In March 2011, IMTC has conducted the first CTO roundtable – a first of it’s kind event with participants from both the vendor, the service provider and the clients end. Mirril McMullen, the director of connectivity solutions architecture at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals has joined the event to talk about video-conferencing in Pfizer. For the first time we bring you the full transcribe of his talk, alongside video – this is a must see for anyone looking to understand the customer perceptive of companies with multi-vendor equipment:

• The problem with combining legacy SD endpoints with newer HD ones.
• Unused conferencing rooms and scheduling.
• The importance of desktop video-conferencing and SAAS.
• Interoperability problems.
• The importance of Outlook to scheduling calls.
• Why Skype is the future of corporate video-conferencing.

To download the presentation, video and full-transcribe please leave your details below and an email will be sent with all the download links:

In the last few days I was hooked to the CES 2012 stream to see what would be the coolest products of 2012. It seems that in most categories the coolest products of 2012 would be those of 2011, maybe with a better screen. While this is disappointing to some, I believe that there is a value of small gradual improvements - Tablets just now become more and more useful as a productivity device, we would probably see lots of innovation from the software side in the next few months. But even if CES was rather sleepy this year, some products worth mentioning and also in an enterprise perspective. My list is shorter than Anatoli’s, but I think it’s similar in nature:

• Transparent LCDs – Samsung’s transparent ’smart-window’ concept showed us that transparent LCDs can be used not only in shopping mall installations, but also in homes and office environments. Telepresence Options already see it as a potential technology for telepresence installations, among many other things.

• Smarts TVs are nothing new, but as we see products like the ‘Ubuntu TV‘ and the Android 4.0 powered TVs – it’s only a matter of time before TVs will be the place where most people ‘Skype’ in, and maybe later – companies video-conferencing with. Future TVs might also include depth sensors, and those, beside offering gesture based interface might also help enhance video conferencing experience, as showed in the Kinect Conferencing demo.

• Telepresence Robots – when I first mentioned telepresence robots in the IMTC Blog I talked about them as specialized medical product, that might find their ways into the enterprise world. Well, that’s not really an ‘IF’ question anymore – LTE enabled Vgo robots were showed in CES 2012, and the technology is already being used for remote workers and management.

To me, those were the real highlights of CES (well, unless 4k video is your thing, but we sure need a lot of bandwidth for that).

Back in May, I was arguing about the true meaning of Telepresence. An analyst named Rob Bamforth from Quocirca wrote an article saying that the true meaning of Telepresence isn’t big screens and costly systems – it’s the illusion of being there – and for that he argued that low-lantancy is enough. I for the other hand, thought that low-lantency is only a part of the picture, and that for total immersion one must need eyesight level cameras and all the technical mumbo-jumbo.

Room Systems – anything less isn’t ‘Telepresence’?

But putting aside the exact semantics regarding the *videoconferencing* term called Telepresence, let’s talk about the general concept of tele-presence:
Lets say for a second that I own a business that relays heavily on out-of-office workers – and from all I concern, those workers are just as available in terms of communications, as people that work inside the office – isn’t that telepresence? Isn’t that the notion of having those people ‘here with me’?

From a business, and practical point of view – that is telepresence.

Cisco’s Cius – good for remote workers, but not as widespread as an iPhone

A few years ago, achieving that goal was costly and sometimes impossible. It is mainly because of the work of vendors such as RADVISION and Vidyo that this situation has changed. Scalable Video Coding is the key behind recent developments in both low-cost HD video systems and mobile video conferencing. This relatively new technology allows for high quality video communication over the unmanaged connections, such as the Internet. If the codec couldn’t have the ability to adapt to unstable bandwidth it would be impossible to connect remote workers reliably to a conference call. But now with SVC and broadband – it’s possible. These days, EVERYONE has smartphones that are capable of video communication – so wouldn’t it just make sense to turn them into a small video-conferencing device?One of the first companies to introduce a mobile client for it’s video-conferencing platform was RADVISION. When they released the first version the mobile client, it only had the ability to manage the video conference, not to be a part of it as a video client – effectively making an iPad a neat remote control pad. Today both iPhones and iPads has cameras and the latest version of Scopia Mobile is a fully functioning one – at last, the ability to connect to a conference call when on the go.

RADVISION’s Scopia Mobile – high-quality videoconferencing for iDevices

Just like the desktop client, Scopia mobile support video-conference with multiple participants (up to 28) and data sharing via h.329 (which is super important for out-of-office workers). But what’s really special about it that it just work well. IMTC is using Scopia internally for meetings and webinars, and in the latest meeting, the VP marketing of IMTC – Kfir Pravda, had to call in while driving, from his iPhone, over a 3G connection. That was a conference call with multiple people around the world, Kfir himself was in Israel!

3G-enabled conference with an iPhone – Amazing!

The call just worked. This is in my view, amazing, knowing how difficult it is to get a decent video-call quality from a 2-way call in a non-commercial system such as Skype (at least here, in Israel). In terms of features, again – that’s a fully functioning Scopia – and on the iPad2 it supports full 720P video.

