The WebRTC 1.0 specification exposes an API to control protocols (defined within the IETF) necessary to establish real-time audio, video and data exchange.

Since Real-Time Text requires the ability to send and receive data in near real time, it can be best supported via the WebRTC 1.0 data channel API. As defined by the IETF, the data channel protocol utilizes the SCTP/DTLS/UDP protocol stack, which supports both reliable and unreliable data channels. The IETF chose to standardize SCTP/DTLS/UDP over proposals for an RTP data channel which relied on SRTP key management and were focused on unreliable communications.

Within the , work is ongoing to enable Real-time text to be sent over the WebRTC data channel, allowing gateways to be deployed to translate between the SCTP data channel protocol and RFC 4103 Real-Time Text. This work, once completed, is expected to enable a unified and interoperable approach for integrating real-time text in WebRTC user-agents (including browsers) - through a gateway or otherwise.