The$True$Meaning$of$the$Voice1...
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The True Meaning of the Voice Enabled Web Keith R. McFarlane (@krmc)
Transcript of The$True$Meaning$of$the$Voice1...
The True Meaning of the Voice-‐Enabled Web Keith R. McFarlane (@krmc)
• Introduc8on
• WebRTC in the Contact Center
• LiveOps Browser VoIP Implementa8on
• Looking Ahead
Agenda
Remember Convergence?
“The evolution and convergence of technologies have blurred the lines that once separated telecoms players from the world of information technology, and the two sectors are on a collision course.”
From McKinsey’s B2B 2015: The future role of telcos in ICT markets by Diehl, Fagan, Langen and Loebel
Voice Technologies Have Evolved
PSTN Private TDM or VoIP TaaS / Public Internet VoIP
PBX-‐based Call Center Call Center SoMware CCaaS
Premise PBX Premise IP-‐PBX Hosted IP-‐PBX
Desk Phone So+phone Browser-‐based Voice
Telecom convergence has been forced forward by Internet technologies
– The telecom group was once a “walled garden” within or apart from IT
– Walls have ben coming down in over the last 20 years
• Reduces costs – Price of public Internet will always be lower than PSTN.
• Increases deployment reach – Everyone has a browser, and all browsers will eventually support full-‐duplex
voice.
• Enables new applica?ons – Web standards have a history of enabling new applica8ons, and voice
innova8ons within the browser are no different.
• In short: the voice-‐enabled web has the poten2al to accomplish everything we thought “convergence” would accomplish when we started talking about it in the ’90s
Why is the voice-‐enabled web valuable?
WebRTC in the Contact Center
• Deployment and Maintenance complexity – Upgrades dependent upon implementa8on
• Quality and consistency problems – Codecs varied by implementa8on
• Lack of standards for developers – No standard desktop integra8on API – Behaviors and capabili8es varied widely
• Infrastructure elements costly and/or difficult to manage – Adobe Media Server – Adobe Cirrus Service (Hosted, P2P only) – openRTMFP/Cumulus – open source RTMFP Server
Barriers to Large-‐Scale Desktop VoIP
• Built into the browser – No other installa8on needed – No components (e.g. Java applets) to download – JavaScript API is natural and accessible for web developers – Mobile browser support (phones, tablets)
• Based on open standards – Unlike Flash, not under one company’s control
• Standard specifies codecs, reducing uncertainty – Voice -‐ G.711, G.722, iLBC, and iSAC – Video – VP8 (+ H.264? IETF vote results?)
• Supports both peer-‐to-‐peer and intermediated communica8on
• Everyone is gehng into the WebRTC business – Vendors: Avaya, Cisco, GENBAND… – Open Source: FreeSWITCH, Asterisk
Why WebRTC?
WebRTC P2P Connec8on
Web Server
Signaling Signaling
Voice/Video/Data
• This is the WebRTC “Triangle”
• Signaling managed by Ajax/Comet or WebSockets
• Poten8al problems for the contact center – No access to voice path – can’t record
WebRTC Intermediated Connec8on
Web Server Caller Signaling
Agent Signaling
• WebRTC “Trapezoid”
• Signaling s8ll managed by Ajax/Comet or WebSockets
• Two triangles with media gateway, one for each party
• Voice/video passed through, recorded, etc.
• Poten8al problems for the contact center – Latency – must closely manage any audio processing delays
Media Gateway
Voice/Video/Data Voice/Video/Data
Web Server
• No phone required – Expensive desktop phones can be removed from the agent desktop
• Reduced telephony charges – Fewer calls to toll-‐free numbers; replaced by direct connect from the browser – No more extra line for home agents
• Applica8on convergence – Fewer soMware race condi8ons when both media and data paths are managed
by the browser – Faster development of custom agent applica8ons
Implica8ons
• Standard is s8ll seoling – API becoming firm, but uncertainty s8ll exists in some areas (e.g. video codec)
• Browser support incomplete – Internet Explorer not yet supported
• IE is s8ll a factor in the enterprise • MicrosoM proposing alterna8ve to WebRTC (CU-‐WebRTC)
– Safari not supported
• Call center agent desktops might need to be upgraded – Agent worksta8ons are not changed oMen – Bare-‐minimum configura8ons might have audio quality issues
Challenges
LiveOps Browser VoIP Implementa8on
• Two lines of business – Cloud based contact center plaporm and applica8ons
• Bring your own agents – Business Process Outsourcer (BPO) for call center agent services
• Independent contractor agents
• Features – Mul8ple inbound/outbound media channels: PSTN or VoIP voice, email, web chat,
SMS, Twioer, Facebook – Interac8on flow processing – Cradle-‐to-‐grave repor8ng – Voice and screen recording – Agent, Admin, Supervisor applica8ons
• Constraints – 24/7 availability; no planned down8me – Must support large, unpredictable bursts of ac8vity
• Some stats: – >300 Customers – >40,000 registered agents – >100,000,000 interac8ons processed per year
Capabili8es
15 © 2009 LiveOps, Inc.