I think that mobile video clients will create a revolution in video-conferencing, the form-factor is there (tablets), the technology is there (H.264) and the out-of-office situation will probably grew larger and require businesses to adapt accordingly.
Maybe Rob was right and the true meaning of Telepresence is just mobile video-conferencing that actually works.

Here on the IMTC blog we plan to compare a few mobile solutions over the next months, Scopia included. So stay tuned.

IMTC Newest Member – Intel Corporation
IMTC Welcomes Intel as it’s newest member! Among recently added members are also Siemens Enterprise Communications GmbH & Co. KG. and LG.

HSPA & HSPA Evolution Info
Can be found on the 3g4g UK site – the website contains whitepapers and presentations about HSPA – showing the standard advancements in each release.
Link originally found in 3G4G Blog.

Vidyo for Telemedicine
Language barriers can often be problematic for health-care services and handicapped deaf patients are even a bigger problem. The following video by Vidyo shows a simple and practical use of telemedicine:

DVE Huddle Rooms
DVE announced the availability of demonstration Telepresence rooms in their new offices (3112 West Alpine Street, Santa Ana, CA. 92704). The new Huddle systems use Vidyo codecs and iPad based control pads.
For more info see http://www.dvetelepresence.com/news

Telepresence Robots to take over video-conferencing market?
Apparently, Telepresence robots (which I already mentioned in my “Telepresence How Does It Work?” post) gain momentum as a valid representation of remote workers:

• Jim O’Neill from FierceEnterpriseCommunications wrote in favor of the concept, talking about the benefits of a robot as a cheap (at least, relatively to high-end videoconferencing room/telepresence suite) way of creating a remote presence of a worker (i.e – Telepresence).
• Chris Jablonski from ZDNet went as far as writing a “3 reasons x is better than y” type of article, explaining why he thinks Robots will trump videoconferencing equipment. While his claims are valid, it should be mentioned that video-conferencing does support 3D projection and mobile devices (thus extend beyond the conference room). My bet is that the robot won’t replace anything, just join in as another office appliance with varied popularity (depends mostly on the amount of remote workers and the nature of the office work being done in the workplace).

NO LTE Roaming
As mentioned before, LTE roaming isn’t to be expected soon. Operators throughout the world use different frequencies and there is no phone available or planned to support all of them.
Dan Jones, editor at LightReading.com reminds us that fact yet again, but in video:

Mobile Spectrum
The following marketing video was created by the Mobile Future coalition, which try to convince US law-makers to allocate more wireless spectrum for commercial usage:

Source: 3G4G Blog.

Lifesize to offer Videoconferencing on the Cloud
LifeSize announced it’s new video collaboration platfrom – LifeSize Connections.
LifeSize connections will offer HD video calling with full connectivity to LifeSize video conferencing rooms, PC and Mac clients. LifeSize Connections will offer nine-way video bridging, data encryption and more.

More info at FierceEnterpiseCommunications.

Avatar based virtual chat-room service
Microsoft unveiled it’s Kincet virtual chat service – a virtual chat that use motion tracking and facial recognition with the Kinect camera. Each user will be represented via a cartoon avatar and will be able to join with up to sever other people in one of 24 different virtual environments. The avatars will show different gestures in realtime such as smiles, nods, etc.

More info at Gizmag.com.

HP Broadened It’s UC Portfolio
After selling it’s Telepresence business to Polycom, HP strengthen it’s partnerships with Microsoft, Polycom, Avaya and Alcatel-lucent as UC partners. HP goal is to sell UC services based on open and interoperable products from various makers.
More info at eWeek.com.

Creating Telepresence Enviorments – Telepresence Design Guide by ‘Telepresence Options’
Telepresence Options posted a great guide for building Telepresence environments. From audio to lighting to furniture – it’s all there:
Creating Telepresence Environments

If you haven’t read the ‘Telepresence and Visual Collaboration Trends 2011‘ article on Telepresence Options – You should. Howard Lichtman, the president of the Human Productivity Lab gives a complete overview of recents trends in the Telepresence market:

• Growing Utility of Visual Collaboration
• Interoperability of telepresence and videoconferencing systems
• Interconnectivity of Networks
• Video Network Intelligence
• B2C Telepresence — Retail and Call Center Applications
• Community of Interest Networks (CoINs)
• Next Generation Codecs enable video over the Internet – The Rise of SVC
• The Coming Proliferation of Video Network Operations Centers (VNOC)
• Unified Communications

It’s highly recommended read, and it’s always nice to read about the importance of Interoperability in this ecosystem and IMTC and standardization bodies role in it.

Telepresence Options Link: http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/2011/06/telepresence_and_visual_collab_2/

I’ve recently read an article about the ‘True definition of Telepresence’. Rob Bamforth, an analyst for Quocirca, tried to advance the notion that Telepresence isn’t about big screens or costly systems – it’s about the illusion of being there.

Cisco's Cius - Connects to Telepresence, but not necessarily is Telepresence

Rob claims that latency is the main differentiator between Telepresence and other communication systems. However, telepresence experience is created by various technological, psychological and environmental factors. The right mix creates the right experience.

