Schools, Telemedicine, and More
Interestingly, schools and colleges have gradually started adopting videoconferencing techniques for interacting with other schools and universities across the globe to make learning a more exciting and an international experience. These techniques are also helpful in broadening the horizons of conventional education. With the advent of videoconferencing in education, it is now possible to promote higher education in smaller towns and rural areas, thus uplifting the socially and economically backward classes.

Telemedicine generally refers to the use of videoconferencing and information technologies for the delivery of clinical care. Telemedicine may be as simple as two health professionals discussing the case history of a patient or as complex as using videoconferencing to conduct real-time operations between medical specialists in two or more globally dispersed locations. Telemedicine can thereby avoid unnecessary travel and other associated costs.

Telemedicine also assists developing countries where the concentration of medical specialists and surgeons is restricted to big cities and metros, resulting in a dearth of healthcare services in smaller towns and rural districts. Videoconferencing plays a vital role in bridging this gap. Apart from this, videoconferencing aims to benefit the field of medicine in terms of lectures, discourses, meetings and other important events.

Other than in medicine, videoconferencing is gaining popularity in other areas and functions as well. A few examples include press conferences, movie or music releases, interviews, surveillance, security, emergency response, and court hearings. And, of course it is also becoming a popular mode of communication with family and friends in real time.

And SMEs Too
Its not just large corporates but even SMEs which are now looking at videoconferencing to save time, costs, and the hassles of traveling. Traveling costs would include commuting, accommodation, car rentals, meals, entertainment, etc. Other hidden costs that can be avoided include travel insurance premiums, hiring a temporary replacement or the overtime to cover for an absentee, as well as the costs towards debriefing meetings. Also, the risk of leaving behind important files and data is eliminated; the workflow is much smoother, and sharing of information is much quicker and comfortable from your own office.

According to industry watchers, the RoI for deploying videoconferencing is generally 6 to 12 months depending upon the type of videoconferencing equipment, the usage, and other factors such as the total number of days spent traveling in a month, etc. Wider the adoption, faster is the RoI. Videoconferencing is increasingly being used for interviews, product training, board meetings, consultation, and business meetings.

Today while distances are bridged faster than ever before, challenges of providing seamless learning experience across different geographical locations is being met through videoconferencing. It facilitates distance learning in a big way by making seamless interaction possible between end-users.

Its all IP Now
Conferencing systems traditionally comprise 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 at the threshold of a dramatic transformation, as all discrete forms of conferencing mediavoice, video, and dataare merging on IP infrastructure. The future is a single IP conferencing system that will provide all forms of conferencing, including voice, video and data.

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

The world of communications is gradually but steadily transitioning to IP networks. As this happens, videoconferencing will converge with all these popular IP-based applications, such as instant messaging, streaming, and Web collaboration. The rise of IP for video not only enables more cost-effective room-based solutions but also the delivery of video communications to the enterprise desktop. Instant messaging, with the added value of presence detection, is another extremely popular consumer application and is now making serious inroads into the enterprise.

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 will 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 systems to maintain an edge. Superior connectivity with customers will also permit alteration of channels that favor enhanced customer retention.

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