WebRTC now official W3C, IETF standard

Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) is now an official World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard.

“Today’s landmark achievement is timely. Faced with a global pandemic of the COVID- 19 corona-virus, the world has gone more and more virtual. It makes the Web even more crucial to society in information sharing, real-time communications, and entertainment,” said Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO. “It is gratifying to see our technologies playing a key role in enabling such critical digital infrastructure. Combining the universal reach of the Web with the rich- ness of live audio & video con- versations has reshaped how the world communicates.”

What is WebRTC

WebRTC is a platform that provides real-time communication and collaboration services such as audio and video calling to browsers, mobile apps, and desktop apps. According to the organizations, this is especially important as the COVID-19 pandemic continues and businesses remain remote.

Live audio-video communication systems in any website, any web app

The WebRTC framework provides the building blocks from which web and app developers can seamlessly add video chat to a range of applications, including tele-education and telehealth, entertainment and gaming, professional and workforce collaboration.

With the foundations standardized and deployed as a royalty-free feature in Web browsers and other devices and platforms, setting up a secure audio-video communication system with WebRTC has become a built-in capability, eliminating the need to install plugins or download separate applications.

WebRTC is massively deployed as a communications platform and powers video conferences and collaboration systems across all major browsers, both on desktop and mobile. Billions of users can interact now that WebRTC makes live video chat easier than ever on the Web. And from startups to Web-scale companies, in commercial products and open-source projects, WebRTC has vastly expanded the ability to deploy real-time interaction solutions to customers and users.

Real-world positive and timely impact

The year 2020 has shown both how critical WebRTC already is in a world where travel and physical contacts need to be limited, as well as the many improvements that can be brought to the technology to address new usages that have emerged.

Businesses and households are relying on WebRTC for a wealth of operations, increasing its adoption. Organizations are leveraging WebRTC to conduct training, interviews, strategic planning, or as a substitute for in-person meetings to keep connected through happy hour and other social interactions — it is replacing not only in-person meetings, but it is now also replacing human interactions inside offices. Domains such as healthcare and defense use WebRTC for training. Schools and universities have shifted to virtual learning platforms. Cloud gaming and social networks use live streaming and interactive broadcasts. Entertainment is trying to figure out how to bring the audience back to the studios by doing it remotely. Sports are trying to recreate the in-stadium experience using WebRTC. Families and friends make daily use of products that are built with WebRTC or parts of it.

References: https://www.w3.org/2021/01/pressrelease-webrtc-rec.html