Remote Conferencing

Today if you need to have a multipoint conference, only basic e-mail, telephony and chat are not enough. There are lots of technologies available in audio, video, and data conferencing at various price points that would prove more effective

Sunday, December 18, 2005

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Meetings and conferences provide a platform for people to meet and exchange information. The purposes may be as simple as a project status update presentation or a brainstorming session for a new product, or a vehicle for key decision makers from different strata of the ecosystem to share their visions and roadmaps. Organizing such events at even an enterprise-wide scale is difficult when schedules of the attendees have to be accommodated. Imagine you have an induction program scheduled for your employees while some of the attendees are busy grappling with delivery schedules in different parts of the country. At such a time, they would rather miss the induction program and finish their work. However, instead of needing to compromise and have them do only one of the two, you could harness the capabilities of remote conferencing solutions-audio, video, data or mixed-to let them do both, without them needing to travel or leave their desks!

Remote conferencing lets each participant attend the session from any location. This lets your executives do their regular work even while attending the meeting. Plus, specific features (like session transcripts) in some of the conferencing options available also let them come back later and refer to what was said and decided. This is not only convenient but also helps cut down on huge travel costs.

The case for you to consider remote conferencing as an option becomes stronger when you consider that you no longer need to depend on a few service providers renting out conferencing studios for large sums of money. The equipment for conferencing is now compact and available right at the desktop. High speed digital communications are now cheaper and broadband access is more common-place.

Conferencing technologies also eliminate the space crunch of having a sufficient number of meeting rooms, and can be used at any scale-within a single office or across the globe with equal ease. It can be used both with specialized equipment and from your desktop computer.

Each method has its own benefits and areas of application. Also, it is no longer sufficient to have just audio and video in a conference session and you frequently have the need to share data too. Thus, both audio and video conferencing stations bundle the ability to plug in a notebook and exchange data.

But are such solutions only meant for large enterprises? No. Different solutions are available at different price points. While some setups can easily cost upto Rs 5 Lakh, simpler solutions exist that can utilize your existing investments (like your PCs) and turn them into conferencing equipment. Let's take a look at some of the options available and where and why you would use each of them.

Audio conferencing
The most basic form of remote conferencing, audio is the basic communication method. Of course, you could always pick up a phone that supports multi-party calls and hold a conference-and today, even cellphones (like the Nokia 9500) come with support for up to 5 and 7-way calls. But, you do need more than just the ability to talk. What if you needed to send across a spreadsheet to the other person, an information brochure, or a design plan? Therefore, you need equipment that are more sophisticated and let you do more than just voice talk. So what are the features you need to look for?

The basic feature would of course be the ability to have a number of participants in a single call. Plus, if you have a number of people sitting it at a single location (say around a conference table), you need the ability for the equipment to pickup their voice clearly. All of them should also be able to hear the remote party well. So you need a good speaker (or the ability to add your own) as well as a mechanism to add more microphones as needed to this end point.

Most conferencing phones can be easily distinguished from their cousins by their large speakers. Hands-free operation is of course a must. Some phones (like the Cisco 7971-GE) also support data-driven displays. This particular phone, for instance, can accept XML data and display it on its high-resolution screen. This can add value to conferences-the displayed data could be your latest stock prices or news headlines or other such feeds.

While the cost of hardware-based audio conferencing may be quite high, cheaper options exist and include IP phones and soft-phone based networks. For instance, you could have a VoIP MCU (Multi-point Control Unit) box and connect it to soft-phones instead of having to buy desktop instruments.

Softphones or 'software phones' are software that run on your computer, provide a telephone-instrument like interface (like for dialing) and use your computer's sound card to provide audio.

If your audio conferencing vendor provides a softphone option, it would be worth checking out its features. For instance, the ACS-500 from AVAYA Communication features a 24-port MCU (expandable in 24-port modules) along with softphones.

The softphone packs features like participant count, conference recording and playback, code-controlled conference security, Web based control features that include document sharing and full session logging.

Video conferencing 
Just hearing voice is sometimes not enough and you need video too. This also adds the ability to convey more-not only that you can read the other person's body language, but you can also enhance information either from a nearby (television, notebook or PC) screen or other visual aids (charts, objects, etc).

