Citation
(2003), "The time for videoconferencing", Work Study, Vol. 52 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ws.2003.07952aaf.005
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited
The time for videoconferencing
The time for videoconferencing
Videoconferencing seems for some time to have been a technology in search of an application. Although we have long been assured that we could save lots of travel costs by replacing face-to-face meetings with videoconferences, there has been little real take-up. Part of this has been as a result of the technical complexities, and of the costs themselves. A high quality overseas videoconference can be quite expensive. Video over Internet protocol (IP) has been hailed as the saviour – cutting costs dramatically – but so far the quality of the signal available has been too low. The much-heralded quality of service (QoS) is not always there – with voice calls, a slight degradation in performance is hardly noticed; with video it can be disastrous.
However, solving the technical issues – and making it cheaper – has to be accompanied with making it more acceptable to users. So, it is not only the rapid take-up of broadband services that are needed to propel videoconferencing into the mainstream; the whole interface and usability of the software has to be redesigned. There are signs that videoconferencing suppliers are learning this message. Using the newer systems is much more akin to making a phone call – you simply have to enter name, phone number or alias and the "friendly" system takes care of translating this into whatever technical requirements are needed.
There are other problems to be solved before users will be truly happy. Just as most telephone calls fail for human reasons – the other person is not there, or is already on the phone, for example – so too there is usually a simple explanation for the failure of a videoconferencing call. By using techniques such as forwarding conferencing calls, perhaps to PCs, audio telephones or even voicemail, the user frustration at a blank screen can be minimised.
Many believe that things are now in place for videoconferencing to make the breakthrough to a mass system. High bandwidth is an absolute pre-requisite – and, of course, we all know that high bandwidth is now here – and relatively cheap. Quality of service is becoming available, especially where high bandwidth is available right to the office or home desktop.