Video Communications Looking Better Than Ever

One of the more popular management responses to recessionary times (in addition to layoffs and benefit/wage reductions) is to cut business travel budgets. The consequence of reduced travel or onerous pre-trip approval requirements encourages the executive to try and, when satisfied, repeat the use of video communications. Of course, like with any growing market like video communications, there is a widening array of product categories including:


--Inexpensive and high quality web cameras that plug into your PC
--Integrated cameras with laptop screens
--Standard Definition video phones which some vendors call “media phones”

It’s like they have a pathological need to change the market perception of what is a pretty obvious product category. They are simply complicating the fact that what distinguishes these business phones from other business phones is their support of video communications service, not their support of other media services like Instant Messaging (which they don’t).

A recent study conducted by Brockmann & Company compared the experience of video users in 2007, first reported in The Perfect Storm report, with the experience of video users in 2009 presented in the Brainshark Video 2.0: Tips for Improving the Experience. User satisfaction with the room video communications experience has improved an impressive 60 percent in two short years!

There are three factors driving this improved user experience. First, new HD technologies for capturing, transmitting and presenting clear images and supporting advanced audio compression led the experience revolution. Starting around the time of the ratification of the H.264 standard for video compression in 2003, several developers began investing in new camera products to exploit the algorithm’s uncanny ability to deliver incredibly sharp moving images at low bandwidths. Among these were LifeSize (News - Alert), Dreamworks with Hewlett-Packard and more recently Cisco, Polycom and TANDBERG. But new cameras, algorithms and flat panels weren’t the only innovation stimulating this market.

 

Second, the network technology connecting video endpoints has changed a great deal. Video managers have transitioned from networks of circuit switched endpoints to networks of packet switched sessions. Among the problems with ISDN is the need to establish at least a half-dozen circuits and then bind the packet flows together to assemble a quite unsatisfactory 384 kbps of transmission capacity. This made the process of session initiation painfully long (maybe 30-60 seconds) and fraught with problems, since the only way to know that there was an equipment or network problem was to initiate a session, which of course, by then was way too late to salvage the intended meeting.

 

Economically, ISDN has been a disappointment for carriers and users alike in most markets around the world -- Germany and Japan being two notable exceptions where the carrier promoted ISDN with low prices and subsidized endpoints. The typical model involves some basic fee per circuit per month and then a time-and-distance per minute charge per circuit. ISDN pricing was established years ago when the alternative to circuit switched services was dedicated leased line which provided more bandwidth, but at significantly higher prices regardless of how much traffic transpired.

 

IP, in contrast, provides substantially more bandwidth at flat monthly rates, regardless of the quantity used and it enables continuous infrastructure and endpoint monitoring even when not in use, something that ISDN-attached systems lacked.

 

Some users contemplate using a converged IP network, sharing the WAN bandwidth with voice and data applications. We don’t recommend it. Our experience has been that the characteristics of video traffic are very different than of the more consistent voice or data traffic which almost always raises concerns for congestion and packet discard among the voice and data network managers.

Third, the influence of adjacent technologies on user expectations – YouTube (News - Alert), TV shows on PCs or iPods, megapixel cameras in mobile phones, DVDs, flat panel TVs, broadcast TV real-time interviews – all remind users that video communications can be both an excellent and pleasant way to do business precisely because it’s the closest approximation to real face-to-face meetings.