5-3 Multimedia Teleconferencing Comes of Age
SUZANNE BRENNAN
The transformative power of the digital age has changed everything. The computer, telephone, and television are becoming nodes on a vast internetwork of increasingly powerful bandwidth, powered by visions of an interactive future unthinkable only a decade ago. Huge industriescommunications, computing, informationare converging into a complex web of partnerships and alliances that users are struggling to define.
In the digital age, many of the traditional management tools and metrics have lost relevance. Forecasting, for example, has become a fruitless exercise in many product and market segments. Product life cycles are increasingly irrelevant in a time-based competitive economy. The concept of management itself applies only at the margins of the information-based business. Successful businesses today operate on a new model of competence that places tremendous value on speed, flexibility, and intense collaboration among disparate groups and individuals. Obsolete methods and procedures have been discarded in favor of new approaches that improve performance without sacrificing quality.
Even the basic act of conducting a meeting is undergoing fundamental change, thanks to a paradox of the digital ageas people become electronically connected, they grow physically apart. However, flying across the world merely to trade information with colleagues has become inefficient because it simply is not fast enough. Windows of opportunity are now measured in days and weeks, not months and years. Todays manager needs to meet remotely yet immediately with dispersed teams, vendors, partners, and customers.
The goal of multimedia teleconferencing is to provide a mix of media options that mirrors many important aspects of a regular face-to-face meeting. The solutions available today target the conference room or the desktopor a combination of bothdepending on each customers unique application. They generally fall into one of three categories: audioconferencing, dataconferencing, or full-motion videoconferencing. Used individually or in any combination, they can serve an unlimited variety of communications needs.
A REVIEW OF AUDIOCONFERENCING
Within the space of 10 years, audioconferencing evolved from an obscure, rather awkward technology to a routine method of remote group communication. Rather than frantically faxing information in preparation for a meeting, or sending expensive overnight packages, sales managers can simply pull up documents from their PCs and present them to the other managers in real time. Any edits or notations made by the other participants can be printed or saved on everyones computer hard drive, eliminating the need for follow-up mailings or faxes.
Dataconferencing is also effective for one-to-many presentations. The chief financial officer (CFO) of one public company uses it to present his quarterly earnings release to key investment analysts around the country. Rather than listen to a cold recitation of the companys financial performance, the analysts can see the results on their computers or on a dataconferencing system and follow along as the CFO highlights certain items. The analysts then follow up with questions for the CFO through their voice connection into the conference.
School systems are using dataconferencing to provide distance learning opportunities to students in remote locations. Students who otherwise would have to commute long distances to receive courses in their chosen fields can now take part in interactive presentations from professors across the state or the world.
COMPRESSED DIGITAL VIDEOCONFERENCING
Videoconferencing has been available in various forms since the 1960s. After a few false starts, it is poised for explosive growth in the 1990s. Already, it represents a nearly $2 billion industry, roughly as large as audioconferencing.
There are two basic formats for videoconferencing:
- Room-based systems, which include large-screen monitors, sophisticated speakerphone systems, and high-speed digital network facilities.
- Desktop videoconferencing systems, which are PC-based and use inexpensive add-on boards, cameras mounted atop the PC monitor, and (usually) an integrated services digital network (ISDN)a 128K-bps digital network connection.
Room systems typically run in the $40K to $60K range; desktop systems cost anywhere from $1K to $6K, depending on system configuration.
Videoconferencing owes its rapid growth to many of the same factors that spurred audio- and dataconferencing. The difference lies in the applications for which it is used. Historically, distance learning was the primary driver behind videoconferencing deployment. In classroom environments, a teacher needs to be able to read visual cues and signals to know whether the student is understanding the material being presented. Videoconferencing can provide that level of visual information. More recently, business-oriented applications emerged that include:
- Board meetings.
- Remote depositions and other legal proceedings.
- Telemedicine.
- Job interviews.
- Joint engineering and project management.
As with other forms of multimedia teleconferencing, video services require a bridge to link more than two people. Teleconferencing service bureaus are beginning to offer multipoint videoconferencing services that wrap audioconferencing, document, and videoconferencing capabilities into a single, integrated service.
For videoconferencing to succeed in the room or on the desktop, performance must continue to improve while prices for hardware, software, and transmission continue to decline. Both the telecommunications and the computing industries have a vested interest in seeing this happen. The telecommunications providers want to sell more fat (i.e., high-revenue) minutes on their networks, and the computer industry wants to sell applications requiring ever-greater amounts of processor speed and power. Exhibit 5-3-1 compares teleconferencing costs.
Exhibit 5-3-1. Teleconferencing Comparisons
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