DEV Community: Angela Merkels

WebRTC Mobile Applications & Web Development Services: Know The Cost & Its Benefits

Angela Merkels — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 12:55:53 +0000

Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) exemplifies a "nice-to-have" technology. You don't really need browser-agnostic voice calling, video chat and person-to-person file sharing in your contact center, but you want it. And you probably already have it in the form of plugins from various sources. You probably don't need all these bells and whistles to sync but, again, you want it. So the challenge is: How do you justify the cost for something that, though very cool, isn't going to save or make the company a ton of money?

The Cost Of WebRTC App & Web Development Services

Often in this space we focus more on the benefits than the cost. But in WebRTC's case, the first thing you'll need to establish in a business case is that it just doesn't cost that much.

But it does cost something. We're fortunate that the pricing is transparent. The cloud-based WebRTC vendors are priced fairly close together, and the selection of which one to go with is not primarily a financial decision. Falling short of endorsing RTCWeb.in as the WebRTC solution for your enterprise, we acknowledge that their advertised prices are straightforwardly presented and easy to digest, so we're going with them for the sake of example. (WebRTCWorld hosts a robust list of WebRTC providers.)

There are essentially four main categories of charges:

1-Usage
2-Archiving
3-Service
4-Bolt-ons

Usage is, of course, the first thing that comes to mind. WebRTC platforms use a stair-step curve to scale the cost per minute. The first minute costs five cents and the millionth costs four-and-a-quarter cents, so we're not talking about big savings, but still.

But let's not forget about archiving. You have to figure in the cost of compositing files into an easily readable MP4 file. Or you could—if you choose to—save the audio, video and still media separately. And if you can find a reason to do that, you can save a penny a minute.

Here's what you need to know, though: If you choose to record only 10 percent of your WebRTC stream-minutes, then archiving will cost you almost as much as up-front usage. In our model, we assumed 5 percent. Is that anywhere close to what your usage will be? It's hard to tell as this depends on too many factors; however, it is crucial that you identify that business requirement before you go any further.

The other costs are nominal. There's a service level you can get for free, another that costs $2,500/month, and at least one in between. It's also conceivable that you might want such additional services as unlimited-party conference calls or enhanced securities but, for now, let's assume you don't.

In terms of one-time costs, you might have to enhance your bandwidth in certain locations, and you'll definitely have to buy headsets, microphones and speakers. We also assume the standard design, implementation and user acceptance services we usually do in this space.

One caveat to keep in mind: These charges are expressed as monthly fees. Our business case model automatically translates them into annual costs so you don't make that rookie mistake.

If your CIO has already bought into the advantages of WebRTC and the decision comes down to onsite-versus-cloud, it might be a no-brainer. The hardware alone might be a deal-breaker. According to web developer, to run WebRTC in-house you'd need to pick up servers to provide three functions: Internet Connectivity Establishment (ICE) protocol, signaling and media.

Hire WebRTC Application & Web Development Company

You probably only need two each of the ICE and signaling servers (primary and backup) and you could probably dedicate any 2U, x86 pizza boxes for those purposes. Let's call them $10,000 each, times four, or $40,000. Media boxes need to be more fit-for-purpose, and Polychronakis recommends the Cisco MCU 5300 series for telepresence. Those go for about $30,000 each, and let's say your business analysis forecasts the need for 6 of those, or $180,000.

So you're already on your way to a quarter-million-dollar outlay just to get started. And there will come a point when your next minute of streamed video will require you to buy two more MCU servers and thus have the incremental cost of $60,000.

Cloud looks better and better all the time.

Calculating WebRTC Development Solution Benefits

WebRTC is considered primarily a contact center play, and the direct, cash-money benefits tend to be concentrated there.

Vendors tout the way they can save you on incoming 800 calls, so let's assume for current purposes that your organization spends $5 million on these charges and WebRTC can, at end stage, save 25 percent off that.

Vendors further state that they can reduce your customer service headcount because your problems can, on average, be resolved more quickly. So let's assume that's also $5 million now and WebRTC can ultimately save 25 percent off that as well.

But let's take it a step further and roll WebRTC out to the broader organization. The main purpose in doing this is to take advantage of such soft benefits as improved security and improved employee collaboration. But it also means that your virtual private network costs go almost to zero. For argument's sake, we assume your VPN costs are about $1 million. Your mileage may vary, of course; as a rule of thumb, assume that VPN cost you about $100/year per line, so we're guessing you have 1,000 employees, contractors or other stakeholders accessing your VPN.

Standards In WebRTC Mobile Application Development: Why Are They Important?

