Say hello to real-time communication in Firefox Beta

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Ian Small – CEO, Communications Services at Telefónica and Chairman of TokBox

15 October 2014: Today, I’m incredibly pleased to announce a partnership between Telefónica and Mozilla which introduces “Firefox Hello” – a seamless real-time video communication feature – directly into the Firefox Beta browser.

Download it here.

Firefox Hello makes it easy to communicate with friends and family who might not have the same video chat service, software or hardware as you.

As many of you will know, Telefónica and Mozilla are no strangers to each other. We’re a big open web advocate and been strong supporters of Firefox OS from the beginning. We already provide (or have plans to) terminals based on this open mobile operating system with 16 of our operators around the world. Over the last few months, we have extended our relationship with Mozilla to pair Telefónica’s core competency in real-time communications with Firefox using open web standard WebRTC technology from Telefónica subsidiary TokBox.

We acquired Silicon Valley-based TokBox in late 2012 in order to become an early mover in the WebRTC space and bring greater scale to TokBox’s world-leading video communications platform. We know that the communications landscape is changing at lightning pace. Tomorrow’s communications experiences will be increasingly varied, digital, and app-based.

The use of TokBox’s technology is a part of our strategy to partner, disrupt and innovate to offer digital services that are truly reflective of a modern digital telco.

This partnership with Mozilla, making the most of our new approach to and capability for digital innovation, is the perfect example of that in action.

Firefox Hello makes it easy to communicate with friends and family who might not have the same video chat service, software or hardware as you. It’s free to make voice and video calls and there’s no need to download software, plugins or even create an account. We’re rolling out Hello over the next few weeks, and it will be ready to use as soon as you open Firefox Beta. You’ll be able to connect with anyone who has a WebRTC-enabled browser, such as Firefox, Chrome or Opera. Please bear in mind that we’re still developing and tweaking, so expect the product to evolve before we make it available to a wider audience.

For more information on Firefox Hello visit the Mozilla ‘future releases’ blog here:

https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases

Download Firefox Beta here:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/#beta