Any new technology follows a business implementation curve that has become an industry expectation.
As the new technology develops, the acceptance and quality are low, and the expense and difficulty are high. As the quality increases and the expense decrease we see a large swell in acceptance and popularity. Cell phones are a prime example of this phenomenon. So the question becomes, where is video conferencing on this timeline/curve?
Since 2000, the modern video conference system has become somewhat common place. It was still plagued by unreliability of the hardware, or codec, which has the responsibility of encoding voice, video and data and decoding the same signal from a compatible far end codec. During this same period, IP connectivity was completely unpredictable, so it was always recommended to use ISDN lines, just as you would use a phone line to make a phone call.
ISDN lines and long distance charges continued to make these calls cost prohibitive, and the quality was good, not great.
Part 2 Coming tomorrow…
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