The traditional WebRTC market

WebRTC origins

In 2011 an ambitious open source project backed by Google was conceived. The “Big G” wanted to make real time communications between browsers a reality and so WebRTC technology was born. The technology was truly appealing, WebRTC opened the possibility of communicating browser-to-browser by the click of a button, without any plugin or software download. Despite of the beauty of the idea, there were several hurdles to face at the beginning, including battles over protocols and codecs to be implemented and lack of support from major browsers.

Now, 7 years later, seems it is the time when WebRTC gets critical adoption. There are three main reasons for this. Firstly, the technology is finally supported by all major browsers since Safari 11 was released in October 2017. Secondly, WebRTC is more mature, it is not longer a fringe or experiment; there are several products like Google Hangouts or Facebook Messenger that are using the technology creating an ecosystem around it and giving the technology mainstream adoption. Lastly, developers and enterprises are finally glimpsing new use cases that can be done with WebRTC and how the technology could disrupt some industries.

Taking into consideration that security and simplicity are deeply ingrained into WebRTC, there were some verticals considered primary targets of the technology:

Team collaboration: with the possibility of adding video, voice, chat and other collaboration tools to a browser and the rise of BYOD practices in enterprises, team collaboration is the obvious first target industry of the technology. WebRTC gives workers the possibility of using any device to start a conversation, share files or chat with their colleagues with one click.
Banking/Insurance: following the financial crisis of 2009 and the growth of new digital challengers, traditional banks need a way to modernize and digitalize their services. The opportunity to offer a “physical branch” like experience anywhere, from opening an account to get a loan at any place was one of the first use cases that were developed using the technology.
Healthcare: next to financial services, healthcare is one of those mature industries that can greatly benefit from videoconferencing. In non urgent cases, calling your doctor rather than going to its office cuts expenditure in travelling, reduces wasted time waiting in the office and decreases missed appointments.
Contact center: WebRTC brings a natural evolution from traditional calls by allowing the option of having video and extended collaboration tools. Customers can directly call from a website or app and agents can get the clients’ contextual information, share screens or transfer files on the fly. This translates in a better customer journey and faster resolution times.

What has changed in webrtc market and which new industries and use cases have been developed?

Previously I explained a little bit of the beginnings of WebRTC and the very first use cases that were developed using the technology. We are in 2018 now and long time has passed since the early days of WebRTC; in these 7 years many new technologies and trends developed, allowing new use cases and new industries to target. These are some of the new verticals that will benefit from using WebRTC:

eLearning: education is a traditional mature market that has undergone a great deal of change in the last few years. Adoption of new teaching ways like MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) started the trend of going beyond brick and mortar education. WebRTC allows to move from a pre recorded video to have an online live seminar with a professor (check this video of IE Wow Room). For students, teachers and education institutions the technology means lower price of education and facilitating the access to high level education. For enterprises means that internal trainings can be done easily removing the need of flying teams from different locations.
Live streaming: in industries like gaming or live betting low latency on the stream is crucial. WebRTC offers the possibility of streaming media with non perceptible delay allowing true live interaction between watchers and provider. Broadcasters can also benefit, the technology allows for P2P streaming which means that users can cooperate sending pieces of content directly between them lowering the load of the streaming servers. Lastly, there’s an opportunity for generalistic TV channels as they will be able to easily add live interaction with viewers.
One-way conversational devices: this is one of the newest technologies that have arised in the last few years. “Virtual Assistants” triggered by voice are a growing market, big companies are releasing their own products (Amazon with Alexa or Google with Home). These devices are always connected and by using WebRTC they can offer the possibility of placing phone calls directly. If the virtual assistant has a camera a video call can be performed.
IoT: there is the prediction that IoT will explode in scale in the next few years. All this wave of new connected devices offers a huge possibility for a technology like WebRTC. For example, smart doorbells; don’t miss a delivery anymore you can connect with your doorbell real time, talk to your courier, open the door and tell the person to leave the package on the entrance. A sensor in fire alarms can trigger a video call to emergencies sharing real time images of the location to assess risks. It is expected that many new use cases will come up in the following years using connected devices.
Connected car: the rise of autonomous vehicles means that cars will have a wide array of sensors, cameras and microphone as well as internet connection. Security recording and streaming for insurance claims, emergency communications or passenger entertainment and communications are some of the areas where the technology can make an impact.
Field Support: this is somewhat an extension of contact center capabilities, adding 3d modeling (AR/VR) to a live stream can help agents explain to the customers how to fix a problem. In case that a the client can’t fix the issue and a technician needs to be deployed there are benefits to the technology as well. Firstly the technician already has visual information of the problem which lowers resolution times. Secondly, in case help is needed the technician could start a “see what I see” session with a colleague instead of leaving and escalating the issue, add the possibility of incorporating 3d modeling and whiteboard on the stream to gain more efficiencies in repair times..

From connected cars to gaming or telemedicine, it is to expect a continuous growth of WebRTC usage in the near future. As we can see, the technology is more than just video conferences and calls which is something that usually tends to dominate the industry focus.

In Quobis we developed our own WebRTC platform, Sippo (rebranded as Quobis Communications Platform), enabling enterprises and service providers to have their own custom RTC apps covering a whole range of use cases.