The Hindu Business Line : Video conferencing becoming the norm

Bangalore, Oct. 28 A carpet trader in Muzaffarpur walks into his video conferencing room, switches on the plasma TV and interacts with interested buyers in New York and North Carolina. Textile company Fibres and Fabrics International uses it for design acceptance. Other enterprises use it to bid on tenders, evaluate facilities before outsourcing and marketing.

“Creative uses for video conferencing will continue to grow with the drop in prices,” says Mr Shivasankar. K, Country Manager, LifeSize Communications India, a US-based firm that launched its latest product last week.

Express is a video conferencing system the size of a small laptop that plugs into a TV, Web cam and a phone, capturing and transmitting high definition video across the Internet to a room anywhere else in the world. This person-to-person video communication solution is aimed at small and medium business, and the masses.

Bandwidth usage

The average video conferencing system costs between $8,000 and $12,000. The price is down to Rs 3 lakh for Express.

The primary concern while using video conferencing is not the cost of the set-up but bandwidth usage, Mr Shivasankar said. Managing the pipe to ensure both data and video travel without affecting each other is becoming significant. With virtual private networks, small and medium businesses are beginning to manage bandwidth.

With Express, users can leverage plasma televisions’ 16:9 screens and progressively scan displays to obtain regular sized images and zero flicker. “People are used to better quality and high definition video conferencing, which will soon be the norm,” he said.

Amid the ranks of Polycom and Tandberg, this two-year-old firm is targeting India as a market for video conferencing.

The company has 200 installations in India — banks, hospitals, enterprises and government offices. The potential market is Rs 80-100 crore and growing at 20 per cent, he said.

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