Can Video Conferencing Replace Travel?
A natural progression upwards in technology to benefit businesses of all sizes is the move from teleconferencing by phone to video conferencing. Since May of 2005, when the first high definition video conferencing system created by LifeSize Communications surfaced at the Las Vegas, NV, Interop Trade Show, popularity and demand for this system has grown. Today, most major suppliers, including LifeSize Communications and Polycom, offer high definition video conferencing.
Video conferencing achieves the same purpose as teleconferencing, with the added benefit of visual communications in conjunction with audio communications. Being interactive requires high quality digital technology and equipment to provide excellent reception and reproduction of a live scene. The results are so lifelike and real that already video conferencing is replacing travel for many business persons.
Meetings can be held in multiple locations around the globe with real time interaction. This technology is already being used for corporate meetings, sales presentations, education and medicine. The ability to instantaneously transmit both audio and video to large or small audiences has many useful applications.
One major benefit of video conferencing is that businesses are able to omit or replace expensive and time consuming travel with this far more affordable option. No time is lost, no travel risks are involved, and costs are greatly reduced when video conferencing is utilized in place of actual traveling to meetings. With facsimile machines and electronic signatures, no in-person meetings need take place even to seal a deal or sign a contract.
Video teleconferencing is used in education to bring virtual tours to students, showcase guest speakers that are located in distant locations, and to facilitate communications among researchers and scientists. In law, depositions are made via video conferencing that allow incarcerated prisoners a trip to court without leaving the jail. Benefits of video conferencing in medicine are huge; specialists can be consulted and view patients and records instantly, adding to excellence in health care.
Video conferencing can replace travel quite easily and beneficially. It can help make smaller companies more competitive, and reduce expenses for all size businesses that would have had a travel budget. The only downside might be to the travel industry, which can fight back with better corporate deals in their effort to stay competitive.
The elements of video conferencing are simple. A set of interactive equipment in two or more locations is required and two-way audio/video transmissions. Early systems used closed circuit television connected by radio or coax cable. The development of digital technology was a great leap forward in ability and quality. Computer based video conferencing became possible with Internet Protocol in the 1990s. All these new technological advances resulted in better quality video conferencing at lower costs.
Since 2005 and the advent of new high definition video conferencing systems, this technology has become a superstar and favorite of many corporations. Some drawbacks may include human related issues, such as lack of eye contact and appearance consciousness. Technical issues might include signal latency, and stability of a large bandwidth for transmission. For overall savings, video conferencing beats travel for time, energy and cost.
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For more information on video conferencing visit http://www.lifesize.com/
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