In the old days, a video conferencing session involved setting up special studios with costly equipment for lightning, image capture and transmission. Today, that has changed. It has become far more compact and has appeared on the desktop; and it has also become much more cheaper. Of course, the video conferencing studios still exist-VSNL for instance operates some at different locations.

Video-capable conferencing equipment today comes with connectors for your computer monitor and a socket for your VCR or disc player. From the video connection, you can play pre-recorded tapes of your latest sales pitch, ad-campaign, and clips from the annual company cruise... You can use the monitor connection to broadcast your slideshows and presentations or show a demo using your computer or notebook.

One innovative use such abilities are put into use are in virtual classrooms. The IGNOU (Indira Gandhi National Open University) broadcasts video presentations of its courseware on a regular schedule. Students at specially set-up facilities watch these broadcasts. Live interaction with the particular instructor is also provided using which the students can clarify doubts and answer the instructor's questions. Companies can use the same technology to provide remote training programs if you have offices all over the country and it is difficult to bring everyone together for regular sessions.

For video conferencing, we have equipment ranging from the simplest videophone to dedicated video-conferencing terminals. When purchasing video-conferencing equipment, look for details like quality of the camera and kind of lighting required for optimal performance. Some equipment also let you control both the local and remote cameras with adjustments for zoom levels and focus.

To truly 'conference' instead of one-to-one meetings, you need an MCU on your shopping list that has an iMUX, which performs bandwidth aggregation. Both hardware and software MCUs are available and the choice really depends on your budget.

Hardware MCUs cost more. But software MCUs consume a lot of processing power and need a powerful host computer. Some video conferencing end-point hardware come with their own MCUs built-in and these can support a number of sites. For instance, the VSX 3000 described in the box on 'Setting up Polycom VSX 3000' has four ISDN lines meaning it can connect directly to four sites.

Video transmission is something that requires high bandwidth. And for smooth video, it should really be compressed. So, look for equipment that supports H.264 compression. Security is another area you need to look at.

Some models offer standard encryption like AES or ITU-T H.235 and would be compatible when working with similarly encrypting systems. However, if you are

using something that has a proprietary algorithm then you would be getting tied down to that particular vendor. If your primary conferencing would be over public networks over whose traffic you have little control, you need a system that can automatically adjust itself.

Here's where ARC (Adaptive Rate Control) and ARQ (Real-time Auto-repeat Request) can come in handy. ARC will dynamically adjust its audio and video rates to suit network conditions and ARQ will help with recovering lost packets in real time.

Among the options available, is a model from Polycom. The VSX 3000 priced at Rs 4,21,791 for the IP and ISDN based version. See the box for more on how to set it up. This is a compact and portable set that works over Ethernet and upto four ISDN lines to provide video conferencing facility along with the ability to hook up a VGA signal and one from your video (VCR/cable/disc player). Its operations are controlled using a remote control that would be fairly intuitive to someone who's used a TV or from a Web interface over the LAN. This Web interface can be used to remotely set up the VSX, maintain the phone book, check up on who's using it and why and so on. It further offers AES encryption for end-to-end call security.

Data conferencing 
When no audio or video is required, you could use a pure data conference. A typical example would be text messaging on an instant messaging client. Messaging solutions like Lotus Sametime and MS Exchange provide such facility at the corporate level. While you could use a non-corporate service like Yahoo for your text-messaging requirements, you could be faced with privacy and other issues down the line.

For instance, in such a case you would have little or no control on how your messages are handled or if they get stored somewhere. In 2002, some messaging providers including Yahoo and AOL had tried launching specialized corporate IM services. The initiatives failed to take off although these providers had security and compliance covered, they couldn't do anything about providing controls to monitor conversations and ensure the safety of sensitive data in strictly regulated industries like BFSI.

If you do plan to use their non-corporate services for corporate use, there are a couple of concerns you need to address. One is interoperability. You cannot obviously force all your contacts, especially if they work for other companies to use the same service you prefer. But, implementing something like the Jabber IM Server takes care of this problem by letting you talk to people who are on different services. Look to our May 2004 issue for complete instructions on setting up a Jabber IM server on your LAN.

