User Reachability in Islands of WebRTC Communication Apps

Abstract

Recent progress in Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) promotes multi-apps environment by creating islands of communication apps where users of one website or service cannot easily communicate with those of another. We describe the architecture and implementation of a multi-platform system to do user reachability in multiple communication services where users decide how they want to be reached on multiple apps, e.g. in an organization that has voice-over-IP, web conferencing and messaging from di®erent vendors. We argue for user and endpoint driven reachability policies and cross-app interactions, instead of pair-wise service federation or global location service. Our architecture separates the user contacts from reachability apps, and has several independent and non-interoperable WebRTC-based apps for two-way and multi-party multimedia communication. Our software is implemented using HTML5 and JavaScript, and using a cross-platform development tool, runs as native apps on mobile as well as personal computers. Our°exible implementation can be used for enterprise or personal communications, or as a white-labeled app for consumers of a business.