Angela Merkels — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 11:32:41 +0000

Where are the standards when it comes to the WebRTC App Development

There are many misconceptions about what exactly is in the scope of WebRTC and what isn’t. As a result of that, there are different opinions about the parts in WebRTC that should be standardized. This arises mainly when speaking with VoIP and telecom people as we (yes, I’m one of them) are used to the case where everything is standardized, from top to bottom.

Looking at this in perspective of the Web. When a Web developer builds an application there is only one area where standards apply to him, the things that need to run in the browser (i.e. HTML, CSS and JavaScript). Browsers must be compatible in this area, implement the same APIs and yield the same user experience. How information that is exchanged between the browser and the server is structured is completely up to the developer building the application.

This reality of a closed client-server world with standards for client side implementation that allows users to use whatever browser they choose is one of the things that enabled the speed of change and innovation we are all used to in the Web. This stands in contrast to the slow rate of advancement in the telecom world where all needs to be standard.

WebRTC is all about the Web

Taking the Web application example above and implementing it for WebRTC makes it seem very clear that communication between the client and the server doesn’t need to be standardized. How SDP, session context information, user specific data… are sent from the browser to the server is rightfully left for the application, as every application will have different requirements.

Having said that, things related to making sure WebRTC will run on all browsers must be handled through standards.

WebRTC Architecture

The diagram above shows this quite clearly. The areas in WebRTC that are and should be standardized are only those related to the interfaces and capabilities of WebRTC itself. This in essence means:

The JavaScript APIs (northbound) – this makes sure a WebRTC application will run in any browser that supports WebRTC
On the wire protocols – in essence, this is how voice, video and data streams are exchanged peer-to-peer between browsers. Examples of such are transport protocols, security mechanisms chosen and mandatory voice and video codecs. If this wasn’t standardized, communication between browser of brand A would need to go through some mediation box in order to communicate with browser of brand B.

How SMBs Can Scale Quickly With Cloud Alternatives

Angela Merkels — Wed, 06 May 2020 11:37:08 +0000

A decade ago employees faced the undeniable truth that they were forever tied to their desktop landlines and PC’s – at least as long as they were at the office. When they left the office they either left work behind or were forced to bring files along with them via floppy disk. We did not know it then, but such a practice significantly hindered the business’ ability to grow. Luckily, technology has significantly advanced giving SMB’s much opportunity in the way of expanding business and stimulating growth regardless of location. Now we have video conferencing solution, smart phones, laptops, tablets and are even able to utilize remote workers who have the ability to dial into your business network via any location.

Call it what you will – either a curse or a blessing – but SMB’s are no longer strapped by the constraints of the normal working business hours of 9 am to 5 pm. Today, our employees and ourselves, as SMB owners, have the ability to work anywhere, anytime of the day – all thanks to the cloud.

Cloud based systems have much to offer SMB’s in the way of stimulating growth to scale, including improved efficiency, enhanced communication abilities and reduced costs. Read on as we discuss further benefits that the cloud can offer your SMB.

Improved Mobility

With use of a cloud based business phone like Switch.co, you are offering your staff the means to access your network from anywhere that they harbor an internet connection. Remote access to your systems makes it possible to:

Join video conferences; Answer faxes and emails; and Make and answer calls from anywhere in the world.
This massive boost in mobility allows you and your staff to take advantage of new found opportunities to expand business into new growth areas.

Less Need for Hardware

Thanks to cloud based alternatives there is no longer a need for those bulky servers and PBX takes up valuable space in your office. Not only does this reduce office clutter and negate the need for as much office space in general, but it can also reduce upfront costs and totally eliminate maintenance costs that might have otherwise been spent paying an IT staff to repair your dinosaur of a server.

Disaster Prevention

Not only will cloud alternatives save you money in repair and maintenance costs for the company server, but it can also save you by negating the necessity for off-site or on-site back-up systems. Cloud based systems have numerous built in redundancies that serve as back up for your company's important files and documents. If one system fails, another will immediately kick in to pick up the slack. Not only does this protect your company’s valuable information, but it also keeps your business online and functioning in a way that allows it to continue to make money. This backup of data, files, contacts and important documents will even prove effective the instance that a physical disaster destroys your company’s physical assets. Where you will find all of your information stored in the cloud ready for instantaneous download.

More Cost Effective

Implementing cloud alternatives into your business ultimately saves you big money. From not having to purchase hardware (such as servers) and therefore not needing to upgrade or maintain them, you are saving thousands. Additionally, there will be no need for purchasing, licensing software that may even only be used intermittently. When you utilize cloud alternatives you have the ability to access the software that you need and only are required to pay for the amount you use.

Increased Revenues

With your funds not being tied up in places where they are not needed, you are better able to delegate them to areas that will best benefit your business. When you implement cloud based phone systems into your SMB you save money. This money saved is able to be refocused into areas aimed at boosting sales and stimulating growth for your business.

