Re: [rtcweb] Use Case draft

["Jim Barnett" <[e-mail]>]

One way to describe the use case is to let the contact center's media server/gateway serve as the webRTC endpoint.  Then all the issues of call delivery, call monitoring, etc. disappear.  They are handled by application software that sits behind the webRTC endpoint.  The company I work for makes a good living selling software that deals with all these issues - including bathroom breaks - and that's how we would tend to think of this case.  To us, it's a new kind of call/connection coming into the contact center, which we translate into SIP at the border and then handle normally. 

It's not clear to me if this use case adds any extra requirements.  We would just have to be careful not to assume that a webRTC endpoint is always a person/browser-based user agent.  It may seem a bit unsettling that the webRTC endpoint can distribute the call somewhere  else and let others listen in, but as far as I can tell that is already the case.  If Bob calls Alice with full authentication and security, he can be sure that he is connected to Alice's user agent and that no one in between can listen in, but there's nothing stopping Alice from recording the audio, or forwarding it to a third party.  So Bob could in fact be talking to Mary if that's how Alice wants to arrange things (_behind_ her user agent).  In general, Bob is assured only that he is talking to someone Alice wants him to talk to, and that no one can snoop without Alice's permission.  That's very much the way things work with the call center - you are sure that you are 1) connected securely to your bank 2) talking to someone that the bank wants you to talk to 3) being recorded or snooped on only when the bank explicitly chooses to do so.  

- Jim 

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Marshall Eubanks
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2012 11:42 PM
To: Hutton, Andrew
Cc: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [rtcweb] Use Case draft

On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 2:31 PM, Hutton, Andrew <[e-mail]> wrote:
> Whether anybody has been successful in the past with this type of use 
> case is I think irrelevant.
>
>
>
> The enterprise call centre use case is I think a vital use case 
> because it is a scenario in which one user is only concerned that they 
> can securely reach an organization/domain and is not concerned about 
> the individual within that domain  that they communicate with.  A 
> suspect quite a large percentage of RTCWEB applications will be like 
> this and it is not covered in the current use case draft.

I agree that this is a very useful use case and one I think is going to get a lot of traction. There is a very solid business case for this.  However, I have a fair amount of experience with a video call center for a client, and it is not as simple as it might seem.

The essence of course is that you get the next available person, i.e., it is anycast. Determining who the next available person is is not trivial, nor is error recovery. (If I call you, and you don't answer or the call drops or whatever,  I can leave a message or try later. If I call a help desk, and this happens, I want a new agent, ideally
automatically.) Call forwarding (e.g., first tier to second tier technical support) is essential, and it may be anycast or directed.
There are also some security oddities  - if I am connecting from home, I may need to authenticate, use a credit card, etc. If I am connecting from inside a store, and providing in store video technical support is big part of the market, then the store authenticates me off line and the call really should just be a button push, which implies that the store has previously authenticated some sort of master session. In addition, unlike most video calls, in the enterprise call center a supervisor may need to be able to monitor (i.e., watch) a call, and in some circumstances (financial or medical calls, for example) there will need to be third party recording. I believe that  these details would be different from the typical RTCWEB scenario.

Also, there will be a temptation to do the anycasting by the techniques used to load balance servers in a data center, but I think that may not be sufficient. The call "center" may in fact be spread completely across the planet (daytime support in the US, nighttime support in India, for example) and be on multiple autonomous systems (and even from people's homes), which gives rise to some of the transport issues NVO3 may face, but without any opportunity for packet tagging. Plus, there will complicated rules about who can be selected next. RTCWEB shouldn't worry about the intricacies of bathroom break policies; these complexities should be dealt with by an enterprise-side database, which to me (together with some of the other issues above) suggests that this would probably benefit from  API support.

Regards
Marshall


>
>
>
> So I think we need it.
>
>
>
> Regards
>
> Andy
>
>
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>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On 
> Behalf Of Igor Faynberg
> Sent: 30 April 2012 17:41
> To: [e-mail]
>
>
> Subject: Re: [rtcweb] Use Case draft
>
>
>
> Without numbers it is impossible to argue, but, if we talk about the 
> perceived need, I disagree.  Think of the people who travel abroad and 
> cannot call the 800 number. (I routinely use Web interface for calls 
> when
> traveling.)
>
>
>
> I am all for  the use case, as described by Jim.
>
> Igor
>
> On 4/30/2012 9:54 AM, Tim Panton wrote:
>
> ...
>
> I can't tell you the actual numbers, but when presented with the 
> choice of calling a toll free number
>
> or clicking a button marked "free internet call" - almost no-one on a 
> real, busy site clicked the button.
>
> ( for every button click there were several orders of magnitude more 
> 0800 calls from that page).
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>
>
>
>
> So from my perspective this is a legacy interop use case with almost 
> zero user acceptance.
>
>
>
> (as far as I can see no-one has made this use-case desirable in 
> practice
> yet.)
>
> Tim.
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