Networking giant Cisco is sharpening its focus on online video with the H.264 codec for high-definition streaming. The company recently announced that it has open sourced the software in a bid to enhance media quality across both consumer space and the enterprise, where it competes with its line of IP Phones and TelePresence video conferencing solutions.

Rachel King of CNET reported that the codec will be freely available as a binary module for use with WebRTC, a community-led initiative that aims to create an open standard for real-time communications. Mozilla is one of the first supporters of the H.264 project, with plans to add support for the module to Firefox already in the works.

Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich stressed the necessity of standardization in a company blog post.

“Interoperability is critical on the Internet, and H.264 is the dominant video codec on the Web. The vast majority of HTML5 streaming video is encoded using H.264, and most softphones and videoconferencing systems use H.264. H.264 chipsets are widely available and can be found in most current smartphones, including many Firefox OS phones.”

Cisco estimates network users worldwide will generate 3 trillion Internet video minutes per month by 2017, up from one billion in 2012. Global traffic will increase threefold in the same period, thanks largely to connected devices such as smartphones and tablets. Collectively known as the Internet of Things, these devices represent massive market opportunity for the industry – one that has not gone unnoticed by Cisco.

This week in Barcelona, the company launched a new Internet of Things division that will focus on developing industry-specific networking solutions and fostering the adoption of embedded sensors. The unit is led by Guido Jouret, who previously served as the head of Cisco’s Emerging Technologies group.