Not only is there the savings factor that will inevitably increase your firms bottom line, but there is also the productivity factor. When your teams are able to work remotely or rather in a more effective and efficient manner, they are therefore able to generate revenue and sales on a much larger scale.

Those leaders of the most successful and fastest growing SMB’s are savvy about new advancements in technology, this includes cloud based systems. These business owners have become masters at designing infrastructures that support the optimization of new capabilities within the cloud. Because none of the principles required to operate or employ cloud alternatives require specialty knowledge or technical skills of any sort, they can therefore be applied to any type of business looking to overcome the basic business challenges that hinder growth.

Overcoming Resistance to Real-Time Communications and Marketing Efforts

Angela Merkels — Tue, 05 May 2020 10:20:48 +0000

There’s a traditional of resistance in offices all over the world when it comes to new technologies. No doubt that when businesses first began installing telephones in the early twentieth century, a significant percentage of employees believed that they were unnecessary and even refused to use them. Over the next 100 years, many technologies came into the workplace, some that were wildly successful (think fax technology) and others that didn’t work out so well (think of the earliest premise-based deployments of customer relationship management software). There are sometimes good reasons why executives, managers and line employees are wary of new technologies that are supposed to make their lives easier.

For this reason, it’s often hard for technology visionaries to gain buy-in from the rest of the organization from a new technology. Real-time communications is one of those technologies that is in the process of getting “pulled” by those who can see their benefits and potential, and “pushed” by those who don’t see the need for them.

In a recent blog post, marketing and sales strategist David Meerman Scott noted that it’s common for technology pioneers to get excited about a new ways to grow business by implementing real-time sales and marketing only to be told “no” by some decision makers.

“The pushback might come from bosses or others on the team,” wrote Scott. “Entrepreneurs face resistance from VCs and partners. If you are planning to strike out on your own, it might be your spouse who says ‘no.’”

There are some who have yet to see the value of gaining attention and market share using real-time communications. They may be focusing on marketing efforts that are outdated or simply becoming harder and harder to use successfully.

“The point is, you'll have to convince your boss to invest in real-time content creation, because it's likely he or she doesn't consider it the most important way of gaining attention,” wrote Scott. “Most organizations overspend on advertising and sales and underinvest in social media, but nearly all organizations should be doing some combination of each. If you can help your bosses and colleagues understand this trend, they'll probably lighten up a little.”

Help them understand that real-time communications today are simply the best way to generate attention. The old-fashioned methods of buying ad space, cold-calling, begging for attention from industry trade publishers or sending emails may still have their place to some small extent, but it’s no longer where the customers are.

“[It’s about] creating something interesting, and publishing it online for free: a YouTube video, blog, research report, series of photos, Twitter stream, e-book, Facebook page, or a content rich site,” wrote Scott. “You can publish information at the moment it’s needed.”

To help persuade, look for examples from companies that are doing real-time communications and content marketing right. These are the companies that keep track of current events and viral sensations and recraft them to their benefit.

It’s not going to be an easy sell. People like to hold onto familiar things. It’s the job of technology visionaries to understand objections to new initiatives, eliminate them, and move forward.

E-learning Development Solutions:Importance Of Training & Education

Angela Merkels — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 09:35:17 +0000

The importance of training & educating employees cannot be ignored. Training and education helps improve the skills that employees have, retain talent and increase job satisfaction. Through training and education, employees acquire the skills they need to perform their jobs more effectively. This helps ensure that they reach their full potential. Well trained workers are also more productive and they make few mistakes.

Training - Training and educating employees can help a firm succeed because it impacts performance, revenue and organizational competitiveness. Unfortunately, when profits reduce or the economy slows, many companies first seek to cut their training budgets. Do not get caught up in this trap because you may end up sacrificing the long term value of your enterprise. The following are some situations when educating and training your employees is essential.

Orientation - Training your new employees will ensure that they know their roles as they start working for your company. Orientation seeks to provide employees with information about workplace procedures, policies and organizational philosophy. This is a crucial step in building a good working relationship with them. Training new employees will help you save the expense and time spent to respond to questions about routine work procedures or policies.

Job skills training - Job skills’ training is beneficial for both employees and employers. It helps improve the skills of employees, improving performance and productivity in the process. Employees who are skilled usually perform better in their jobs and have higher job satisfaction and morale. As an employer, offering jobs skills training to your employees will help you have a higher return on investment.

Workplace safety - As an employer, you should provide your employees with a safe work environment. For this reason, workplace safety training is vital. Due to the increase of workplace violence, you should train your employees how to diffuse potentially dangerous situations. Apart from offering safety training, you should also perform regular inspections to reinforce the importance of safety training.

