Johannesburg, 25 Jun 2015
High-quality videoconferencing is leaving the boardroom and hitting smart devices everywhere - from your smartphone and up. And the smart telecoms providers are getting in on the act.
It all begins with a little thing called WebRTC, says Rob Lith, business development director at cloud-based PBX provider, Connection Telecom.
What is WebRTC?
WebRTC provides browsers with real-time communications (RTC) capabilities through simple application programming interfaces, Lith explains.
"It totally revolutionises videoconferencing, to the point where you no longer need special hardware, locales or applications. You just click on the URL sent to you in the videoconferencing invitation and join the meeting straight from any video-enabled device."
How the smart telcos do it
What then happens to your sophisticated, budget-busting investment in VC hardware and software? You can keep it, because WebRTC is flexible like that.
"The smart solutions are using WebRTC to tie in device-based video along with all other visual communications platforms such as Cisco, Polycom, LifeSize, Google Hangouts, or Microsoft Lync," Lith says.
"Viewed from one perspective, it is far more inclusive than classic videoconferencing - which is an elite and dated solution because of its cost and inflexibility. From another, it beats peer-to-peer solutions like Skype, as it ties into videoconferencing bridge solutions that offer managed quality."
Coming soon
Connection Telecom is currently adding visual communications to its bouquet of hosted communications services that include VOIP, collaboration, chat and video conferencing says Lith.
"We currently have Vidyo, an enterprise HD video conferencing platform, which does all the inclusive connecting of devices and boardrooms, WebRTC will be next and is already available for developers who want to integrate their applications with our Vidyo platform," Lith says.
"We call it visual communications, because it has distinguished itself from boardroom videoconferencing and 'Skyping' in important and valuable ways."
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