Saturday, March 31, 2012

Benefits of A Video Conference

By Belle Florentine


One of the greatest benefits of web conferencing is it can be achieved from almost anywhere in the world. The most important requirement is to have a high speed Internet connection. It may be desirable to possess a connection that has low latency, meaning high latency connections for example satellite will incur a delay between the time an individual speaks then when the listeners hear the actual words.

It is also not possible to do video conferencing over the internet in locations in which the Internet quality and speed is poor. In particular, it is extremely difficult to complete conferencing over the internet via dial-up Internet. The speeds with dial-up are far too slow to have both video and audio. Most of the time, the speed is still too slow just for audio. That is why the location will need to have good high speed Internet.

There are numerous reasons why more consumers and corporations are looking into webinar providers and selecting web conferencing. The most obvious benefit may be the financial savings from needing to travel in order to attend a meeting. With this particular technology, it is no longer necessary to incur airfare and lodging costs just to be at a meeting. The existing Internet infrastructure for information is usually sufficient to deal with online meetings.

A lot of people just like the features of video in conferences via the Internet. With conference products that use only the standard phone, it's difficult to incorporate video for all of the participants. The ones that use the computer for conferencing can see all the participants which have web cameras. That is one big advantage when holding a meeting.

The way in which web conferencing works is fairly simple. Today, most conferencing software programs are browser based meaning there are no complicated installation or configuration requirements. That means running out of energy enroll in a conference without needing to download or configure any software beforehand. In the past, thick clients needed to be used. Today, that's now not true.

At the time of the meeting, the organizer will invite various individuals to join in. This works well for those that currently have a profile within the conferencing system. Those that don't can continue to access the meeting by entering from a meeting ID and sometimes a password. This way, only invited people can access the meeting.

A brief history of web conferencing did not really begin before the high-speed internet connection became ubiquitous. Despite having T1 speeds of 1.5 megabits, it was not fast enough bandwidth to deal with a company's data needs and video conferencing needs at the same time.

After the dotcom bust, the cost of bandwidth went down so much that it was possible for even residential customers to have high speed Internet. The dial-up modem was relegated to the history museum in most parts of the United States. That is why it is possible to have streaming HD movies today. That also means video conferencing over the web is possible as well.




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