Teleconferencing: The Next Best Thing To Being There

Like it or not, meetings are a fact of life. In government as elsewhere, there's not enough time or money to travel everywhere. So people meet in other ways.Among the various ways to rendezvous long distance, videoconferencing is the only one with real-time, two-way, full-motion video and audio. Once a high-end communications tool for top executives, videoconferencing is now used by employees at all levels to hold meetings, collaborate on projects, edit documents and much more. The U.S. Postal Service's Office of Inspector General, for example, used to spend more than $100,000 annually to fly in and host employees for quarterly all-hands conferences at its Arlington, Va., headquarters. Now the staff of more than 700 holds these meetings at a fraction of the cost via videoconferences. These allow employees in 20 locations across the country to see and hear each other as if they were in the same room.The agency also uses videoconferencing to hold smaller meetings, conduct job interviews, monitor computer rooms and other secure sites and edit reports with auditors, said Robert Duffy, operations manager for the inspector general's office.Although most videoconferencing today uses integrated services digital network (ISDN), a circuit-switched, high-speed service, many new users are moving to low-cost, easy-to-use Internet or Web-conferencing solutions."There isn't any doubt in anyone's mind that we'll end up in an [Internet protocol] environment," said Christine Perey of Perey Research & Consulting, Placerville, Calif.XXXSPLITXXX-If there's one rule for teleconferencing, it's "match the medium to the meeting," said Neal Lulofs, a senior marketing manager in government markets for WorldCom Inc., Clinton, Miss. In other words, use the right technology for the purpose at hand.Teleconferencing can save lots of money on airline, hotel and other travel costs. But when it's time to close a deal or to meet someone for the first time, it's best to press the flesh in person, according to experts."A connection is made when you meet someone physically. There's a sort of intimacy," said Stephen Tolbert, president and chief executive officer of Global Systems & Strategies Inc., a Vienna, Va., videoconferencing design company. Once a relationship is established, videoconferencing really is the next best thing to being there. The ability to see someone's facial expressions and gestures in real time adds a degree of understanding and intensity that a phone call can't replicate. It's ideal for collaborative meetings among people who have already met and worked together. Calls can be one to one, one to many or many to many, depending on what's needed.Technically, there's no limit on how many locations and people videoconferencing can link. Practically, the technology is best suited to meetings of two to 12 people who work together regularly. Beyond that, there are diminishing returns, because too many participants can't converse and work effectively, said Jennifer Sigmund, director of product marketing for video communications at Polycom Inc., a manufacturer of videoconferencing systems in Milpitas, Calif.Videoconferencing allows participants to see more than body language. Modern systems can be hooked up to document cameras, laptops and other peripherals, allowing users to simultaneously see, exchange and edit the same spreadsheet, report or other document.XXXSPLITXXX-With employees scattered worldwide, the federal government needs top-notch communications systems. Its dedicated, high-speed networks and telecommunications specialists help make it one of the biggest users of videoconferencing, according to vendors."Government has been an early adopter of videoconferencing," said Joe McGreal, a district sales manager for WorldCom government markets. "We see them now leading the charge from ISDN use to IP-based videoconferencing."Training, distance learning and telemedicine lead the pack among videoconferencing applications. Using these applications, a radiologist in one hospital can view an X-ray from another hospital, the Army National Guard can prepare members for overseas assignments, and prisoners can be arraigned and deposed remotely to avoid the risk of escape if they travel from jail to court."The killer application in the government space is for training. It cuts across all branches of the military," said Wayne Hulit, federal sales manager at Zydacron Inc., a Manchester, N.H., maker of videoconferencing equipment. With live video, for example, soldiers can learn how to use and repair certain weapons.The federal government spent $71 million on videoconferencing equipment and services in fiscal 2001 and will spend $73 million in fiscal 2002, according to Federal Sources Inc. of McLean Va., a market research firm. Leading users include the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Agriculture Department, Army and U.S. courts.Sandia National Laboratories' use of videoconferencing shot up last year after its travel budget was cut, said Jim Berry, who manages the service for the research lab. The lab's 150 videoconferencing systems log 200 to 300 calls per month, mostly for meetings, he said."I've focused on upper management and their needs," Berry said. "Upper management is the primary target because they spend the most time in meetings." Use by project engineers and others is also rising as application-sharing technology improves, he