by A.B. Covell  Designing a Videoconferencing Solution This chapter gives you the basic information needed to get a solid start designing a videoconferencing configuration that enables your organization to communicate, interact and collaborate more effectively, either within the organization, or with external clients, customers, or business partners. It leads you on a tour of the technology and describes those technological characteristics and issues that comprise key decision points, and follows up with some sample configurations and a brief discussion of some of the issues you will need to come to grips with as you design your videoconferencing solution. This is a challenging project, but it can be fun and it's very satisfying when you see the enhanced communication that follows once you've designed and implemented an effective videoconference service. Videoconferencing, a technology that was once viable only for organization s with big budgets and dedicated staffing, is now readily available at price points that will attract even home-based business professionals and consumers. For the technology manager, videoconferencing represents a strategic technology that can deliver value for you and your organization by making people more productive -- and we don't mean just high-level decision-makers. Today's IT-oriented worker bees can also leverage videoconferencing to collaborate and communicate with colleagues and customers across town or across the globe. Effective videoconferencing technology selection and deployment is a significant challenge -- this is much more than an exercise in network capacity planning and desktop systems management. It's a business planning exercise as well. And with the unusual variation in videoconferencing alternatives (with major differences in quality, price, flexibility and functionality) the task of matching business needs and opportunities against available technologies is no easy task. The variation in videoconference systems architectures (including the end points and the network) also demands a careful review of existing and anticipated technology infrastructure, making this a technologically challenging assignment as well. Even though you'll be mounting a significant effort to properly deploy videoconferencing, you'll need to realize what a great opportunity this can be for you and your organization -- and that it will be worth the effort to identify those applications where videoconferencing will work and work well. The business needs in your organization are very specific, no doubt, and can't all be addressed here. But we can help you to grasp the range of business uses for videoconferencing technology. We will give you an overview in the next section, and though the remainder of this chapter will focus more on the technological facts and issues that will drive your decision-making, we will also point out those features of the technology that play a part in the matching of bu siness process and videoconference solution. In addition, we will describe some hypothetical videoconference configurations to help trigger some thoughts on how you might deploy the technology in your setting. Andy Covell is Director of Information Technology at the Syracuse University School of Management. He can be reached at abcovell@som.syr.edu. Designing a Videoconferencing Solution Typical Videoconferencing Applications Characteristics Of A Successful Videoconference Solution Summary of ITU Videoconferencing Standards Videoconference System Alternatives Network Considerations Mix and Match Sample Scenarios Putting It All Together Videoconferencing Web Resources Print This Page E-mail this URL