Professional development - Through training and education, you can identify the employees who can take on more responsibilities in your enterprise. Training also prepares employees who want to advance their carriers with professional development and promotion opportunities. Since succession planning is an important aspect of long term planning, educating and training your employees should figure prominently into the future goals of your company. Professional development is also a great way to motivate your employees at any stage of their careers. Investing in promising leaders in your enterprise displays the fact that you care a lot about your enterprise and its philosophy.

Maintaining the necessary training and education will ensure that your business remains competitive. You can reduce and control the costs of training your employees by developing a comprehensive training program. You can also reduce the cost further by utilizing online employee training resources.

Custom Online employee training solutions that allow employers to assess the training and development needs of their employees also help them determine if there is a need for additional training. For a training plan to be effective, training must be desired by the employees and be beneficial for the enterprise.

Emerging eLearning Trends Of 2020

Angela Merkels — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 09:03:42 +0000

In this post we’re taking a look at the top eLearning trends of 2020, based on what our customers are asking for. In this and previous years, many voices in the world of online training have predicted a rise in Virtual Reality as a learning tool. But the reality may be that virtually every company in the world can’t afford to develop something as ambitious as VR training!

Here’s what Compliance, HR and Learning & Development departments are using for their training needs so far this year.

8 Top eLearning Trends of 2020
1) Video courses
Customers are increasingly interested in video courses to train and educate staff. This comes as no surprise with video estimated to account for 80% of global internet traffic by 2019. If 80% of all content on websites, social media posts, and blogs will be experienced as video… the 20% left may all be emoji’s ☹ 😉

As more learners access employer training on mobile devices, video is an ideal delivery method for training and education. Small mobile screens adapt better to video than other forms of technology such as html.

We have also seen a rise in employees uploading videos in work based situations, for line managers to provide feedback on as part of their training course.

2) Face to Face in combination with eLearning courses
Using eLearning during face to face training adds variety and helps keep your audience engaged. Something like game-show style eLearning involving multiple trainees is excellent for those after lunch or late Friday sessions.

Talking about eLearning during face to face sessions also helps promote it within your organisation and increases usage after in-person training courses.

Plus, it’s ideal to show trainees where to access follow-up assessments, explain how online assessments help you identify training needs and how they enable you to develop personalised training plans.

Face to face training is a good compliment to eLearning courses and can help learners understand and engage with a programme of online courses

3) Giving employees the choice on how they would like to learn.
Employers are starting to adopt a “pick and mix” approach when it comes to delivering employee training. They realise how easy it is to offer training in multiple formats.

Many of our customers now deliver their core training courses in three formats, allowing employees to learn in the best environment for them by choosing between;

Face to Face training
Video eLearning courses
Interactive online courses
Our clients are reaping the benefits of giving employees choice in how they receive training, improving the experience and their retention of knowledge.

With a good Learning Management System, it is still easy for training managers to track and report on completion of training from a variety of sources. Employees can be signed off as competent and compliant whether they learn via video courses, interactive eLearning courses or face to face training.

4) Micro-learning
Micro-learning is one often mentioned trend that seems to be much more than a fad. All our clients are asking how they can deliver training in bite-sized chunks, and encourage learners to come back time and time again.

When courses are small and learners are rewarded for their efforts, they not only complete more hours of training, but they remember more of it as well.

5) Mobile learning

Around 70% of users access performance support or learning content from a mobile device. We can see that our business-to-consumer customers are investing the most in mobile. Companies are creating “How To” product guides for their teams that are being viewed predominantly from smartphone and tablet devices.

Staff are less likely to have access to computers for training purposes in industries such as Hospitality, Construction and Hair & Beauty. Instead they are able to access training from their personal devices, switching to a laptop or PC when they are available.

This behaviour will continue to grow as long as our obsession with smartphones continues, keeping user-driven learning at the forefront.

Having training content optimised for mobile devices is already a must-have rather than a nice-to-have.

6) Onboarding training & Content make-overs
More and more customers are asking for existing content to be given a “10 years younger” make-over, updating and adding to their offline training content for delivery as interactive eLearning courses.

The most common subject for this treatment is induction and onboarding training, with companies choosing to deliver their induction programmes as a blend of face to face and online training.

Asking a new employee to sit down and work their way through a boring induction manual is never the best way to welcome them to your business. And it’s unlikely to impress on them the important aspects of their new role. See The Importance Of Training And Educating Employees Online

With increasing pressures on line managers time and high turnover of staff in some industries, engaging video content and on-brand custom eLearning adds real value to staff training.onboarding e learning courses induction training
Giving your induction material an eLearning makeover helps keep training consistent and makes a good impression as well as making your onboarding training easier to deliver

7) Direct access to experts
Clients based in multiple locations have been sharing the problem of learners who don’t have access to the subject matter experts in their organisations, during their training sessions or at other times.

