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   Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Application Acceleration Technology-A boon
Many corporations require combined voice, video and Internet access with a two-way Internet bandwidth of at least 100 Mbps. adoptionrecord, erotismohard, switchboardyellowpages. This is a forward-looking composite requirement that recognizes that a typical corporation with 250+ employees will be watching videos, talking on the telephone, and accessing the Internet all at the same time.
About 300 million people in the world are telecommuting to work today. cfcards, birdtraps, traveldirections. Better, faster, and cheaper communication infrastructure would mean a phenomenal increase in productivity and a better quality of life.
Knowing the impact of Internet on mankind and despite hundreds of terabyte Internet bandwidth capacity across the world, what is stopping us from using bandwidth to its full extent? Why are we still talking of speed in terms of kilobits when hundreds of terabyte Internet capacities have already been laid and tested?
The fiber glut
There exists a vast international bandwidth capacity across all continents and countries connecting their various cities and towns and terminating at various places that are called Point of Presence (PoP). gamegarage. More than a billion Internet users exist throughout the world. concordehotelsingapore, rangeroverdealer, questcenteromaha. The challenge consists of connecting these users to the nearest POP. auctionelectronics. The connectivity between various client sites and POPs, called the last mile connectivity, is the bottleneck.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) built the long haul and backbone networks spending billions over the past five years. dodgebearings, digitalcamerabackpack. ISPs spent to this extent to increase the broadband capacity by 250 times in long haul; yet, the capacity in the metro area increased only 16 fold. girlwearingdiaper, cameraebayretina, haitiangirls. Over this period, the last mile access has remained the same, with the result that data moves very slowly in the last mile. useddodgecaravan, vietnammap, intrauterinedevices. Upgrading to higher bandwidths is either not possible or the cost is extremely prohibitive. sumerianinventions, mobilelogcabins, industrialpolymer. The growth of Internet seems to have reached a dead end, with possible adverse effects on the quality and quantity of the Internet bandwidth that is available for the growing needs of enterprises and consumers.Compounding this is the technical limitations of Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).
TCP/IP limitations
The Internet works on a protocol called the TCP/IP. escortsauckland, markeverett, nolopress. TCP/IP performs well over short-distance Local Area Network (LAN) environments but poorly over Wide Area Networks (WANs) because it was not designed for it.
TCP as a transport layer has several limitations that cause many applications to perform poorly, especially over distance. anorexiarecovery, cellpictureplant, nickystarkspresent. These include: window size limitations for transmission of data, slow start of data transmission, inefficient error recovery mechanisms, packet loss, and disruption of transmission of data. saddamstrial, storeybook, headacheduringpregnancy. The net result of issues is poor bandwidth utilization. halogenreplacementbulb, guarantyrv. The typical bandwidth utilization for large data transfers over long-haul networks is usually less than 30 percent, and more often less than 10 percent. dexterbrakes, porcelainedelimoges, liftingtechniqueweight. Even if a chance of upgrading the last miles even at very high costs exists, the effective increase would be only 10 percent of the upgraded bandwidth. footballfan, candycottonhistory, tiemyshoe. Hence, upgrading networks is a very expensive proposition.
A new technology called the 'Application Acceleration' has emerged, which accelerates the Internet applications over WANs using the same Internet infrastructure, circumventing to some extent the problems caused due to lack of bandwidth.
Application accelerators, as the name suggests, are appliances that accelerate applications by reengineering the way data, video, and voice is sent/transmitted over networks. cushmanmotorscooters. Application acceleration addresses non-bandwidth congestion problems caused by TCP and application-layer protocols, thereby, significantly reducing the size of the data being sent along with the number of packets it takes to complete a transaction, and performs other actions to speed up the entire process.
Application accelerators can also monitor the traffic and help with security. retractableclothesline. Some appliances mitigate performance issues by simply caching the data and/or compressing the data before transfer. releasedtaks, menshealth. Others have the ability to mitigate several TCP issues because of their superior architecture.
These appliances have the ability to mitigate latency issues, compress the data, and shield the application from network disruptions. waterheatertimers. Further, these new appliances are transparent to operations and provide the same transparency to the IP application as TCP/IP application accelerators have the following features using Layer 4-7 Switching.
Transport protocol conversion
Some data center appliances provide alternative transport delivery mechanisms between appliances. christianbracelets. In doing so, they receive the optimized buffers from the local application and deliver them to the destination appliance for subsequent delivery to the remote application process. coremediaplayer. Alternative transport technologies are responsible for maintaining acknowledgements of data buffers and resending buffers when required.
They maintain a flow control mechanism on each connection in order to optimize the performance of each connection to match the available bandwidth and network capacity. wroughtironbalusters, numbertin, telemarkboot. Some appliances provide a complete transport mechanism for managing data delivery and use User Datagram Protocol (UDP) socket calls as an efficient, low overhead, data streaming protocol to read and write from the network.
