting voice and video calls in its LTE network. Reliance is committed to RCS-compatibility without waiting for the market to fill with mobile devices capable of transferring voice and video over LTE (VoLTE). There are also a variety of major telcos worldwide considering this approach as a real opportunity to “tie up” its subscribers using carrier-owned OTT-services, which allows them to enhance their subscriber base by granting access to services to any person, not just to its subscribers.