Line managers may be responsible for ensuring staff complete training courses, but they may not be subject experts. Knowledge levels between managers and sites can vary too. This makes it harder to support learners properly when they have questions on a topic.

8) Instant feedback from learners
Customers are increasingly asking for learners to be able to rate their experience of online courses as they complete them.

Providing learner feedback functionality and collating test scores are reporting elements that allow learning managers to see which courses have been well received by their employees.

eLearning Trends we haven’t seen demand for
1) Social Learning
Social Learning allows learners to interact in online groups or chat rooms and ask each other questions, to share experiences that help them learn.

We haven’t seen much demand from customers asking for this option yet. Perhaps it is a fad, or maybe it is better suited to learners who sit at a computer during the day and would get more benefit from instant chat.

2) Virtual Reality
This is probably the most talked about topic in eLearning industry trends, but as yet this isn’t something our customers are looking to adopt. It’s much more common for us to be asked to gamify an eLearning course. Gamification is great for engagement and turns eLearning into fun formats like a game-show quiz and other game styles.

We suspect VR is more suited to companies with very heavy training budgets, in an effort to reduce the number of human trainers and educators they rely on. Many of our customers prefer us to act as an HR partner, recommending a blend of face to face and online training.

Hopefully you enjoyed our round-up from the coalface of business eLearning trends in 2020! We appreciate training managers and learning development professionals often want to hear more about what others are doing in practice. If you would like to pick our experts’ brains on what eLearning is recommended for your organisation, we’re happy to discuss the best technology and solutions for you today.

For hiring our elearning experts, you can contact at -
Examination Online Contact Us Form

WebRTC Could Help Put a More Personal Touch into Advertising

Angela Merkels — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 14:28:58 +0000

Real-time communications are taking the business world by storm. Using technologies such as WebRTC, a standard that allows for browser-to-browser voice and video communications without the need to download anything, workers today are engaging in conference calls, brainstorming sessions, advice and “how-to” customer support, live service across distances (healthcare workers chatting with patients remotely, for example), and much more.

WebRTC has enormous potential when it comes to customer support. We’ve already seen it with Amazon’s innovative “Mayday” button, which launches a live video session with an Amazon customer representative across the customer’s Kindle device. Business-to-business companies are using it to sell, help customers make purchasing decisions, enable maintenance on complex products and use new technologies. Going forward, expect to see it used more heavily in the business-to-consumer world for complex customer support transactions that require watching an expert (using certain features on mobile devices, for example, or replacing a filter on an appliance).

One of the really groundbreaking potential applications for real-time communications such as WebRTC, though, is in marketing and advertising. Thanks to the Internet and the proliferation of mobile devices, companies usually know where customers are when they begin researching products and services. Location-based marketing is not a new idea, but when coupled with WebRTC, the potential is enormous. Customized live “commercials” that are personalized to a shopper’s interests could potentially be interactive, helping the customer find precisely the right buying information he or she is seeking, according to a recent blog post by WebRTC.ventures, a custom design and development company.

“The main focus of advertising is to interest the consumer in your product or service,” wrote the WebRTC.ventures blogger. “One way to interest consumers in your product is to give them as much information and interactivity with the product as possible before they choose to buy it. The key is to make ads seem like part of the application, and not blatant advertising. When a real time video communication component is added to the ad, it opens a whole realm of possibilities.”

Imagine a zoo putting a link to real-time video of baby animals to attract zoo visitors who are researching opening times on the Web site. Imagine a beach resort offering real-time video of the peaceful ocean waves, blue skies and waving palm trees in front of the hotel. Restaurants could allow surfing Web site visitors to watch chefs putting the final touches on appetizing dishes before sending them out to diners. From an even more personal standpoint, customers researching high-value items on a Web site could be offered a real-time chat with a product expert to help the customer make a choice.

Businesses today need to get personal with their customers. The days of mass marketing “one size fits all” messages are over…customers want much more than that. Using real-time communications to target appealing content to potential buyers is the next generation of customized marketing and support.

WebRTC Application Development Services: How Much Does It Cost To Build?

Angela Merkels — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 13:26:59 +0000

Moving from proprietary systems to WebRTC for voice and video greatly simplifies the cost structure for any type of real time communications (RTC) project. There are few hidden or associated costs, meaning that migrating from an existing proprietary system delivering voice and video to a WebRTC infrastructure will drastically lower both capital and operational costs. But some expenses shift from being fixed-rate into a per-use model, especially when developers and businesses tap into third-party WebRTC service providers.

