Here it is: Videoconferencing takes to the Web
By JASON MESERVE
Network World, 11/29/99
People have been waiting for
videoconferencing to hit the
mainstream since the first video phone was introduced
by AT&T many moons ago. Today, product vendors
and service providers are turning to the Web to ease
the barriers to using videoconferencing on an
everyday basis.
Vendors and service providers are leaning on the
Web to simplify the scheduling of videoconferences,
even to the point at which human conference
operators won't be needed. The offerings are also
designed to shield customers from equipment
incompatibility issues, so it won't matter to the
customers that they and the companies they are
conferencing with use different video gear. In addition,
Web-based offerings can add streaming, data
collaboration and other services that might be
daunting for enterprises to set up and manage
in-house.
Vialog in Andover, Mass., and V-Span in King of
Prussia, Pa., are among the companies offering
Web-based videoconferencing reservation systems.
Customers can log on to Vialog's
www.webconferencing.com to list members of a
videoconference and to schedule a conference call.
The customer can choose to have all parties dial in to
the conference, as is typical of most conferences
today, or perhaps more conveniently, Vialog can dial
out to connect all parties to the conference. V-Span
offers similar reservation services.
"Because we buy our communications service in bulk,
we can often dial out cheaper than a user can dial in
to our operations center," says Josh Cartagenova,
marketing manager at V-Span.
As an added benefit, V-Span can record conferences
for future playback and offers data collaboration
services for those who want participants to edit
documents and files while conferencing.
Both companies help customers overcome problems
related to using different videoconferencing gear.
Videoconferencing is never as easy as dial and
connect. There are systems based on H.323 (IP),
H.320 (ISDN) and H.321 (ATM) that all run
different compression algorithms and work at different
speeds.
Service providers such as Vialog and V-Span have
Multipoint Control Units (MCU), bridges and
gateways on hand to link video gear based on
different technologies.
The American Association of Medical Colleges
(AAMC) recently held a videoconference among 20
sites to discuss how its members' residents can
manage their graduate school debts. Meeting
coordinator Kirsten Bianchi says Vialog's service
made it easy to set up the meeting.
"We just gave each site a list of equipment
requirements [to make sure their equipment would
work with Vialog's], and Vialog handled the rest,"
says Bianchi, who notes that part of Vialog's service is
to make sure each site is "certified" before connecting
it. "It's great because our users could either call in or
use the Web site to get certified," she says.
While the AAMC has only used videoconferencing
twice to hold meetings, it will now start looking at the
technology as a more viable option.
"Videoconferencing over ISDN is a lot cheaper than
travel," Bianchi says.
Andrew Davis, managing partner at Wainhouse
Consulting Group in Brookline, Mass., says
Web-based videoconferencing services lower the
barrier to entry. "Some large users see [setting up
videoconferences] as being hard and will welcome
farming it out to an expert," he says.
Service providers such as Vialog and V-Span have
yet to eliminate human operators to set up
conferences. But FVC.com, a Santa Clara hardware,
software and services company, has technology in the
works designed to let service providers fully automate
videoconferences.
The company's Video Portal offering, currently in beta
testing and set for delivery early next year, relies on a
Web site to tie together back-end conferencing
systems, including MCUs and bridges.
The Web site is similar to MyYahoo in that it gives
users their own pages for storing contact names and
setting up conferences. Users will be able to click on
a set of names and click a button to launch a
conference. FVC.com's equipment will support the
connections to participants.
FVC.com will offer the Video Portal as a service to
carriers or sell all the hardware and software
components to service providers that want to bring
the technology into their own operations centers.
However, Wainhouse's Davis says it still will be a
while before completely automated videoconferencing
goes mainstream. "But it is a good sign that a couple
of companies are starting to chase the golden ring," he
says. |
