Video Conference Calls Allow You to Stay in Touch With People You Love

When it comes to communicating with family members around the world, the phone is no longer your only option. With nearly every household in the world containing a computer, it is a simply matter of purchasing a webcam for your computer, (and many of them have the already built in), which the cost of these are minimal, and a microphone to speak in and you can make a video conference call to anyone in the world. The great part about this is that you can make your video call free by using some of the many free web conferencing services available online.

Staying in touch with people that you care about is a great use for your video conference option on your computer. Think about the holidays and birthdays as well. Families with children whose loved ones live out of state can set up their webcams to share the opening of presents, singing happy birthday, and so on, and share these experiences in real time, with comments from all sides, unlike video that is shown after the fact.

Video conferencing is not only used for personal use, many businesses are learning the value of a video conference call to clients. The bottom line is that many types of businesses need to visit with clients in order to sell a product or a service. However, with video conferencing, it is possible for businesses to save a great deal of money on travel costs, which include airfare, hotel rooms, rental cars and so on. There are even companies who will send the video conferencing gear to potential clients to ensure that they have everything needed for a video conference call. The cost of sending even the very best video conferencing gear is minuet compared to the cost of traveling.

There are many technological advances that have made it easier for people to work and live in today's world. While video conferencing is not a new technology, it has improved greatly over the past five years. The benefits to both the business world and to the personal lives of many are numerous. They include the ability to save money on travel and allows for loved ones to share in the important moment of your life. The best part of video conferencing is that it is very inexpensive or even free, depending on what service that you use. It provides an accessible way for millions of people to communicate.

To get video conferencing equipments and LCD projector, visit ESCO Audio Visual now.

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By Charles Cheow

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Video Conferencing Networks - How Do You Get the Best of Both Worlds?

There are two types of networks available for video conferencing, IP and ISDN. Most codecs these days will support both networks so supporting both technologies is not an issue but you don't want to spend lots of money installing both networks. If the majority of your conferencing will be between your offices and you already have an extensive IP network in place then IP is the way to go for these types of calls but occasionally if one of your offices require the ability to call an external site over ISDN then you can install one of these services to accommodate.

All your internal calls will cost minimal or will be free dependant on your IP infrastructure provider and on the odd occasion that you do make external ISDN calls you will only pay for the time you use.

Another way of saving money when using ISDN services for videoconferencing, is to share an existing infrastructure. ISDN has more than one use other than video conferencing; it is more commonly used for your telephone lines and terminates into your PABX equipment.

If you happen to have one of these services you may be able to accommodate ISDN extensions on your PABX which means that you no longer require a dedicated service for your video conferencing equipment. However your videoconferencing equipment will utilise these lines when it requires them and they will be unavailable for use while in a conference much the same way if your incoming lines were busy taking voice calls.

ISDN comes in two flavours, a Basic rate service "BRI" and a Primary rate service "PRI". It is pretty easy to determine what service you are using because a BRI service supports 2 lines where a PRI service supports 10, 20 and up to 30 lines. So if you have 10 lines or more, you will most likely be running a PRI service.

This is not to be confused with how many numbers you have as with ISDN services it is common to have what is called an in-dial which is a number range. For example, you could have an in-dial range of 100 which means you have 100 numbers in your range. It might look something like this: (07) 3620 7300 - (07) 3620 7399. If you have a PRI 10 service with an in-dial range of 100 then you can receive a maximum of 10 calls simultaneously on any one of the 100 numbers in your range.

Video conferencing will not work over a single line, in fact the bare minimum requirement is 2 lines which equates to 128 Kbps (Bandwidth). To achieve a reasonable picture and audio quality a bandwidth of 384Kbps is recommended. This is the equivalent of 6 lines and if you are utilising a PRI 10 service you will be occupying 6 of your 10 lines to achieve this.

Your call costs will also increase as with ISDN you pay per line. Videoconferencing calls are considered 'data' calls when using ISDN and data calls are generally charged at a different rate to voice only calls. If a data call from Sydney to Melbourne was to cost .50 cents per minute than a video conferencing call at 384Kbps would cost $ 3 per minute & at 128 Kbps it would cost $ 1 per minute. Of course this is only an example and actual costs would be dependent on what your carrier charges for data calls over ISDN. What you should have realised by now is that video conferencing does require some forethought and planning before implementing a solution.

Rabone Systems will provide you with all the necessary information as a part of the video conferencing solution, making sure that you benefit from the cost savings of videoconferencing over traditional travel costs as well as getting a return on your investment.

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