IETF stands for Internet Engineering Task Force.
The IETF is the standards organization responsible for developing the internet's core protocols. In the WebRTC context, the IETF defines the protocol stack that underlies WebRTC through the RTCWeb working group.
IETF's role in WebRTC
While the W3C defines the JavaScript APIs, the IETF defines the protocols:
- ICE (RFC 8445) for NAT traversal
- STUN (RFC 5389) and TURN (RFC 5766) for connectivity
- SRTP (RFC 3711) for media encryption
- DTLS-SRTP for key exchange
- SDP (RFC 4566) for session description
- JSEP for the offer/answer model
- Codec requirements (which audio/video codecs are mandatory to implement)
The IETF also hosts newer WebRTC-adjacent work like WHIP/WHEP and MoQ.