• We are always available for customer contact on any channel – Highly distributed system with limited scope of failure of independent
components – Releases and changes happen with systems online – no scheduled down8me
• Mul8-‐tenancy with shared infrastructure
• Agile soMware development – Ship early and refine
• Open Source preferred over proprietary/commercial – Legal review of all open source projects used
Engineering Philosophy
Global Deployment
• Provide a no-‐install voice op8on
• Connect via Public Internet or direct connec8vity infrastructure – Public Internet will be adequate for most use cases – Large customers may demand QoS assurances that public Internet cannot
provide
• Maintain voice path quality – Callers have low tolerance for audio quality degrada8on, jioer, echo, etc.
• Support older browsers to the extent possible – Call centers are slow to upgrade; some contact centers s8ll run IE7
• Provide for easy move to newer technology – Upgrade of browser should provide improvements without changes to our app
Agent VoIP Requirements
• SoMphone – Examples: X-‐Lite, SJPhone, BroadsoM Business Communicator – Our partners provide various SIP endpoint op8ons – Didn’t want to introduce installable soMware to our plaporm
• Non-‐Flash browser plug-‐ins – Examples: N-‐SIP, Voipfone, Gtalk, SureVoIP – No real advantage over separate soMphone installer -‐-‐ requires just as much installa8on and
maintenance work – Generally paired with a VoIP subscrip8on service
• Flash-‐based APIs – Examples: Ribbit, Gizmo – Flash is deployed broadly – Version differences cause some clients to behave unpredictably – Can be difficult for IT to manage
• Na8ve WebRTC – Preferable, but requires investment
• Third-‐party voice API providers – Examples: Twilio, Plivo, Phono – Provide mul8ple op8ons (Flash or WebRTC), abstrac8ng the differences with their client APIs
Endpoint Op8ons Considered
• 2000 – LiveOps founded in Florida as a BPO
• 2001 – Callcast founded in California as a contact center tech service
• 2003 – LiveOps/Callcast companies technologies merge
• 2005 – SaaS/PaaS business launched, larger customers added
• 2007 – Fortune 500 customers added
• 2008 – PCI Compliance
• 2009 – Enterprise Agent product launched, con8nued growth
• 2010 –REST API and Salesforce.com integra8on launched
• 2011 – Integrated mul8channel tech stack, Data Exchange product launched
• 2012 – LiveOps Applica8on Server project started and launched
• 2013 – LiveOps Browser-‐based VoIP Support Released
LiveOps Browser VoIP Timeline
POTS Phones
SIP Phones
So+phones
Ribbit Prototype
Twilio Hack
• Twilio Client API abstracts differences between non-‐standard WebRTC implementa8ons in Chrome and Firefox
• For IE and other non-‐WebRTC browsers, Twilio Client API provides fallback to Flash-‐based VoIP
• Per-‐minute telephony prices compe88ve with other services / approaches
• Twilio has great market momentum – Brand is well known for telephony innova8on – High probability that they will keep up with and influence evolving WebRTC
standard
Our choice: Twilio
Applica8on Integra8on for Browser VoIP
Browser
LiveOps Engage Applica8on
LiveOps Desktop API (DAPI)
DAPI Twilio
Connector
Other 3rd Party Conn.
Na8ve WebRTC Conn.
Twilio JS API
WebRTC API or Flash Plugin
LiveOps/Twilio Integra8on for Agent VoIP
• Inbound call is received by LiveOps
• Applica8on data is sent to desktop via LiveOps proprietary data channel
• LiveOps extends a PSTN call to Twilio to connect with agent
• Twilio finds agent’s registered Twilio Client instance and opens voice path
• Caller is conferenced with agent by LiveOps plaporm
800 or DID inbound call terminates at LiveOps (PSTN)
LiveOps selects agent and sends Call to Twilio Extension (PSTN)
Call Data is sent via Desktop API to LiveOps integrated agent desktop via Public Internet
Twilio sends VoIP call (WebRTC or Flash) to LiveOps Engage desktop client via Public Internet
SIP
Data
PSTN
Legend
In October 2013, we enabled WebRTC for a 500-‐agent call center
Costs at 10M minutes/mo.
PSTN Toll-‐free
Caller Agent
$0.02/min. $0.01/min.
Local DID
PSTN Toll-‐free
Caller Agent
$0.02/min. $0.01/min.
Local DID
$0.0025/min.
WebRTC
PSTN Toll-‐free
Caller Agent
$0.02/min. $0.005/min.
SIP
$0.0025/min.
WebRTC
WebRTC
Caller Agent
$0.0025/min.
$0.005/min.
$0.0025/min.
WebRTC SIP
$0.005/min.
$300,000 / mo.
$325,000 / mo.
$275,000 / mo.
$150,000 / mo.
Looking Ahead
• WebRTC “Call me now” buoon
• Agent on mobile device – Firefox and Chrome both support WebRTC on mobile browser – ABI Research: “4.7 billion mobile WebRTC devices will be sold by 2018”
• Collabora8on/Co-‐browsing – Exploring use of TogetherJS
• Video support
Future Use Cases
