WebRTC Conference Wrapup

Some tidbits from the WebRTC Conference I just attended.

I just came back from Paris where I took part in the WebRTC Conference hosted by Upperside.

There was a lot going on during the conference – I won't be trying to sum it up neatly here – I don't think I am up to it. I will leave the long and arduous insights for some future posts – more than one.

What I will do, is put here a few bullet points of things that resonated with me during these sessions:

• SIP is now considered as "legacy". WebRTC is the innovator, disruptor, new kid in the block
• SIP failed to deliver on its promise – it is too slow to change: almost every new service idea requires standards rewriting, code changes, redeployments, etc.
• OTTs have more to lose than Telcos from WebRTC because they rely on money made from interconnect (think Skype Out)
• Trust and identity are missing from WebRTC by design - we lose something due to it. There will be those who will come to fill in the gaps – carriers can do that
• WebRTC will make setting up a telephony service as easy as setting up a blog
• You either build a pure web service with WebRTC or you try to map it into the current carrier world of PSTN and IMS. I think there is more opportunity somewhere in-between these extremes than in these obvious two options
• Web and SIP standards don't match - not in signaling and not in media. This is a problem of sorts
• WebRTC is both revolutionary and yet another access protocol
• Gateways were all the rage during the conference. I must say that is frustrating. I think there's a lot more interesting infrastructure to WebRTC services than gateways
• Emergency and regulation are the best excuses not to use WebRTC
• The dial tone is missing in WebRTC. The W3C is working to remedy that with push additions to HTML5
• Universities have all the fun. I'd like to be a student again
• There are some real, important enterprises looking to use WebRTC and deploy it (hint: banks)
• WebRTC needs the smartphone and the smartphone needs WebRTC
• Lots of challenges for WebRTC on mobile

The above are mostly "keywords" at best. Feel free to contact me and tell me what focus do you want me to take of these issues moving forward – I promise to write on these topics more.