Conquering Time and Space

 

Weston R. Hull

 

It never ceases to amaze me how much technology changes the way we work and how transparent those changes appear on a day to day level. An excellent example of this technology impact on our daily lives is the growth of Video Teleconferencing (VTC). VTC was up until recently an exotic commodity using costly ISDN lines often providing a choppy blurry image. With the advent of ubiquitous broad band IP service the use of Video Teleconferencing has become simpler and more reliable making it an appealing technology.

 

In organizations that are technologically traditional, such as law firms, the adoption of VTC often begins with an apprehensive test run and then rapidly progresses to an office essential on the level of copiers and fax machines. Organizations realize significant labor savings through the elimination of travel for routine meetings. Once this value is perceived many organizations view VTC as an indispensable tool providing them with greater efficiency in their business operations and should the system fail to function as expected it becomes an urgent priority to get the system restored

 

I am often asked what we do at Nelson White Systems. The title of this article is my favorite answer. Truly VTC enables organizations to conquer time and space by enabling instant audio-visual communications between parties virtually anywhere in the world.

 

Recent technological developments have further enhanced the utility of VTC. High Definition (HD) has brought a new level of clarity and realism to the conferencing experience. Combined with HD, the concept of TelePresence, where rooms are designed to be video conferencing environments simulating a conference room experience, further add to the realism of the VTC experience and encourage group collaboration.

 

Another development is the emergence of desktop conferencing both on a hardware platform and via a software application. The hardware solutions range from integrated VTC codecs (the brains of the VTC technology) into computer monitors giving the user a single interface for both data and communications. Another way is to integrate the codec and monitor into a desk telephone reminiscent of the Jetsons (the writer is showing his age here. If you don’t know the Jetsons, Google them.). The software solutions install on a PC and with the addition of a simple web camera and microphone the PC becomes a standalone VTC platform. Users simply launch the application, enter the necessary connection information (IP address) and your personal conference is underway.

 

Finally, new infrastructure components such as firewall transversal gatekeepers make the process of connecting via IP as simple as dialing a telephone number. All of these various software and hardware solutions have pluses and minuses that you need to cognizant of when evaluating each technology. A detailed discussion of the features and benefits of the various platforms is too lengthy a subject for this article. I will cover that in future musings.

 

What all this means is that VTC technology is rapidly becoming an ingredient of our daily business lives and as prices continue to drop and capabilities improve (Moore’s Law definitely applies here) it will only accelerate. I view the growth of this technology as analogous to the growth of the desktop pc -remember when we were hammering out our correspondence on typewriters – neither do I.

 

 

Please email any comments to whull@nelsonwhite.com please put Blog comment in the subject line.

 

Weston R. Hull is the Vice President, Director of Sales for Nelson White Systems