EMERGING TRENDS CONFERENCING/COLLABORATION: Towards Convergence

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Conferencing systems traditionally comprise of discrete PBX phone systems, audio and videoconferencing bridges, plus data collaboration and IM servers. Except data collaboration and IM, these systems are based mostly on the traditional circuit-switched telephone network with little or no integration between them. Today, conferencing capabilities are about to undergo a dramatic transformation, as all discrete forms of conferencing media that is voice, video and data are merging on a single IP infrastructure. The future is a single IP conferencing system that will provide all forms of conferencing, including voice, video and data.

Conferencing
Enterprises today are looking forward to leading edge technology, flexible conferences, common management suites, highly scalable solutions, secure VoIP conferencing, and embedded multipoint options.

The world of communications is gradually but steadily making the transition to IP networks. As this happens, video conferencing will be converged with all these popular IP-based applications, such as instant messaging, streaming and Web collaboration. The rise of IP for video not only enabled more cost effective room-based solutions but also enabled the delivery of video communication to the enterprise desktop. Instant messaging, with the added value of presence detection, is another extremely popular consumer application and is now making serious headway in the enterprise market, as a foundation for text, voice and videoconferencing

	EXPERTS PANEL
	Anil Jain, general manager, marketing, Siemens Kiran Dattar, MD, WebEx Communications K Krishna, sr director, marketing, HECL Sachin Prabhudesai, regional manager, projects, Actis Technologies Shailesh Mehta, CEO, Gurukulonline Yugal Sharma, country manager, Polycom

As this trend continues to produce converging conferencing technologies, business professionals will be able to adopt single conferencing platforms to use audio, video or Web-based solutions to communicate using means according to their needs. These systems play a crucial role in enhancing productivity, swift analysis and decision making, bringing products to the market and gaining an edge over competitors. Enterprises need seamless and integrated networks and real-time information gathering and processing system to maintain an edge over its competitors. Superior connectivity with customers also permits alteration of channels that favor enhanced customer retention.

IP telephony sales were likely to grow from 7% in 2002 to 46% by 2006. The market for conferencing solutions in India was likely to grow at a CAGR of 30.2% during the period 2003-2010. The telecommunications market is changing and this calls for scalable and interoperable solutions. The growing numbers of optimized packet platforms are replacing circuit-switched platforms. This is a clear indication that IP networks are a significant factor in the telephony carrier market. IP for voice and visual communications enable service providers and Telcos to offer a variety of features and services with rapid time-to-market and at lower costs.

The Web conferencing market is expected to grow significantly as it migrates from standalone conferencing to fully integrated suites of collaborative communications. While the adoption and usage of Web conferencing is expected to gain momentum over the next several years, the integration of discrete communication applications into unified communication/collaboration products will blur the lines between Web conferencing and other technologies, such as audio and videoconferencing, instant messaging, presence, VoIP, unified messaging, on-line shared workspaces, and document management solutions.

The key drivers for Web-conferencing are-the last mile Internet connectivity and availability of good-quality 'dependable' Internet bandwidth (broadband), convenience and cost saving factor. The Web conferencing market in India is said to be maturing. With broadband availability increasing and prices dropping, the Web-conferencing market has reached an inflexion point.

Advantages of Unified Conferencing

Flexible Meeting Options: An advantage of unified conferencing solution is the flexibility to start a conference when required. It includes the appropriate conference participants regardless of their location, the capabilities of their endpoint equipment, or their network connection.

More Robust and Productive Meetings: Unified conferencing experience creates a uniquely robust and more productive meeting environment by Merging the best features and capabilities of voice and video conferencing into a single platform.

More productive Conference Support: Tremendous support productivity comes with a single platform, single management system supporting both voice and video conferencing. This provides a powerful justification for the unified conferencing product solution.

Superior Return On Investment: In Unified conferencing, network services do have to be duplicated thus it eliminates the need to make duplicate investments in voice and video conferencing equipment and upgrades. Manpower required for operations support is significantly marginalized and training costs are reduced for support and end users.

In the continuing evolution of network protocols, IP has become the right network in the right time.

Collaboration
Today, users are demanding collaborative communications that are user friendly and relevant in their everyday lives. Accessing and, sharing of information plays a vital role in corporate meetings and collaboration enables an easy-share of any type of information, instantly arming the participants with necessary and required knowledge.