Expenditures for a RTC project can be broken down into five categories: Implementation, training, maintenance, licenses, and transactions. The discussion below assumes a typical RTC project initially implemented with a proprietary system requiring dedicated servers with the WebRTC-based system taking full advantage of a third-party WebRTC service provider.

1- Implementation - Estimating how long it will take a project to move from initial design specifications to production is as much art as science. That said, WebRTC provides three key advantages to accelerate project implementation and lower cost over proprietary solutions. First, WebRTC is directly accessible through APIs in any compatible browser. There's no third-party code or plug-ins that need to be setup and testing becomes a matter of "Make sure it works the same on (Google) Chrome, (Firefox) Mozilla, and Microsoft Edge" browsers. Proprietary solutions can take hours and days to setup up, while a WebRTC service is literally available for trial in 5 minutes -- the time it takes to setup a developer's account.

WebRTC Application Development is faster because everything can be done in HTML 5. Any web programmer can add voice and video to an existing web page in a matter of minutes by using example code available on the web. Refinements and testing will take more time, but it is safe to say the actually programming and testing work can happen in days and weeks instead of weeks and months as is typical with a dedicated solution operated in-house.

Finally, businesses aren't stuck with an upfront bill for proprietary solutions and dedicated server time. WebRTC development can take place in a free "sandbox" account, with costs not billed until the service goes into production.A proprietary solution is also going to suck up IT staff time for build time. HTML developers are dramatically cheaper by the hour, so there's a considerable cost savings in terms of initial setup when comparing WebRTC to a dedicated solution.

2-Training - Implementing a proprietary solution is non-trivial. One or more staff may have to be trained in a 1 to 3 day course with an associated vendor bill for the training -- maybe free if it is thrown in as a part of a package deal. WebRTC can be learned "on the fly" through a couple of days of trial and error by an HTML developer or alternatively picked up at a half day or day long training course offered through conferences such as WebRTC Expo. This probably comes out slightly in favor of WebRTC because there are a number of conference options available for training and learning more about how it is being put to use. Vendors tend to charge more for their own product events.

3-Maintenance - Buying a support contract is pretty much mandatory for a proprietary solution in order to get email and phone support along with regular software updates. Maintenance costs for WebRTC are a bit more opaque. Questions are typically fielded on a WebRTC development service provider website, with FAQs and group discussions online. Like in the proprietary world, money talks: If you are paying money for WebRTC services, you should get a faster response. Faster responses could (will) occur depending on the amount of money you are spending with the service provider.

4-Licenses - Since WebRTC is open source, there's no charge. A proprietary RTC solution typically requires dedicated hardware, but vendors are moving towards cloud solutions. In the dedicated solution vs. WebRTC service, clearly, the clear winner is WebRTC with a cost of zero.

5-Transactions - A proprietary on-site solution won't typically have a cost per transaction, but you have numerous upfront costs to get to that point. WebRTC service provider costs are a bit more complicated, with all charges falling into operational expenses. Service providers can charge on a flat rate, per user or per use of the WebAPI API call to their server, with volume driving down the cost per use. A per user per month price might start at $2 to $4 per month, depending on what services are involved/bundled in. Per-use charges for a WebRTC API call can start at fractions of a penny and go down to some multiple of tenths of a cent in volume.

When you add everything up, WebRTC development service is a much more cost-effective option than a proprietary solution. There's little to no upfront costs for licensing and installation and no bill for annual maintenance. About the only complexity to pricing out WebRTC is in figuring out what cost model and the frequency of use, since the costs shift to a operational expense that goes down in volume on a per user/per use basis.

Moving WebRTC Into Your Network Through the Front Door

Angela Merkels — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 11:41:12 +0000

As part of my work with WebRTC, I get a chance to speak to different types of companies about their WebRTC plans. When speaking with companies that have existing VoIP products and services, the conversation usually moves to how WebRTC should be added to their offering, what the additional service benefits are and how to architect the solution. The typical requirement is to leave the existing deployment untouched and bridge WebRTC into the existing network through some sort of a GW. Where should the logical function of the GW be located and what should the network architecture look like are usually the questions debated. To answer them, I decided to write this post.Moving WebRTC Into Your Network Through the Front Door

To demonstrate the consideration points and options, I will use an example of a contact center. For the sake of this example, let’s take a contact center that has both PSTN lines as well as SIP Trunks from a service provider. All traffic inside the contact center is via SIP where some of the agents are working on premise and others are home agents who are “called in” for handling contact center peak traffic.

