Season 2 Episode #15: Most of us use Zoom, Google Meet, or similar tools every day without thinking about what is actually happening under the hood. Tsahi Levent-Levi, independent consultant and founder of BlogGeek.me, has spent 25 years working on exactly that - the technology that makes real-time communication work.

We get into what WebRTC actually is, why building with it is harder than it looks, and what most companies get wrong when they try. We also talk about how AI is changing real-time communication, why latency is back as the central problem to solve, and what it takes to test and monitor communication products properly.

From Lego bricks to WebRTC pioneer - how a childhood obsession with computers led to 25 years in communication tech

Programming since age 10 and working at a local PC store by 13, Tsahi was deep in tech long before most people knew what the internet was
A role at a VoIP company building protocol stacks gave him the foundations that would shape everything that followed
When his idea to explore WebRTC was rejected and defunded, he left, started a blog, and accidentally became one of the most read voices in the space
Three blog posts and 20,000 monthly page views later, the consulting offers started arriving and he never looked back

WebRTC demystified - the invisible technology powering modern communication and why it changed everything

Before WebRTC, building a real-time communication product needed millions in investment and serious infrastructure - WebRTC wiped out that barrier
Getting video calls to work directly in the browser, no downloads required, changed how users interact with communication tools entirely
Multi-party video is where things get hard fast - balancing resolution, bandwidth, and CPU across multiple streams is a constant challenge
Most quality problems come down to pixel count, media balance, and knowing which WebRTC tools to use - and the fixes are often counterintuitive

How three WebRTC blog posts accidentally turned into one of the most read resources in the space

Nobody else was writing about WebRTC seriously, so Tsahi kept writing - and a dedicated audience found him
His drive to educate goes back to early days helping people set up home computers and realising he liked teaching people things
Staying credible as a consultant means keeping engineers close, hearing what they actually struggle with, and avoiding the echo chamber most companies live inside
His value to clients comes from being an outsider - the moment he becomes just another voice inside the room, that value disappears

AI, latency, and what comes next - how WebRTC is adapting to a world that runs on real-time intelligence

AI has pulled WebRTC back to basics - media quality and latency are front and centre again, now made harder by speech-to-text, LLM processing, and text-to-speech all stacking up
Testing and monitoring should start the moment the first paying customer arrives - waiting until complaints pile up is already too late
Mobile WebRTC is a different problem entirely - varied devices, unreliable networks, and less control make it much harder to test and predict
His advice to his younger self: stop fixating on where you are headed and pay more attention to the road you are on

Tsahi Levent-Levi

Independent consultant specialising in WebRTC and VoIP

Tsahi Levent-Levi is an independent consultant specialising in WebRTC and VoIP, with over 25 years of experience across engineering, product, and strategy in the communications space. He runs BlogGeek.me, one of the most widely read resources in the WebRTC space, and is the creator of several tools and training products built around the technology. He was also co-founder and CEO of testRTC, a WebRTC testing and monitoring company that was later acquired. Today he helps companies improve connectivity and media quality, reduce project risk, and think through how AI fits into their communication products.

Josh William Burmistre-Griffiths

Digital Marketing and Paid Ad Specialist

Josh William Burmistre-Griffiths works at TestDevLab, focusing on digital marketing and paid advertising across multiple platforms. His past experience working at agencies and unicorn startups has equipped Josh with the expertise to bring valuable digital marketing insights to Tech Effect.

#34 Tsahi Levent-Levi (BlogGeek.me): The Hidden Infrastructure Behind Every Video Call You've Ever Made

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