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Videoconferencing: cut travel costs, meet online

by Nick Booth

Investing in video or web conferencing can reduce travel costs and reduce your carbon footprint, but the complexity of systems and high costs are an ongoing concern. Within five years, video to the desktop could replace email and phone calls as the de facto method of communication. That might sound a fanciful claim, given that videoconferencing has been around since the 1950s and still has not set the world alight.

But, often technologies take decades of under-achievement before they become an overnight success. The internet is a good example. Appropriately, the internet will be the mechanism for transforming the way we all collaborate. This is why the likes of Cisco and Microsoft are investing so heavily in technology such as OCS (online collaboration services).

Even those of us who have long been sceptical about the benefits of video and web conferencing can appreciate that there are good reasons for collaborating online. Every business needs to cut costs and save time in the current economic climate, and there is a secondary pressure to reduce our carbon footprints.

If video conferencing works for one person or department, everyone will want the technology. If it fails, you could find that even your initial pioneers will ditch it

Online collaboration makes increasingly good business sense. Or it would if the buying decisions were not so difficult. The scope of online collaboration has become so broad that it is difficult to give a definitive answer about buying the right conferencing system. What we can do is identify the areas you need to examine.

Choosing a system

Conferencing or online collaboration falls into three broad areas: audio, video and web conferencing. These can all be delivered in a variety of forms - such as desktop systems, boardroom systems and personal productivity systems. You can buy them as systems you manage yourself, or as a managed service paid per month or a pay-per-use system.

For each system, there are three technical considerations: hardware, software and communications. The systems can run over existing hardware and software, and can use either fixed lines (such as MPLS, ISDN or leased lines) or a broadband connection.

Then you have to consider the usual traps that vendors can lure you into, such as proprietary systems (that will not be compatible with anyone else's system) and, in the case of service providers, long contracts that turn out to be punitive as the market changes.

Before you even think about any of the above, it is vital that you work out what sort of organisation you are, and what you need to use collaboration tools for. "The biggest mistake most companies make when choosing a system is that they are not clear in their own minds about what they want to achieve," said Julian Phillips, managing director of Impact Marcom, a service provider. "Once you know what you want to do, you can fit the product, the hardware and the services around that need."

Be aware of the fact that if video conferencing works for one person or department, everyone else will want the technology too. If it fails, you could find that even your initial pioneers will ditch it. To give you an example of where things go wrong, boardroom systems need to be used for four hours a day in order to make a return on the investment. But they often fall into neglect, because the room is also used for board meetings and general meetings.

Boardroom systems need to be used for four hours a day to make a return on the investment

Each videoconference also requires a technician to fine-tune the communications links, and possibly another to configure the audio and video settings for your server.

The upshot is that many room-based videoconferencing systems are only used for four hours a month, when they need to be in use four hours a day. "Under-utilisation of equipment is a massive problem," said Phillips.

Audio conferences

When deciding what system you need, and how it can be bought, you need to decide what your business challenges are. Audio conferences are a lot cheaper, and can be bought as and when you need them, as a one-off purchase or a rented service. The downside of audio conferences is that people easily get bored and attention wanders. Often the quality of an audio conference can be bad (as some will inevitably dial in over a mobile connection, WiFi or DECT phone). This undermines the effectiveness of your meeting.

Web conferencing is a good compromise. It can give a degree of interactivity - you can share graphics, spread sheets and art designs, without having to employ a technician to make the meeting happen. WebEx is the leading player with around 39 per cent worldwide market share, according to Frost and Sullivan.

Buying tips

Before buying a conferencing product outline your needs. Match them with the different web conference solutions on the market and choose the best system. Here are some useful tips on the selection process:

Decide who you want to communicate with. Is it one location or several locations? If it is just one, you could simplify things by installing fixed web conference solutions.

Certain web conference systems enable connection to more than one location. If companies have a head office and regional offices, they can connect all their sites. Users can also communicate with clients who may be located anywhere. These are variable systems.

Software requirements. Some web conference products provide their own software. Others only offer web conference solutions.

Decide whether you want to install a firewall in the web conference solution. This wards off the hackers, but it may create problems in the conferencing system, causing conflicts among different hardware. As a result, the image appears blurred and sound quality is degraded, hampering communication.

Decide which features you really want to have in a web conference solution. If you want to see who is attending the web meeting, make sure you can hook up to web cameras. Look for other features like online polling, slide sharing and document exchange.

Make sure the system fits your budget and provides a beneficial return on investment.

But one of the drawbacks to a web conference is the variance in sound quality, which is the single most important factor in keeping people interested. When you conduct a web conference, you are sharing your own network's bandwidth with everyone else in your organisation. If someone downloads a large file when you are on a web conference, WebEx does not prioritise the voice traffic. In other words, the sound quality of your meeting - the single most important factor - will depreciate.

Try to specify a system (such as Iocom) that can prioritise audio quality. You can sacrifice pictures, but without sound your meeting will grind to a halt.

Interactive meetings

There are other ways to enable interactive collaboration. One of the options is a communications box that makes interactive whiteboards capable of conducting video and web collaboration over the existing IP (internet protocol) network.

In theory, these sound compelling; they are cheaper than room-based conferencing systems and supposedly easier to set up. But the early feedback is that these new systems, although more affordable, have the same drawbacks as the high-end systems they were designed to replace.

Another new development in collaborative working is the rise of Second Life technology. Although viewed as a recreational tool, the demos we have seen suggest a more practical use. Second Life technology allows multiple members to log into a particular environment and interact. In certain industries, this offers the perfect environment for collaboration and online meetings.

Complexity

One of the barriers to the use of technology is its complexity. In the early days of videoconferencing, systems were not compatible with each other, so if your design team had a Polycom system, but the company who manufactured your products used a Tandberg, they could not have a useful meeting about how to make your new product range. As the industry evolved, many of the standards issues were resolved, so most boardroom systems are even compatible with desktop systems.

This openness was too good to last, however. A new generation of collaboration tools, known as telepresence systems, has emerged. These have all the proprietary standards issues that it took decades to iron out of the original generation of conferencing systems. "It seems like the industry has gone full circle," said MeetingZone CEO Tim Duffy.

These new high-end conferencing systems are dominated by the likes of Cisco and HP with mouthwatering price tags. The latest product is Teliris Personal Telepresence, designed for single users, starting at £16,500. This solution offers high definition video, advanced audio processing and collaboration through picture-in-picture (PIP).

Pay-per-use

MeetingZone is one of a raft of service providers aiming to make online collaboration more user-friendly and affordable by charging a pay-per-use model for its audio conferencing services. These new entrants to the market are desperate to attract customers away from the established players and will let you try before you buy any new conferencing technology. This is definitely the best way to road test your web collaboration needs.