Collaboration has been happening online for a long time through e-mail, Usenet, etc. But it is getting dramatically easier, more prevalent, and more powerful. The software enabling collaboration is fast improving and the Web users are becoming more familiar with using collaborative tools. While the telephone and e-mail are effective communications tools, e-collaboration technology reduces non-productive expenses, accelerates work cycles. Web collaboration in face-to-face meetings and over distances is proving its value in both productivity increases and cost reduction right across the enterprise. More and more enterprises are realizing how much e-collaboration is re-shaping the way work is done and the significant value it delivers.

Unified Conferencing
Organizations are looking for a converged solution, a solution to provide effective voice and videoconferencing services. The answer lies with unified conferencing. The limitations of separate conferencing solutions are that there are huge differences in connectivity, features and interfaces. Technical barriers must be overcome to be able to connect from anywhere, anytime into a unified, feature rich, highly productive, meeting at a distance. Flexibility to support voice, video or unified conference that is most appropriate for the customer application with the same set of features and interfaces is also important. A unified conference seamlessly connects a mix of voice and video endpoints on different networks to one conference, on one platform that provides each conference participant with the same conference experience.

Unified conferencing supports ISDN video, IP video, PSTN voice, VoIP, and mixed voice/videoconferences simultaneously on one platform, with the same set of conferencing features, one set of end user interfaces, and one management application. A unified conference seamlessly connects a mix of voice and video endpoints on different networks to one conference, on one platform that provides each conference participant with the same conference experience.

Benefits Of IP

Lower Costs: IP-only visual communications systems are typically less expensive than ISDN based systems, as there is no need for ISDN-interface circuitry and software
Lower Usage Fees: Users of IP networks do not have to pay per minute usage fees. Most video calls that originate on the corporate IP network are absolutely free
Increased Reliability: Multiple ISND Data Channels have fragile bonding, which can be avoided by using the IP network resulting in significantly higher reliability
Improved Convenience: Costs of purchasing and installing ISDN based video systems is very high. This has limited the number of deployments in large conference rooms. IP-centric systems are less expensive to purchase and IP network lines are easier and cheaper to deploy
Enhanced Audio and Video Quality: IP networks offer at least 10 Mbps bandwidth to each video system. So a standard IP video call might be placed at speeds of bf 512 kbps, giving enhanced level of audio and video quality that ISDN where a standard business quality video call requires the use of Six ISDN B channels, to provide the necessary 384kbps bandwidth
Elegant Convergence: With IP based video conferencing the primary data network can be leveraged for videoconferencing, resulting in cost savings and increased efficiency
Shared Bandwidth: IP-centric networks mean no more dedicated data lines. Using packet-switched IP networks means that many data and video systems can share dynamically allocated bandwidth
Centralized Management: IP based video systems can be remotely controlled and managed as they are always connected to the packet-switched network
Improved Call Permission and Automatic Billing: IP-based software product called a gatekeeper controls and tracks usage of the system. By properly configuring these gatekeepers, organizations determine which calls to permit, at which speeds, to and from which users and systems, and across which networks. Savvy managers can manipulate this information into a form useful for internal billing and cost allocation
Enhanced Scalability: Deployment of IP based video systems does not cost much. So an enterprise can comfortably deploy videoconferencing capability throughout as it grows

Conferencing on mobile
Conferencing is now reaching the 3G mobile arenas. There has been a tremendous rush to acquire and rollout 3G broadband wireless services Converged mobile communication is already happening in Japan where NTT-DoCoMo cellular service, is providing advanced infrastructure to subscribers to video telephone their peers, share visual experiences and provide data-related information. Emergence of the 3G-324M standard, which addresses and supports real time multimedia broadband wireless communications and the wireless industry is ready and willing to come aboard and offer enhanced data and video applications. The phenomenal rise in mobile subscriptions and usage is also a key driver for this application. Today, mobile video conferencing is just in its infancy but its gaining tremendous success and popularity. This is an indication of the tremendous growth prospects. These applications have the potential to completely change the entire landscape of the conferencing market. 3G gateways support real time bi-directional video conferencing sessions between 3G-324M enabled cell phones, PDAs or other mobile devices, and multiple IP and ISDN based video conferencing systems. Service providers can enhance revenues by offering rich media applications, which can prove to be a perfect antidote for declining profit margins from traditional voice business.

End-to-end comprehensive solutions that eliminate, or reduce issues of compatibility and interoperability between disparate platforms and vendor solutions are making serious headway and gaining in popularity. At the same time, enterprises and other users benefit from cost-effective communications, increased productivity and the next best thing to being there that video collaboration offers. Wireless technology only increases this potential. Conferencing is about saving time and working more productively and it is changing the way we communicate.

Sonia Sharma
sonias@cybermedia.co.in