WebRTC Conf & Expo - Acme Packet
Chad Hart of Acme Packet discusses Acme Packet's role in WebRTC and how the company bridges the gap between legacy solutions and WebRTC. Chad provides insights into some of the challenges of WebRTC and how Acme Packet tries to overcome these to provide enhanced value to customers.
Blair Pleasant: Hi. This is Blair Pleasant. I am in San Francisco at the WebRTC Expo and with me is Chad Hart. Chad is Director of Product Marketing for Acme Packet. Tell me about Acme Packet's role in WebRTC and what kinds of solutions you are offering.
Chad Hart: At Acme Packet, our products fundamentally are about delivering trusted first class real time communication sessions. WebRTC is about delivering those sessions basically to web browsers. Historically what we do is really bridge communications islands. Historically, it has been between service providers or service providers and enterprises. Within enterprises, there is this huge population of two billion internet users out there most of whom have access to web browsers to communicate. We are trying to bridge basically the communications islands to those two billion internet users. The product we have to do that basically does, can talk, SIP and some of the traditional telecom and telephony protocols, and also talk to WebRTC using web-based standards and using WebRTC and even using some of the precursors to WebRTC that exist out there, too.
Blair Pleasant: What are some of the biggest challenges that you are trying to overcome?
Chad Hart: In terms of the product, the standards are very immature. I think that is probably one of the bigger challenges. Apple hasn't thrown in their support. Microsoft has a different variation. WebRTC itself doesn't include any standards or any signaling for doing things like call set-up and addressing; doing simple things like, "hey I am trying to call you; I want to hear a ring-back tone or a busy signal if you are not available." None of that exists in WebRTC. Those things do exist inside the SIP protocol and other protocols. So some of the challenges that we are challenged with is how do we extend some of those and what are some of the models where it does or does not make sense to use protocols like SIP within the browser. We have different methods we can do that. We have web standards, more web-like oriented ways of doing that to hook into our infrastructures, to simulate some of that call control and addressing. We are also working on ways to extend SIP into the browser with technologies like SIP over WebSockets.
Blair Pleasant: So tell me about the Happy button.
Chad Hart: So the Happy button is an idea, actually I will give credit to Andy Ory, our CEO, coined this term probably over a year ago, but the idea is, say I am here at the conference. Actually, I just bought a house, I have a lot of financial transactions going on; I need to make sure I have enough money in my account. I log into my bank app and I say, "oh wow, I have a problem." It's not obvious for me to figure out and I really just want to talk to an agent to absolve this problem right away. Today, if you want to do that, I need to pop out of my app. I am probably going to have to go and look up the bank's phone number. I have to navigate through all these different menus. I have to cut and paste that phone number or remember it and then go to my dial pad, dial it in, pick up. Now I have to go through an IVR, which is going to take several minutes. In order for me to actually talk to a person, it's going to take several minutes. Then I have got to explain to them what my issue is and what I see and spend all that other time, so it really takes a long time. Wouldn't it be nice if there was just a Happy button on there? When I have a problem I want to talk to a real person and just resolve this quick: boom, hit the button. You are talking to an agent and they can see everything on my screen; my problem. They fix my issue and it goes away.
That's really what we are talking about. We see this as one of the really exciting applications of WebRTC for enterprises, contact centers or even service providers to enable this sort of thing.
Blair Pleasant: Now contact center vendors already provide similar types of capabilities, so what does WebRTC bring to the table that isn't there right now?
Chad Hart: What I am kind of describing here is a click-to-call type functionality. That does exist with technologies like Flash. The problem with that is Adobe is moving away from those, toward more HTML5 standards, and they do require plug-ins, and they do not always work consistently or well on mobile. So it introduces a lot of problems.
The idea of WebRTC really just kind of makes all that easier by embedding it inside the browser and making it standard and really kind of a universal functionality is the goal. So because it lowers the bar and makes the experience much more seamless, and addresses a larger market, we do expect that there will be a lot more portion use of WebRTC and technologies like that where there hasn't necessarily been in the past.
