"Once the economy begins to recover, videoconferencing will see meteoric growth," predicts Jeff Prestel, general manager of BT's Video Conferencing Unit. After watching the videoconferencing market emerge over the past several years and interviewing seven carriers to find out what they are up to, we agree that global videoconferencing is indeed coming into its own. We’ve set out to provide an overview of what videoconferencing services telecommunications carriers offer today--and in a follow-up article we will offer guidance for how to choose the right carrier for your video traffic.
Global Videoconferencing Going Mainstream
The long-awaited mainstream adoption of business videoconferencing is finally happening. Experience quality is improving, systems are increasingly easy to use, and high-end "immersive" solutions are creating buzz if not making major inroads just yet. Several of the carriers we spoke to tell us that consumer exposure to Skype on the low end and HDTV on the high end is a potent force driving business videoconferencing adoption. Corporate IT types as well as ordinary network users are dabbling in the technologies at home, enabling them to see the technologies’ potential in the workplace. Eager to capitalize on this trend, carriers are ramping up to help.
Long the private niche of Polycom and Tandberg, global videoconferencing catapulted into prominence when the 800-pound gorilla Cisco burst onto the scene with its Telepresence solution in 2007. Cisco's entry validated the market for carriers as a group--with Cisco serious about videoconferencing, it was time to take notice.
Increasingly hungry to replace eroding transport revenues, carriers have been stalking opportunities to add value and sell more bandwidth--and videoconferencing is emerging as a natural area of expansion. Not only does videoconferencing require substantial bandwidth, it requires implementation of QoS as well. This is welcome news for carriers because they can charge more for the additional QoS service. Longstanding relationships with Cisco for network gear have smoothed the way for carriers with no previous videoconferencing experience to enter the fray through an already comfortable connection.
Videoconferencing Service Types
Like tourist class, business class, and first class airline tickets, business videoconferencing services come in three basic classes: desktop videoconferencing, room-based videoconferencing, and "immersive" telepresence. Just as in the airline example, experience quality improves the more you pay.
If you've used Skype, you have experienced poor man's desktop videoconferencing. Desktop videoconferencing allows users to see and hear each other on demand using a PC. The video image is usually tiny, grainy, and jumpy, and the audio is unpredictable--but for the price, one can’t complain.
In room-based videoconferencing, conference participants physically convene in specially-appointed rooms containing dedicated videoconferencing gear, and are interconnected via a videoconferencing system that usually runs over a shared IP data network. BT's Jeff Prestel describes room-based videoconferencing services as the "meat and potatoes of the market." Like conventional conference rooms, videoconference rooms must be reserved in advance, but scheduling is more complex because a room must be reserved at each participating location.
Room-based systems support a range of resolutions and configurations. The quality of the experience depends on choosing the right technology for the right enterprise application. Poorly designed solutions and rooms lead to a frustrating experience, while well designed solutions provide excellent results. The difficulty of getting room-based video deployment right led to widespread frustration and low system utilization. The recent introduction of HD quality video and much larger plasma or LCD screens has changed the quality equation, spurring new growth in room-based deployments.
Immersive videoconferencing services enable an experience that is to room-based videoconferencing what analog TV viewing is to an iMax theater experience. Although immersive videoconferencing isn't quite the same as iMax, the idea is similar. The goal of the service is to provide sufficiently powerful audio and visual effects so you feel you are together in the same room with the remote participants. As you can imagine, achieving this experience involves a great deal of sophisticated and expensive equipment connected to a carefully designed network, because the technology demands constant high-quality transport with very low loss and jitter.
Carrier Service Modules
The carriers we interviewed are concentrating their service development efforts primarily on traditional room-based and immersive videoconferencing services rather than desktop videoconferencing. The room-based and immersive videoconferencing services that carriers deliver today are generically divisible into a number of service elements. In some cases many of these service elements are bundled into all-inclusive packages, while in other cases they are available on an a la carte or custom basis. Here is the basic list:
* Videoconferencing design service
* Implementation
* Management
* Dedicated video class of service (CoS)
* Concierge services
* Business-to-business exchanges
* Immersive videoconferencing room rental
Design services include determining network-specific as well as room-specific requirements. Network-specific services include determining the network capacity and network QoS policies needed to support the enterprise's videoconferencing needs, location and ownership of the bridges, connectivity to the managed service providers. and security management. Room-specific design includes lighting, acoustics, safety, network connectivity, furniture, colors and specific equipment configurations.
Implementation services encompass equipment and network resource procurement, installation, configuration and integration as well as user and administrative training.
Management services cover such elements as monitoring and reporting on the videoconferencing equipment as well as the network, periodic testing and maintenance, problem resolution, change management, inventory management, and service level reporting and management.
Dedicated video class of service means the CoS model used by the carrier has a CoS level dedicated to videoconferencing traffic. This class is optimized for high bandwidth, low loss, and low jitter.
Concierge services include live support for scheduling videoconferences and managing rooms, launching and monitoring conferences, and providing in-conference support during calls.
Business-to-business exchange services enable customers to schedule and launch conferences with other companies connected to the same carrier and/or with partners connected via other carriers with full bandwidth and QoS support.
A final service for customers who cannot cost justify immersive videoconferencing facilities at their own locations is public immersive room rental that enables businesses to rent time in off-site telepresence rooms owned by the carrier.
