Network@Web

Intro

A review of existing or proposed Web specifications that have strong intersections with the networking layer

Areas of network intersections

• Network transfer
• Metrics & monitoring
• Hints & control
• Local & private networks
• Network-sensitive consumers

Fetch / XMLHttpRequest

• JS API to enable HTTP operations with CORS support
• WHATWG fetch spec, WHATWG XHR spec
• Available in all modern browsers

WebSocket

• JS API to enable bi-directional network operations on top of the WebSockets protocol (TCP-wrapper)
• in WHATWG HTML spec
• Available in all modern browsers

WebRTC Data-channel

• JS API to enable peer-to-peer bi-directional network operations on top of SCTP (UDP- and TCP-like capable)
• in W3C WebRTC spec
• Available in all modern browsers

WebRTC Audio/Video real-time streams

• JS API to enable peer-to-peer bi-directional audio/video real-time streaming on top of RTP
• in W3C WebRTC spec
• Available in all modern browsers

ServiceWorker: HTTP Proxy/Cache

• JS API to intercept/fulfill HTTP requests
• W3C spec
• Available in all modern browsers

Push API

• JS API to enable server-initiated action
• W3C spec
• Available in Edge, Chrome, Firefox

Background fetch

• JS API to handle large upload/downloads in the background
• WICG proposal
• Available in Chrome

Background sync

• JS API to handle large upload/downloads in the background
• early proposal
• N/A

Backpressure for network streams

• Mechanism to adapt network streaming to ability to process it
• WebSocketStream API early proposal, WHATWG streams for WebRTC data channels

WebTransport

• JS API to enable bi-directional networking on top of QUIC protocol
• WICG proposal
• Experimentally available in Chrome, Edge

Connection Establishment with ICE

• JS API to find optimal path to connect two peers
• in W3C WebRTC spec, W3C WebRTC-ICE extension spec
• WebRTC Core ICE supported in all modern browsers, WebRTC ICE extension spec N/A

Resource Timing

• JS API to measure the time needed to fetch network resources
• W3C spec
• Available in all modern browsers

WebRTC Statistics

• JS API to monitor various metrics on quality of established WebRTC connection
• W3C spec
• Available in all modern browsers

Network Information API

• JS API and HTTP headers that helps determine and monitor types of network connection and its high-level characteristics (bandwidth, latency, costliness)
• WICG proposal
• Implemented in Chrome, Edge

Network Error Logging

• HTTP headers to define endpoint where to report network fetch errors
• W3C spec
• Available in Chrome

Mobile Data Plan

• Mechanism to share info on subscriber data plan
• Early investigation back in 2013 followed by Google Mobile Data Plan Sharing API
• N/A

Resource Hints

• Markup hints to prioritize fetching of HTTP resources
• W3C spec
• Available in all modern browsers

WebRTC DSCP

• JS API to request network-prioritization of WebRTC packets
• W3C spec
• No implementation deployed yet

Local-network display control:
Presentation API, Remote Playback API

• JS API to use displays available on the (local) network to show Web content/media (based on on-going open screen protocol)
• W3C Presentation API spec, W3C Remote Playback API
• Available in Chrome, experimentally in Firefox

Local network services

• Exploration of how to enable browsers to interact with local network services
• Abandonned work in W3C Device & Sensors WG, Feature request in Google Fugu project
• HTTPS in local network Community Group, use cases
• N/A

NFC Network Handover

• Allows to use NFC to connect to a network
• Future use case for WebNFC API by the Web NFC Community Group
• N/A

W3C Network consumers

• WebRTC
• Media Streaming
• XR
• Web of Things
• Automotive
• Machine Learning
• Speech recognition
• Cloud gaming

Roadmap document

Update and maintain Web5G Roadmap document?