Telcos, RCS & WebRTC

"democratisation" of voice and video

SmartphonesHow have user’s

expectations evolved

User expectations

The OTT Threat

RCS

User expectations

What are users expecting?

Group interactions (voice, text, video)

Share content (locations, screen share, documents)

Works anywhere (take your ‘mobile number’ across devices)

Purchase products and services

Receive important notifications (Travel, Event tickets)

Everybody is texting

People are interacting not just with friends

People interact with businesses!

They access services ranging from customer support to sales.

The OTT Threat

Whatsapp, Facebook messenger, Skype ...

Rich content apps are becomingthe default expectation for the user’s communication experience

What are these apps replacing ?

The humble SMS.

Adding text messaging functionality to mobile devices began in the early 1980s.

And today, SMS is a technology that is not keeping up.

People are expecting Rich Communication Services

And pretty soon, smart services too!

Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft are already experimenting with smart service bots.

OTT apps

OTT apps (Over The Top) are applications that run on top of the telecom services turning telecom operators in data providers.

RCS

Key features of RCS (as viewed by the telecom world)

Enhanced Phonebook: service capabilities and enhanced contacts information such as presence and service discovery.

Key features of RCS (as viewed by the telecom world)

Enhanced Phonebook: service capabilities and enhanced contacts information such as presence and service discovery.

Enhanced Messaging: enables a large variety of messaging options including chat, emoticons, location share and file sharing.

Key features of RCS (as viewed by the telecom world)

Enhanced Phonebook: service capabilities and enhanced contacts information such as presence and service discovery.

Enhanced Messaging: enables a large variety of messaging options including chat, emoticons, location share and file sharing.

Enriched Calls: enables multimedia content sharing during a voice call, video call and screen sharing.

Who can bring us RCS?

Telcos vs The web

Telecom approach to RCS

The web to the rescue

Google RCS

Telecom companies

+ have infrastructure and interoperability protocols

- hard to understand and use

Telecom companies VS App/Web developers

App/Web developers

+ flexibility and easy to use libraries to develop custom solutions

- hard to interoperate

Telecom approach to RCS

VoLTE and RCS: Nothing to Offer the App Developer

Is Voice over LTE, the next for mobile networks ?

HD voice and video calls interoperable with other carriers.

Add chat and content sharing and voila!

The Holy Grail of Rich Communications Services (RCS).

GSMA Standards

The GSMA = 800 operators + 250 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem

Mission: Seize back mindshare with RCS branded as "joyn"

Result: Failed at establishing itself as valid commercial solution.

The “joyn” client - main issues

No room for flexibility

Only one active joyn client can run in a device at a time.

No control on user identity for custom apps/interactions.

Main reason of failure - no room for flexibility

RCS and the brand “joyn” defined everything

● How things are stored and manipulated on the server● All the protocols and api● Even all the user experience!

○ what the address book should look like ○ what the user would see on each and every screen!○ ...

The web to the rescue

The purpose of WebRTC

No login, installations, downloads or add-ons.

WebRTC will allow the "democratisation" of voice and video.

Web does what it does best, disrupt old practices.

WebRTC is a combination of two standards:

an IETF-driven "media engine" and set of IP network protocols for real-time communications

an API established by a W3C working group enabling browser-to-browser applications for voice calling, video chat, and peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing without plugins.

Telcos and the web working together

The telecoms industry is in a precarious position

Increasing supply of new operators, MVNOs, so-called OTTs etc.

Flat or declining demand for basic telephony and messaging services

Many markets are near-saturated, and face both:

WebRTC is a catalyst for change

Source of extra competition

Incumbent operators are forced to reconsider strategies.

The right WebRTC strategy for telecom operators

New focus for the operators!

From QUANTITY (number of minutes and messages)

To VALUE based on the intention and context of the use

Pushing the telecom players

Operators learned that it is crucial that they:

● develop communications services & apps meeting real human needs

● engage with application builders.

Google RCS

The universal RCS profile and Android client

Google is partnering with carriers and OEMs.

The provided RCS client will be interoperable with any RCS-compliant client across any platform.

Easily updatable from the Google Play store.

Deliver a unified messaging experience across the Android ecosystem.

WebRTCWebRTC Powers

WebRTC Issues

Why Use WebRTC?1.5 billion+

WebRTC browsers

WebRTC Powers

Add RCS to your current or future app

Uses core technologies – such as HTML, HTTP, and TCP/IP – that are open and freely implementable.

Already integrated with best-of-breed voice and video engines that have been deployed on millions of endpoints over the last 8+ years.

Google does not charge royalties for WebRTC.

Add RCS to your current or future app

Includes and abstracts key solutions to bypass possible issues created by routers and firewalls.

Builds on the strength of the web browser.

Web developers can choose the protocol of choice for their usage scenario

The base WebRTC api

Media

Devices

RTCPeerConnection

RTCDataChannel

WebRTC Issues

Current main issues

SignalingHow do I find the person I want to talk to?Security Exposing internal network structureBandwidthEncode once send multiple resolutions

WebRTC p2p

WebRTC Call setup

Device 1 Device 2

JS/HTML/CSS JS/HTML/CSS

Data channel

Media channel

Web

WebServer

WebServer

Signaling path

Websocket Websocket

Why use WebRTC

Unlimited possible use-cases of WebRTC

Corporate conferencing

Team collaboration

Online learning

Online gaming

Logistic automation

Health Care ...

Availability

Already available on:

Web (Chrome, Firefox), Android, iOS

Soon on:

Safari; Edge via Object RTC (ORTC)

Available as SDK for embedding in native applications.

And, perhaps in the future, built-in to some OS's themselves.

Who is using it?

HangoutsFacebook MessengerAmazon MaydaySlackSnapchat

Upcoming features

Recording and MediaStreaming

Analyze remote audio quality; perform additional processing

Add devices as mics or speakers into sessions

Separate processing of individual audio tracks from rendering, e.g., for local speaker switching

Upcoming features

VP9 Video codec

30% less bits at the cost of +15% CPU

If our Internet connection used to only allow uploading 480p without packet loss and delay, you can now have a video call using 720p

H264 video codec

Faster ICE/Turn setup,

Better wifi-cell handoff

More Bandwidth improvements

Acquisitions - 29 WebRTC related to date

Some recent ones:

Acision → Comverse

Speek → Jive Communications

mPortal → Broadsoft

requestec → Blackboard

ESNA → Avaya

Screenhero → Slack

Jitsi → Atlassian

Tropo → Cisco

Acano → Cisco

All the greatest in Internet technologies eventually became standard practice.

WebRTC will be no different.

Read more

● http://www.webrtc.org/

● http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/webrtc/basics/

● http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/webrtc/infrastructure/

● http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/webrtc/datachannels/

Vulpescu Radu

@radu_vulpescu