Videoconferencing gains momentum

Cutting travel costs main reason for implementing videoconferencing

Recently released research suggests that videoconferencing – a much talked about, but seldom-used technology – may finally be earning its spurs within the enterprise.

Application performance management vendor Netscout, has released the results of a survey conducted in association with consulting group Ashton, Metzler and Associates. It suggested that 85 per cent of respondents polled either use or plan to use video conferencing.

Forty one per cent of those questioned are also using, or investigating the use of so-called telepresence – a high-end version of videoconferencing that provides a more life-like experience. The respondents cited the technology's potential to cut on travel costs as the primary reason for using it.

The survey also concluded that in nearly 15 per cent of organisation that with IT had no involvement in the evaluation, selection or installation process connected to videoconferencing.

Furthermore, 71 per cent were running, or planned to run, these services over a converged network rather than the 13 per cent who said they would use a dedicated network.

Netscout’s marketing vice president Jim Frey said that a those enterprises implementing telepresence should be aware of the bandwidth requires, which can be add "15Mbit/s of bandwidth on their existing networks”. This kind of network load, “could easily affect existing applications and adversely impact the value intended by adopting the technology,” he added.

The research is based on interviews with 400 enterprise network managers from across the globe.