Teleconferencing and Videoconferencing can both be achieved with or
without using the Internet.
Most telecom companies can patch together a set of calls into an
audio-conference. (If you pay them enough, the ex-monopolies: BT,
Bell, etc tend to be really expensive for this).
You can also audio-conference on the Internet using net2phone or a
similar voice-over-IP service. These are (usually) free, but require
good bandwidth for useable sound quality.
In between, you can use an Internet-based telecom service. (I have
used www.comxo.com) which allow you to manage the conference-call
online, but still uses the conventional telecom network to make the
calls. Because the 'call management' part is up to you, its much
cheaper than getting a conventional telecom company to do it for you
(and you don't have someone listening in on your call - unless you opt
to bring in an operator at additional cost).
Video conferencing needs more bandwidth. You can get video-phones
which require one or more ISDN connections for each participant.
These are expensive, but you get what you pay for. The bandwidth is
uncontended, meaning you actually get 128k, or whatever you hire,
directly between sites. 4 ISDN lines will power of wall-sized screen -
which is great for group-group conferences (eg. your North American
management team and your European one). With a group-group
conference, as opposed to person-person, you might want to consider a
more sophisicated camera that can pan and zoom in when individuals are
speaking (and you then need a Video-jockey to operate that). For
conferences with more than two points, you also need a switching
system to route the signals depending upon who is speaking etc. There
are companies that specialise in this, and the service can be booked
for the time needed. hopefully it will soon be commonplace enough for
on-demand use (it may already be, I last checked it out about six
months ago)
Video conferencing online can be done using a simple webcam and
Microsoft's NetMeeting (unusually, a free piece of software) providing
you have enough bandwidth. If the internet gets really busy betweenh
any two of your participants, call quality is going ot degenerate
rapidly. A 1-1 call will just about work over a 56k dialup line if
your ISP is any good, but really youneed broadband or leased lines for
business use.
There are now routing systems available that will allow you to combine
ISDN and Internet call legs into a single conference, but look out,
none of this comes cheap! |
