Onwards and upwards for business telecoms WebRTC says Peter Gradwell

In the fourth of our WebRTC articles this week Peter Gradwell , Founder of Gradwell Communications, explores the buzz surrounding WebRTC and what it means to small business. Peter started Gradwell Communications because he couldn’t find the communication technology he needed for his own business, so he developed it. Gradwell has grown year-on-year, now handling communication services for nearly 22,000 small business customers. Peter is a founding member of the Internet Telephony Service Providers Association and has served on industry advisory boards and has lobbied domain policy and VoIP regulations.

Nowadays it is more and more common to see SMBs adopting new communication technologies. From feature-rich hosted VoIP services (like those provided by GENBAND NUViA), to the latest in Cloud tech, more than ever SMB’s are looking for a competitive edge over their larger counterparts. And whilst in this field we can find innumerable combinations and products, many customers just want a basic PBX seat at a reasonable price.

Therefore, for those customers looking for a straightforward, no nonsense communication over IP service, I am happy to give praise for WebRTC. Which gives an open framework for the web that enables Real Time Communications through the browser. It takes into account the fundamental building blocks for high quality communications on the web such as network, audio and video components used in voice and video chat applications; thus allowing a really different sales pitch into the SMB market through bespoke IT integration.

So, as a small business, which are the main benefits that I gain from adopting WebRTC?

• It is built on the strength of the web browser: WebRTC abstracts signalling by offering a signalling state machine that maps directly to PeerConnection. Web developers can therefore choose the protocol of choice for their usage scenario (for example, but not limited to: SIP, XMPP/Jingle, etc…)
• The calls from the website are delivered seamlessly either to existing VoIP platforms or can be received on web-based agent desktops.
• For the agent, it is possible to receive the customer calls from inside their browser based CRM systems so that they are delivered with customer information and website context.
• Once customer and agent are in a conversation, video, co-browsing and screen-sharing can be used to provide a co-ordinated multi-channel customer experience.
• WebRTC is already integrated with best-of-breed voice and video engines that have been deployed on millions of end points over the last 8+ years.
• Includes and abstracts key NAT and firewall traversal technology using STUN, ICE, TURN, RTP-over-TCP and support for proxies.

Combining all the functionalities already listed and an open and free project that is supported by companies like Google and Mozilla; one can see why there is such a buzz surrounding WebRTC.  Just another example of how the evolution of the internet never takes a break.

Loads of posts on WebRTC in general on this site here.

Read the previous posts in this Genband sponsored WebRTC week:

The disruptive potential of WebRTC to communications networks by Greg Zweig
The role of the reseller in a software world by Chris Barley
WebRTC and Client Container Technology by Ralph Page