Let’s look at the components of a typical telepresence room:
Large screens – in order to project the people in front of us, in real life size (proportionally to the ‘virtual’ distance). A large screen is placed far away from us in a distance that allows better placement of the camera, for direct, or near direct line of sight with the projected person.
Direct line of sight –  A direct line of sight is considered important and is a major difference between Telepresence systems and ‘normal’ video conferencing solutions (Having said that, there are claims that a fully direct line of sight isn’t necessary)
Specific furniture, lighting, and background colors – that creates visual continuity between two remote locations
A large screen, coupled with a direct line of sight camera placement AND matching backgrounds/furniture  provides  a unique experience not found in other types of video conferencing systems.
If you wish to call this experience ‘Telepresence’ that is up to you – but it’s not the same experience you get with a tablet device, regardless of latency.

Technologically speaking, there are many elements that allow this experience to work well and make us believe we are in one physical location with the person we are speaking to:
Video resolution & quality – bit-rate, color, even the quality of the screens themselves.
Audio – Is it spatial? are the microphones of great quality? What is the quality of the loudspeakers?
And yes, latency – latency should be at bare minimum, otherwise it will break the illusion.
But the latency is only one aspect that might break the illusion. Visual data will always be a key factor in Telepresence as our visual senses constitute much of our reality interpretation:

Visual Data is so strong, that it even alters the way we perceive sound

For Telepresence to be believable we need high quality video stream, in high resolution, in low latency, in perfect lighting, and crisp, directional audio.
As you can see, it is much easier to define what Telepresence isn’t than what Telepresence is – If your system lacks a key factor that is usually needed to maintain the presence illusion, this isn’t Telepresence.
So yes, Telepresence must have low latency in order to be believable – but video conferencing with low latency isn’t necessarily Telepresence.

Broadcasting music performances over video-conferencing equipment isn’t new – Polycom, Cisco, DVE has been experimenting with it for years. It is only recently that Telepresence became mature enough for concert streaming. The key challenge with Telepresence concerts isn’t a technology one, it’s entirely a business issue.  Telepresence concerts must offer something new in order to attract artists and record labels. Among the key points in favor of Telepresence concerts are:

• The Ability to do small, frequent, intimate concerts for high-paying fans in foreign countries – real-life concerts requires high operational costs (including travelling) and can’t scale well for small listening groups.
• The Ability to use a fixed location: The performing artist can use a single, fixed performing location regardless of who it performs to (‘telepresence stage’) – lower operational should be achievable.

It still remains to be seen how well Telepresence concerts will be accepted by artists and record labels, but for artists that have difficulty in travelling, it seems like a perfect match.
Jewel’s recent Telepresence concert is a great example – The famous folk-singer is pregnant and telecommunication technologies allow her to continue her work while minimizing travelling. Ali Heriyanto from ‘ChipChick’ wrote about the concert, praising its immersiveness factor and the two-way interactions enabled by Telepresence technology. Jewel itself felt that this type of concert allows her to better interact with the audience, noticing when they aren’t focused on her performance.

While jewel’s case seems like a great use-case for Telepresence concerts only time will tell if Telepresence concerts can drive enough public demand to make them truly viable. After all, we go to concerts in order to see a live performer, not a ‘cool’ technology.

Cisco Umi Interoperability
Cisco announced that it’s Home Telepresence offering – Umi, will be interoperatable with ‘Umi-Connect‘ – A umi software client for Mac and PC and Cisco’s professional Telepresence systems.
This announcement puts Umi in a whole different perspective, as Umi can now be used for business purposes, i.e – home workers.
In addition, Cisco revelaed a new 720P only version, for a cheaper $399 price and lowered the monthly fee (for a yearly plan) to 9.95$ a month from 24.99$ a month.
Lack of interoperability and high ownership cost were major points of criticism when Cisco introduce Umi and it remains to be seen how this latest move will improve Umi acceptance in home and SOHO markets.

3G4G blog posted a short article about RCS (or in it’s latest form – RCS-e)
The article gives a good overview of what RCS is, and is a recommended read. Back in July 2010 we interviewed Jose M.Recio from Solaimes about RCS and it’s relevancy in the age of the smartphone – As it seems, it’s still is.

Panasonic Viera Blu-ray players to include Skype
Panasonic announced Skype support for it’s new blu-ray player line (2011). Video-Chat will be supported via the Freetalk Conference Camera, which will cost 99$ and be available starting this month.

Spectrume Reform Legistlation
US Senators Olympia Snowe and John Kerry recently introduced the Reforming Airwaves by Developing Incentives and Opportunistic Sharing (RADIOS) Act.  The proposed RADIOS Act aims to provide FCC and NTIA detailed information needed for smarter allocation of the Radio spectrum.

LTE sprint
Spirt is one of the few operators in USA that use CDMA for voice and data connectivity – Steve Elfman, Sprint’s president of network operations said that the company will make a decision regarding LTE in mid-year, however if Sprint does decide to use LTE it could be deployed by year-end 2013.