Blair Pleasant: Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Tags
Start YourCustomized Search
SOLUTION AREA
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
- 8x8 (40) Apply 8x8 filter
- Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (50) Apply Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise filter
- AT&T (44) Apply AT&T filter
- AudioCodes (49) Apply AudioCodes filter
- Avaya (397) Apply Avaya filter
- Cisco (574) Apply Cisco filter
- Dell (11) Apply Dell filter
- Five9 (54) Apply Five9 filter
- Fuze (39) Apply Fuze filter
- Genesys (100) Apply Genesys filter
- HP (98) Apply HP filter
- IBM (171) Apply IBM filter
- Jabra (9) Apply Jabra filter
- Logitech (56) Apply Logitech filter
- Lumen (4) Apply Lumen filter
- Masergy (50) Apply Masergy filter
- Microsoft (766) Apply Microsoft filter
- Mitel (233) Apply Mitel filter
- NEC (128) Apply NEC filter
- Nectar (58) Apply Nectar filter
- Polycom (95) Apply Polycom filter
- Ramp (37) Apply Ramp filter
- RingCentral (126) Apply RingCentral filter
- Sennheiser (18) Apply Sennheiser filter
- Slack (13) Apply Slack filter
- Tata Communications (59) Apply Tata Communications filter
- Unify (186) Apply Unify filter
- Vonage Business (80) Apply Vonage Business filter
- Yealink (8) Apply Yealink filter
- Zoom (21) Apply Zoom filter
- Acme Packet (24) Apply Acme Packet filter
- Allworx (2) Apply Allworx filter
- Arkadin (22) Apply Arkadin filter
- Aspect (34) Apply Aspect filter
- BT (25) Apply BT filter
- CaféX (8) Apply CaféX filter
- CallTower (14) Apply CallTower filter
- Clarity Connect (10) Apply Clarity Connect filter
- Continuant (1) Apply Continuant filter
- Damaka (4) Apply Damaka filter
- Dialogic (5) Apply Dialogic filter
- Dimension Data (44) Apply Dimension Data filter
- Empirix (11) Apply Empirix filter
- Enghouse Interactive (17) Apply Enghouse Interactive filter
- Inference Solutions (9) Apply Inference Solutions filter
- IntelePeer (27) Apply IntelePeer filter
- IR (11) Apply IR filter
- Jive (21) Apply Jive filter
- Kurmi Software (21) Apply Kurmi Software filter
- Lifesize (33) Apply Lifesize filter
- Lightware (3) Apply Lightware filter
- Mavenir (6) Apply Mavenir filter
- Modality Systems (8) Apply Modality Systems filter
- Momentum (36) Apply Momentum filter
- Netfortris (5) Apply Netfortris filter
- NetSapiens (6) Apply NetSapiens filter
- NewVoiceMedia (31) Apply NewVoiceMedia filter
- Nureva (26) Apply Nureva filter
- NUWAVE (5) Apply NUWAVE filter
- Orange (32) Apply Orange filter
- OVCC (8) Apply OVCC filter
- Panasonic (18) Apply Panasonic filter
- PanTerra Networks (9) Apply PanTerra Networks filter
- ScanSource (21) Apply ScanSource filter
- SIPPIO (3) Apply SIPPIO filter
- Snom (20) Apply Snom filter
- Star2Star (8) Apply Star2Star filter
- StarLeaf (12) Apply StarLeaf filter
- Tadiran Telecom (2) Apply Tadiran Telecom filter
- TekVizion (9) Apply TekVizion filter
- Unimax (7) Apply Unimax filter
- Verint (41) Apply Verint filter
- Voice4Net (2) Apply Voice4Net filter
- VOSS (85) Apply VOSS filter
- Voxbone (14) Apply Voxbone filter
- West (28) Apply West filter
- XO Communications (3) Apply XO Communications filter
- Yorktel (17) Apply Yorktel filter
- Zultys (2) Apply Zultys filter
- 3CX (8) Apply 3CX filter
- ADDASOUND (1) Apply ADDASOUND filter
- Aerohive (1) Apply Aerohive filter
- Aryaka (1) Apply Aryaka filter
- Asurion (22) Apply Asurion filter
- Avnet (7) Apply Avnet filter
- Bandwidth (5) Apply Bandwidth filter
- Calabrio (5) Apply Calabrio filter