Architecture Options when Adding WebRTC
In my discussions with customers and partners who are looking to add WebRTC into their existing networks, the architecture alternatives considered were:

1-A dedicated GW
2-Adding a WebRTC interface to their current core server
3-Adding WebRTC through an SBC

Before and After WebRTC

1-Pre WebRTC Contact Center Connectivity

Traffic comes from a service provider over SIP trunks or PSTN
All traffic in the contact center is SIP
Home agents are connected over IP-SIP but this is done in a secured and controlled manner
The contact center core server is placed inside the contact center network. Security is handled by other elements so it is protected from denial of service attacks, call fraud and other security vulnerabilities
Calls are using G.729 or G.711. Transcoding, if required, is handled in the contact center network.

2-After Adding WebRTC

Adding WebRTC into the game creates new requirements and a new type of traffic source. With WebRTC, users browsing the website of the company serviced by the contact center, can call in directly from the browser. Their traffic runs over the Internet directly to the contact center.

WebRTC includes 2 voice codecs: G.711 and Opus. These are the codecs that come within the browser. If the intention is to eliminate the need for download, calls must be initiated using one of these 2 codecs.

Since G.711 is not built for running over the open Internet as it doesn’t include resiliency, it is beneficial to initiate the calls with Opus. The optimal approach would be to run Opus end-to-end from the browser to the agent but in cases where this is not possible, it is best to keep Opus on the open Internet leg and transcode when getting into the contact center network.

The contact center is required to have a “leg” in the public Internet domain.
Quality of service is not managed. Even though in many cases the quality is good, supporting SLA requires the capacity to manage and monitor quality of experience (QoE)
Supporting Opus requires either adding a new intensive computing transcoding function or adding Opus to the agent’s client.

WebRTC is highly secured, but would you trust the technology with your financial information?

Angela Merkels — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 10:27:09 +0000

The WebRTC technology is seeing a recent surge in interest, with the increase in use cases across various sectors. We can see how easily the variety of new channels for WebRTC can be adapted to our day-to-day lives ensuring activities and tasks become ‘real time’. How broad can the uses of WebRTC become?

This allows you to send money to friends in real time. Should we rely on a service, which has been scrutinised in the past for retaining ‘Snapchats’, to ensure your financial details are securely encrypted? Is this somewhat of a big ask? By no means do we want to simply create an attack on Snapchat, as it clearly has its uses with an engaged audience regularly using the service

With this comes the question… How far can WebRTC take our real time communications and activities? At present, the boundaries are seemingly endless for communication via the web and within apps. WebRTC has been mentioned as the most secure VoIP service currently within the market. When we couple this with its potential capabilities, there is no reason why WebRTC can not become the core focus of all browser based communications. However should we be using WebRTC in applications such as Snapchat for functions such as money transfers? Issues can arise not only from the risk of being hacked but also from general user error.

We ask the question, is it sensible to use in app WebRTC functionality for sensitive information such as financial details or is this beyond what we should use WebRTC for?

WebRTC was initially built to meet real time communication demands from users and developers. Whether Google could foresee how far its uses have exceeded the initial purpose of communication, is yet to be seen. Developers have become creative in their use of WebRTC, creating applications which support audio, video, screen share, annotation tools, and a whole host of additional functions.

In reality bank transfers have become almost instant. As such, the market does not necessarily require a real time service to replace an almost real time service securely available through your bank. Money transfers will become useful when making online purchases as part of a wider WebRTC product. Sales agents will have the capability to take a website visitor through the entire purchasing process from answering initial enquiries, to assisting with the payment methods, within one application/API. In this scenario, you will not be required to store your information in an additional portal or system and would complete your purchase as normal.

We currently store our financial information in various places online. Whether it is your account details with PayPal or completing an online purchase with a retailer. Whilst every step is taken to ensure sensitive information is remained confidential, we cannot always be certain the information has not been accessed. Essentially we want all of our information recorded in as few places as possible, to ensure the risk of the information falling into the wrong hands is reduced.

WebRTC is secure and as we have heard from various industry gurus/experts such as Tsahi. However, users may not be comfortable to insert their financial information into an application, which has received scrutiny for the nature of how it operates.

Whilst we feel using WebRTC as a viable money transfer solution moving forward we do not think Snapchat will initially be trusted for this purpose. It will take a substantial amount of time for the trust to build and adoption of the facility to be accepted. As a concept it works well to send money at a click of a button but in practice it may not function as first thought.

We are slightly concerned that Snapchat are to offer a service where Millennials will be allowed to instantly share their money to contacts at a push of a button.

How WebRTC Application Development Could Be Helpful For Call Centers?