said.Sandia can link its two main sites in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., as well as six satellite sites and six other Energy Department locations. Officials still travel by plane; the decision to videoconference is made on a case-by-case basis, Berry said.Sandia uses an ISDN network, but "I'm in hot pursuit to getting this over to IP to have dual network capability," Berry said. That way, the lab's videoconferencing can fall back on one network when the other has problems.Federal agencies buy videoconferencing and other commercial IT equipment, software and services on the General Services Administration's Schedule 132 8. Polycom, PictureTel Corp. (which Polycom is acquiring) and Tandberg Inc. are the leading vendors. AT&T Corp., WorldCom and others sell network services and resell equipment through FTS2001 and other contracts.XXXSPLITXXX-While videoconferencing has captured the government's fancy, its overall growth has been slow. Worldwide revenue for equipment, infrastructure and related services totaled $1.5 billion last year, according to Wainhouse Research LLC in Brookline, Mass.It was once predicted that videoconferencing would be a red-hot market. But experts contend its high cost and a certain amount of technological discomfort on the part of users are reasons this hasn't happened.Videoconferencing requires specialized hardware and a dedicated ISDN network. Neither is cheap compared with audio or Web conferencing. However, conference room systems that years ago cost $50,000 to buy and install now run about $10,000, Tolbert said. Interoperability between different vendors' equipment has also improved.Another obstacle to widespread use is that videoconferencing isn't as simple to use as a phone. Although systems have become easier to use, many federal agencies have technical staff to start and fix videoconferencing calls.Ease of use, however, is in the eye of the beholder. Sandia scientists and engineers have readily adopted videoconferencing to hold impromptu meetings. But the Health Care Financing Administration's Office of Clinical Standards and Quality seems to have a hard time."Utilization is not as high as we expected," said Ray Frederick, director of the HCFA office. He surveyed videoconferencing users at HCFA's Baltimore headquarters and 53 peer review organizations, which examine the quality of care provided to Medicare patients. "Using videoconferencing was sometimes a challenge. ISDN is not always reliable. People try to use it and can't, and get frustrated," he said of his findings. HCFA set up videoconferencing five years ago to enable staff to communicate more easily with the peer review organizations. Frederick, director of peer review systems for the Office of Clinical Standards and Quality, said he's considering an upgrade to an easier-to-use system.Vendors and analysts said they expect videoconferencing to rise as systems become both ISDN- and IP-compatible. "There's a huge movement toward IP because the networks are becoming robust enough to handle voice, video and data," said Bob Dyer, PictureTel's director of federal sales.IP-based service costs less because it uses existing high-speed data connections instead of costly, separate ISDN lines. IP systems can serve desktops as well as conference rooms; ISDN is for room-style videoconferencing only.However, both IP and ISDN have technical problems, experts said. Circuit-switched ISDN suffers from interference and dropped connections. Packet-switched IP picture quality isn't as good as that of ISDN ? a moving hand looks blurry rather than fluid."[Videoconferencing over] IP doesn't work very well," said Gartner Inc. analyst Lou Latham. "Stuff doesn't get there. The sound arrives behind the picture. There's stutter. ... It's actively annoying." But, he said, "Once the [IP] network quality of service is up to par in the next four to five years, we'll see ISDN deployment start to shrink."For now, IP videoconferencing is best run over private networks rather than the public Internet, Latham said. There's also the issue of traffic congestion. Tolbert said, for example, it can be rough to hold a videoconference over the Internet mid-afternoon during the week.Because of the expense and investment in equipment, videoconferencing likely will be a niche product in the teleconferencing world, used mainly by government and large corporations, said Andrew Nilssen, a senior analyst and partner at Wainhouse Research.While demand for videoconferencing grows slowly, demand for low-cost, easy-to-use Web conferencing is going great guns. No equipment is needed other than a phone and a PC with a Web browser. Experts say Web conferencing does not truly replace videoconferencing because its video flows in only one direction. There are also problems with jagged pictures and transmission delays.The federal government uses Web conferencing to extend agencies' reach to sites that don't have videoconferencing equipment, said WorldCom's McGreal. It's an inexpensive way to add participants to a meeting, albeit without the full interaction videoconferencing allows.Providers said Web conferencing and other new technologies will supplement rather than replace traditional videoconferencing. Again, it's a matter of matching the meeting and the technology."We haven't seen anything that indicates Web con-ferencing is replacing videoconferencing," Polycom's Sigmund said. "Think of them as both growing the market."