- Consilium Software (13) Apply Consilium Software filter
- Drum (5) Apply Drum filter
- ESI (6) Apply ESI filter
- Esna (16) Apply Esna filter
- Exinda (2) Apply Exinda filter
- EZuce (3) Apply EZuce filter
- GUnify (6) Apply GUnify filter
- Highfive (4) Apply Highfive filter
- Huawei (47) Apply Huawei filter
- Imagicle (3) Apply Imagicle filter
- IPCortex (1) Apply IPCortex filter
- KnoahSoft (1) Apply KnoahSoft filter
- KOVA (1) Apply KOVA filter
- Logmein (9) Apply Logmein filter
- Metropolis Technologies (4) Apply Metropolis Technologies filter
- Mutare (2) Apply Mutare filter
- NextPlane (27) Apply NextPlane filter
- Ooma (16) Apply Ooma filter
- Patton (11) Apply Patton filter
- Radish Systems (1) Apply Radish Systems filter
- Radisys (3) Apply Radisys filter
- Shango (1) Apply Shango filter
- SMART (163) Apply SMART filter
- Stack8 (1) Apply Stack8 filter
- Swyx (1) Apply Swyx filter
- TrueConf (4) Apply TrueConf filter
- UJET (13) Apply UJET filter
- Voximplant (3) Apply Voximplant filter
CONTENT TYPE
- BC Expert Insights Market (43) Apply BC Expert Insights Market filter
- BC Expert Insights Objective - Vendor Neutral (42) Apply BC Expert Insights Objective - Vendor Neutral filter
- BC Expert Insights Planning (15) Apply BC Expert Insights Planning filter
- BC Expert Insights Solution (12) Apply BC Expert Insights Solution filter
- BC Expert Insights Vendor (80) Apply BC Expert Insights Vendor filter
- BC Expert Insights Vendor Solution (145) Apply BC Expert Insights Vendor Solution filter
- BC Expert Roundtable (133) Apply BC Expert Roundtable filter
- Bcs Webinar (0)
- Bcs Webinar Registration (0)
- Best Practice (38) Apply Best Practice filter
- Buyer Guide (14) Apply Buyer Guide filter
- Case Study (29) Apply Case Study filter
- Executive Interview (145) Apply Executive Interview filter
- Expert Roundtable (450) Apply Expert Roundtable filter
- Guest Contributions (35) Apply Guest Contributions filter
- Multimedia (38) Apply Multimedia filter
- News Analysis (2081) Apply News Analysis filter
- Newsfeed Article (1303) Apply Newsfeed Article filter
- Newsfeed Article (1) Apply Newsfeed Article filter
- Thought Leadership (21) Apply Thought Leadership filter
- Vendor Collateral (211) Apply Vendor Collateral filter
- Vendor Resource Best Practices (24) Apply Vendor Resource Best Practices filter
- Vendor Resource Buyers Guides (2) Apply Vendor Resource Buyers Guides filter
- Vendor Resource Multimedia Content (4) Apply Vendor Resource Multimedia Content filter
- Vendor Resource White Paper (4) Apply Vendor Resource White Paper filter
- Webinar (13) Apply Webinar filter
- Webinars (7) Apply Webinars filter
- White Paper (64) Apply White Paper filter
MORE FILTERS
INDUSTRY
- Banking And Investment (800) Apply Banking And Investment filter
- Education (446) Apply Education filter
- Energy And Utilities (487) Apply Energy And Utilities filter
- Finance (12) Apply Finance filter
- Government (675) Apply Government filter
- Healthcare (482) Apply Healthcare filter
- Hospitality (180) Apply Hospitality filter
- Insurance (100) Apply Insurance filter
- Manufacturing (704) Apply Manufacturing filter
- Media/Publishing (422) Apply Media/Publishing filter
- None (43) Apply None filter
- Professional Services (745) Apply Professional Services filter
- Retail & Distribution (798) Apply Retail & Distribution filter
- Technology (1611) Apply Technology filter
- Transportation (110) Apply Transportation filter
Comments
There are currently no comments on this article.
You must be a registered user to make comments