Angela Merkels — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 12:04:18 +0000

Much like the challenges faced in the past few years related to talking with CMOs, CTOs and contact center managers into bringing social channel support into the contact center, WebRTC is so new-to-market that it was proving just as difficult to justify. Here are four reasons why WebRTC Application Development must-have these features to provide exceptional customer service in the call center.

Delivers on the Promise of Cost:

Call centers no longer need to be limited by the confines of hardware or real estate. With WebRTC technology, inbound and outbound calls are routed directly into a web browser, dramatically reducing total cost of ownership by as much as 50 percent. This is because telephone systems and desktop phones are replaced with technology-enabled services, such as WebRTC, helping your call center to become more agile and more flexible while reducing costs.

Easier to Work with than Other Technologies:

When we first started on this journey, we were looking for a way to provide a no-install voice option that would transform a browser into a full-featured agent desktop with a phone without any hardware. Plugins and softphones were ruled out because they didn’t allow for an easy upgrade path. With WebRTC, you can push new features out to production and make them available to all agents as soon as they reload the web application. That said, not all browsers, especially older browsers, support WebRTC. You must continue to use flash plugins as a fall back for those browsers.

Opens the Door to Other Innovative Features:

Once call controls are part of the application there are opportunities for some creative feature development. Some interesting things happen when you get that tight integration with call control built into the application. For instance, you can tie call controls into other agent actions, so as they take action on the call you can automatically report it; whereas, in the past, you would have had to rely on a report. When we look ahead to future use cases, WebRTC opens us up to “call me now” buttons, the ability to enable agents to use WebRTC on mobile device browsers and video support.

Creates a Better User Experience:

In fact, 92 percent of consumers report that a customer service agent’s perceived “happiness” has an impact on their customer experience with the brand. It goes without saying that we keep the customer service agent experience as top-of-mind as the actual customer experience. WebRTC helps us with that goal. Not only do agents no longer need a separate phone line to handle calls, they can now have access to an integrated agent desktop experience in which everything is located in one web application, including call controls. They have all of the necessary functionality for free when they start up their browsers, no updates required.
Innovations in WebRTC don’t stop here, either. We’re always looking for ways to improve upon the features and functionality that we’ve built based on customer feedback and the successes and challenges faced.

Do you want to try "WebRTC" in your call-centres?
Consult with our WebRTC Application Developers now!

The Trends and Future of Voice Over Internet Protocol(VoIP)

Angela Merkels — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 14:02:19 +0000

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) had an illustrious introduction to telecommunications more than two decades ago. Now widely adopted for business and personal telecommunications, VoIP landscape has changed to evolve with growing mobile technologies. It has also finally encountered a challenger in the way of WebRTC. We can look at where VoIP has been, but what about where VoIP will go next?

We know that VoIP has long been the choice over Private Branch Exchange (PBX). Perhaps you’ve come across PBX technology in your research on VoIP solutions. PBX is essentially the forerunner to VoIP and is a private telephone system that utilizes the Internet and broadband. PBX is data-dependent and a form of digital delivery for multimedia communications and voice communication. PBX (and Time Division Multiplexers [TDM]) have morphed into VoIP networks. That trend is ongoing as users find the software application driven features in VoIP to be superior over PBX.

RTCWeb.in - WebRTC Application Development Service Providers | Hire WebRTC Application Developers.

Why WebRTC is an emerging technology today?

WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is also enjoying some limelight today because it supports browser-to-browser applications for voice calling, P2P file sharing and video chat without requiring external or internal plugins or codecs.

Does the evolution of WebRTC mean that VoIP will see a downward trend? According to Gartner Research statistics, the answer is no. Their data shows organizations are spending more on their VoIP solutions. Some telecommunications experts believe that growth is because of the popularity of voice. Now, providers are able to provide it much easier than ever before, which means VoIP will maintain its presence as a leader.

When it comes to global trends for 2015-2020, Perity, a communications innovator, looks at some preferences that are guiding the playing field at the moment, including analytics, convergence of VoIP, UC and other tools, browser and hosted video conferencing, and mobile devices becoming the primary VoIP handset.

We know organizations are keying in on analytics to hit their sales targets and becoming more customer-centric, and VoIP can assist in this effort. There is a major convergence happening with telephone, chat, CRM and file sync – all of which are using the same toolsets to reach their goals. VoIP assists in this integration. We also have the growing popularity of video and audio conferencing applications like Skype, Facetime and others that rely on the technology behind VoIP to make them more reliable over broadband. And finally, with the mobile phone becoming the primary handset, it’s obvious that delivering all the communication apps that people want today, VoIP is the perfect technology to offer these conveniences.

However, WebRTC is a leading technology supporting voice and video chat applications for almost every industry like- telehealth, ed-tech, finance, recruitment and more.

Mention in the comments below, which technology do you prefer the most and why?