Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) is changing the way people communicate over the Web by enabling developers to more easily integrate real-time communications on websites, mobile Web apps or video conferencing systems. WebRTC makes complex real-time communications technology available to everyone, driving a wave of new communications services that significantly improves user choice.

Together with our partner Telenor we are announcing the creation of the WebRTC Competency Center. The main goal of the center is to evolve the Mozilla WebRTC software stack into the leading WebRTC stack by joining forces with communications industry leaders. These leaders will contribute software engineering, domain knowledge, and other resources into the center. The purpose of this is to ensure WebRTC continues to enable operators and app developers to build innovative communication experiences.

With the IETF now requiring browsers and devices to support both H.264 and VP8 video codecs, and Microsoft recently pledging support for the closely related ORTC standard, WebRTC shows great promise as a universal communications technology across all platforms and devices.

Telenor and future WebRTC Competency Center partners will contribute to the core Mozilla WebRTC stack. With a stake in the development of WebRTC, partners will influence the future direction of the WebRTC standards and help balance the supported and optimized use-cases, for example, the interoperability with Telecom infrastructures (voice/video, codecs, in-net TURN, etc.) and peer-to-peer video conferencing. As the Mozilla WebRTC stack is open source, developers are free to integrate it into their products and services.

“At Mozilla we’re focused on advancing the Web as a platform for innovation and we see WebRTC having the potential to power all communications over the Web,” said Andreas Gal, CTO of Mozilla. “As one of the early pioneers of WebRTC, we’re excited to be partnering with Telenor to establish this competency center to build WebRTC into a universal technology that everyone can easily integrate into their products.”

The focus areas of the WebRTC Competency Center will be set jointly by its partners on a yearly basis and will initially have locations in Mountain View, CA, and Oslo, Norway.

Here’s what some of the early partners had to say about the WebRTC Competency Center:

“Telenor is committed to invest in new communication technologies, and views WebRTC as a great opportunity for innovation. We are very excited about expanding our partnership with Mozilla, and hosting the new WebRTC Competency Center in Oslo. Our engineers have been working with WebRTC for more than 2 years already, and we hope our contribution can bring WebRTC one step closer to becoming a widespread communication standard. In Oslo there is already a cluster of companies working with WebRTC, and we hope to include them in the work of the center.” – Rolv-Erik Spilling, CEO Telenor Digital

“Cisco’s collaboration with Mozilla to break down the barriers to WebRTC adoption has resulted in many key firsts – WebRTC calls using OpenH264 integrated into Firefox between browsers as well as between Firefox and existing video hardware on Cisco’s Project Squared. We look forward to the more knowledgeable implementers of WebRTC technology that will be created by Mozilla’s launching of the WebRTC Competency Center with Telenor.” – Jonathan Rosenberg, CTO, Cisco Collaboration

For questions about how to get involved or join the WebRTC Competency Center email webrtc-cc@mozilla.com or oslowebrtc@telenordigital.com.