Multi-protocol clients such as Gaim are an option if you need a way to conveniently manage your contacts on different services. Future versions of the Yahoo and MSN messengers are also expected to work with each other without requiring any additional software.

However, when you do use such services changes to the conferencing/messaging protocol and software will be transparent to you, without requiring you to install and reconfigure your servers. Updated client applications will be automatically downloaded and installed on user desktops.

Commercial messaging options include Lotus Sametime (which also necessitates Lotus Domino), MS Exchange. These solutions also add other facilities like e-mail, calendaring and collaboration.

Data conferencing can also be 'presentation streaming' where presentations (slideshows, demonstrations, desktops) can be streamed on a network. This is usually used for training and self-help environments where content is created and placed on a streaming server for access at the viewer's convenience.

One example of this is the Presentation Broadcasting in Vista . Our October 2005 issue has a hands-on how to do this in four steps. What one would do is run the 'Broadcast a Presentation' item from the Programs>'Network Presentation' menu and use the wizard that comes up to setup the session and start the broadcast. You can also choose to pause or discontinue display of your desktop at any time using a button on that wizard screen. A viewer would also need to have Vista installed. He would select 'View a presentation' from the Start menu.

There is no extra investment involved in conferencing on messengers since they use the existing computer and network infrastructure.

Collaboration at the time of a conference, that is, exchanging files and working together on something (like whiteboarding) adds value to that session. Web-based solutions like WebEx offer to do this in a convenient pay-per-use mode. WebEx offers document management, calendaring, online meetings, hosted discussions, and contact management with their 'WebOffice' package. Their 'MeetMeNow' solution on the other hand is a pure conferencing solution, which includes desktop sharing, whiteboarding and audio facility along with instant messaging.  Both these services are paid facilities but can be leveraged by all enteprises seeking to do either pure conferencing or conferencing with collaboration. 

Webcasting 
Today's Web-casting applications are fast, rich and powerful. Harnessing the power of rich-content UI such as those provided by Flash and faster Internet connectivity available, applications like Macromedia Breeze, MS Live Meeting and Lotus Sametime (which provides both collaboration and conferencing capabilities) provide seamless two-way interaction using audio, video and data. Some of these applications run off a Web browser using a plug-in, while others need or have an optional downloadable client. Common facilities offered by such software include two modes. One would be how the audience views the application and the other is for the presenters.

As a participant, you would be able to view video broadcasts that could either be a slideshow presentation or an MPEG stream. To interact with the presenters, there would be a text area where you can type in your comments or queries and submit them. At the end of the session, the system would also allow you to download session transcripts.

As a presenter, the software will allow you to get an audience-wide view of how many people are currently in attendance. Some software also give you a theater-style view of the conference, including filled and vacant seats. Status of different participants when they are watching the presentation or interacting with the presenters or waiting for a response can also be seen. You would also have the capability to apply moderation by discontinuing the sessions of disruptive participants. Messages sent across by the audience are collected into a queue and you can respond to them. Desktops and screens can be shared and you can provide demonstrations that way.

Web casts, today, are used by companies widely to launch products, make announcements, present reports and so on to a much wider audience at a much cheaper cost. Traditionally, this would involve setting up meetings at venues all around the world, the overheads of getting people to those venues and so on. All that is avoided when you use a Web cast instead, since the only cost you incur is the cost of the application, server and bandwidth; which can all easily be a one-time cost if you plan to use this regularly.

Offsite training is an area where Web casts can be used. Content can be recorded and then placed online for download (or be streamed). Employees can then download this content whenever they can connect and view the session. This can be used in situations where online interaction during the session is not a priority requirement or other means like e-mail or discussion forums can be used to take it forward. From smoke signals through carrier pigeons to the latest appliance-powered instant messaging platform, human beings have come a long way developing this technology with a singular aim, which is to communicate with his fellow beings. And to the corporate society, that is a powerful tool. Today, that need has evolved from talking about food supply and war to sealing business deals and conferencing with people at remote locations which would be possible with the touch of a button and a fraction of the cost it would take to go there. Today's needs are as intensely driven as those of when the means and language to communicate were invented. As connectivity and technologies improve, the Earth will shrink once more and conferences will become richer and faster, and dense everyday.

Sujay V Sarma

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