In the last couple of years, the way people and businesses communicate and collaborate has changed significantly. At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, video conference calls evolved as the go-to way for business communication. A Gartner report confirms, by 2024, only 25% of meetings will take place in person, down from 60% today (source). Marketsandmarkets, a leading tech consulting firm, also confirms this trend, it says that the global video conferencing market size will grow to the tune of US$ 22.5 billion by 2026 with a 19.7% CAGR growth rate (source). However, this also intensified the clash for dominance between different between Zoom and WebRTC based tech players.
To cater to the growing needs for new-age video conferencing solutions, there is an increased focus on new industry standards. As a result, WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) has become the latest web standard. Integrating real-time communication capabilities through the web browser, WebRTC makes click-to-start meetings possible without downloading any dedicated app or plug-in. Moreover, it has taken over the conventional approach of using proprietary signaling and infrastructure as deployed by platforms like Zoom to battle over standards and codecs in the early phase. Let us examine how WebRTC does this.