The Technology Vendors
Polycom, Tandberg and Radvision are the top three traditional room-based video conferencing vendors. LifeSize has joined this group with products focused exclusively on high definition (HD) room-based conferencing. Cisco and HP are market newcomers, having both introduced telepresence systems about two years ago.
Radvision focuses on the infrastructure components of videoconferencing such as bridges, gateways, and gatekeepers--and it has OEM relationships with numerous suppliers including LifeSize and Cisco. Polycom, Tandberg, and Lifesize sell their endpoint and infrastructure components through channels to enterprise customers. In addition to selling its own videoconferencing equipment, Cisco promotes network upgrades to support the new application, generating additional network equipment revenue for itself in the process. Hewlett Packard’s approach to telepresence is more holistic than other vendors. HP delivers its Halo telepresence suites and supports them with a dedicated network and management services.
Many of the carriers we interviewed resell equipment from Polycom, Tandberg, LifeSize and Cisco to their enterprise customers and package those products with the network support needed to make them work. HP does not sell through carriers because it competes with them by providing a complete, managed solution.
Who Is Doing What?
Here is a brief overview of what room-based and immersive videoconferencing services are being offered by the seven carriers we interviewed. We also include an at-a-glance matrix.
AT&T: The AT&T videoconferencing service portfolio includes a room-based and an immersive solution. The room-based service is available in either high definition or standard definition using equipment from Polycom or Tandberg. AT&T's telepresence service is built around AT&T-owned Cisco equipment. Telepresence customers can connect with other AT&T-connected companies, but not those using other carriers' networks.
BT Global Services: Through its purchase of Wire One in April of 2008, BT acquired videoconferencing expertise and market share. BT's Jeff Prestel told us that the carrier now has more than 10,000 videoconferencing customers, and that its installed base is growing at double digit rates in Europe, Asia Pacific, and the U.S. BT provides fully managed room-based as well as immersive videoconferencing services, and builds services around the customer’s choice of Polycom, Tandberg and Cisco gear. BT also provides support options that range from proactive "white glove" to lower-touch reactive support.
Masergy: Masergy provides a video grade of transport service called inControl Video, that is specifically designed to support a high quality videoconferencing experience. The carrier does not provide any videoconferencing gear or related services--rather it leaves the video end of the solution to integrators such as Providea Solutions, York Telecom and Whitlock Group.
NTT Communications: NTT Com offers a room-based service that comes in standard and high definition flavors, and it also offers a PC-based service. NTT tells us that it plans to work with partners to support immersive videoconferencing, but at present it plans to limit its immersive videoconferencing services to the transport side of the equation.
Orange Business Services: Orange Business Services (OBS) has offered room-based videoconferencing services since 2002, and last year added an immersive videoconferencing solution based on Cisco products and services that is now available in 35 countries (more countries than any other carrier, they claim). OBS also supports Polycom, Tandberg and Teliris videoconferencing solutions. Concierge services for immersive videoconferencing will be launched in 2009, and intra-company videoconferencing is in the works. OBS differentiates itself from other major carriers by its adherence to ITIL and ISO standards.
Tata Communications: Like other carriers, Tata Communications provides on-site immersive videoconferencing services, but unlike the other carriers we interviewed, Tata Communications has chosen to offer public immersive videoconferencing room rental as an off-the-shelf videoconferencing offering. The carrier has launched a network of public videoconferencing rooms in hotels in Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, New Delhi, London and Santa Clara, with New York in the works. The service is based on Cisco’s telepresence solution. Tata intends to roll out 100 rooms before the end of 2009, although that number may be revised downward due to economic circumstances.
Tata product marketing manager Lee Ann Lim told us that the carrier intends to be a "leading provider of connectivity among telepresence networks." They plan to initially interconnect private and public immersive videoconferencing customers on the Tata network, and then expand to connect to customers not on their network.
Telstra: Telstra has a venerable 15-year history providing room-based videoconferencing services based on Polycom. The carrier recently added a Cisco-based immersive videoconferencing service, as well as a managed event videoconferencing service that is also Cisco-based.
Verizon Business: According to Bill Versen, Verizon's Director of Global Unified Communications and Collaboration, Verizon has a legacy of room-based videoconferencing services extending back to 1997 and it recently added immersive videoconferencing services. Fully managed immersive systems are made possible through a partnership with Nortel to install and manage Tandberg and Polycom solutions, and Cisco for Cisco-specific videoconferencing solutions.
Figure 1. Summary of Carrier Videoconferencing Offerings
Conclusions
Videoconferencing is experiencing significant uptake due to improved quality and pressure to reduce costs and travel. Seeing this as an opportunity to increase their value to business customers as well as drive bandwidth sales, carriers are getting on board and offering a growing array of videoconferencing service offerings. Cisco has become a major force in the telepresence market in a short time and has captured big carrier market share through partnerships. Video is here to stay, but we expect to see services evolve as the market matures and both carriers and enterprises figure out what they really need to support video communications.
John Bartlett and Rebecca Wetzel are principals of NetForecast. Rebecca is also president of the marketing consulting firm, Wetzel Consulting LLC, where she provides data communications industry insight and helps vendors and service providers develop and deploy successful marketing strategies. John is also a No Jitter blogger and will be co-leader of the upcoming conference-within-a-conference on videoconferencing being held at VoiceCon Orlando.