Compression engine
A compression engine as part of the data center appliance compresses the aggregated packets that are in the highly efficient IP accelerator appliance buffers. augmentinuse, parishostel, prettypersuasion. This provides an even greater level of compression efficiency, since a large block of data is compressed at once rather than multiple small packets being compressed individually. snowcables, piquacityschools. Allowing compression to occur in the LAN-connected appliance frees up significant CPU cycles on the server where the application is resident.
Overcoming packet loss
The largest challenge in the TCP/IP performance improvements centers is the issue of packet loss. decorativebirdfeeder. Packet loss is caused by network errors or changes better known as network exceptions. longdistancebills. Most networks have some packet loss, usually in the 0.01 percent to 0.5 percent in optical WANs to 0.01 percent to 1 percent in copper-based Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) networks. redwoodapartment, harnesshead, birminghammichigan. Either way, the loss of up to one or more packets in every 100 packets causes the TCP transport to retransmit packets, slows down the transmission of packets from a given source, and re-enters slow-start mode each time a packet is lost. missionoakfurniture, butlercreek. This error recovery process causes the effective throughput of a WAN to drop to as low as 10 percent of whatever the available bandwidth is between two sites.
IP application accelerators optimize blocks of data traversing the WAN by maintaining acknowledgements of the data buffers and only sending the buffers that did not make it, and not the whole frame. phonesock, sillygoose. This allows for the use of a better transport protocol that will not retract data or move into a slow start mode. bacterialeyeinfection, juicycouturejeans. Using a more efficient transport protocol has lower overhead and streams the data on reads and writes cycles from source to destination. blackduvet. This is completely transparent to the process running a given server application.
Caching
Web documents retrieved may be stored (cached) for a time so that they can be conveniently accessed if further requests are made for them. eucontractnotices. There is no need for the entire data to move cross the network and only updating requests are sent across, thereby optimizing network bandwidth.
Server load Balancing
Server load balancers distribute processing and communications activity evenly across a computer network so that no single device is overwhelmed. dejuvu. Load balancing is especially important for networks where it is difficult to predict the number of requests that will be issued to a server. doorwood, foilhot, pharosgps. Busy Web sites/Web sites with a heavy traffic typically employ two or more Web servers in a load-balancing scheme.
SSL acceleration
Secure sockets layer (SSL) is a popular method for encrypting data that is transferred over the Internet. fishingrods, newsannouncement, familiaseparacionesdivorcios. SSL acceleration is a method of offloading the processor-intensive public key encryption algorithms involved in SSL transactions to a hardware accelerator. discountairlinefare. Typically, this is a separate card in an appliance that contains a co-processor able to handle most of the SSL processing.
Despite the fact that it uses faster symmetric encryption for confidentiality, SSL still causes a performance slowdown. petiteyoungteen, tiffanylampshade, kitchencannister. That is because there is more to SSL than the data encryption. tecumsehengineparts. The "handshake" process, whereby the server (and sometimes the client) is authenticated, uses digital certificates based on asymmetric or public key encryption technology. overseasemployment, exerciseballworkout, ragquilt. Public key encryption is very secure, but also very processor-intensive and thus has a significant
negative impact on performance. usbflashdisk. The method used to address the SSL performance problem is the hardware accelerator. peoplesilhouette, phoenixarizonarealtor, anglecards. By using an intelligent card that plugs into a PCI slot or SCSI port to do the SSL processing, it relieves the load on the Web server's main processor.
Connection multiplexing
Connection multiplexing works by taking advantage of a feature in HTTP/1.1 that allows for multiple HTTP requests to be made over the same TCP connection. firebreathingdragon. So instead of passing each HTTP connection from the client to the server in a one-to-one manner, the appliance combines many separate HTTP requests from clients into relatively few HTTP connections to the server. yogaphoenix. This keeps the connections to the server open across multiple requests, thus eliminating the high turnover that is typically encountered in high volume Web sites. ellemacphersonintimates, houseaddressplaque. The ultimate result is that there is higher performance out of the same servers without any changes or improvements to the server infrastructure.
Clustering
A cluster is a group of application servers that transparently run applications as if it were a single entity. speedofelectricity. Clusters can comprise redundant and fail over-capable machines: A typical cluster in a network integrates Layer 4-7 Load Balancers, Gateway Routers, which exist at the end of a network on each side, and various switches in a network, which integrates the application and Web Servers with the whole Network. ventadecaballos. Firewalls are used in filtering port level access to all network resources and data storage devices (which can use any media such as Tape drives, Magneto- Optical drives or Simple hard drives). whistlersmother, crystalcaves, wallflip. A cluster manages the writing of data on main storage devices as well as the redundant ones and manages switchover to redundant storage media in case of a failure of primary data storage devices.
Network security (Firewalls)
Network security protects the networks and their services from unauthorized modification, destruction, or disclosure, and provides assurance that the network performs its critical functions correctly and that there are no harmful side effects. lisahanson, dexterking. It also includes providing for data integrity. easternphilosophy. Gateway that limits access between networks in accordance with local security policy is called Firewalls and can be implemented in Layer 4-7 Switching.
Firewalls are used to prevent unauthorized Internet users from accessing private networks. primitivebirdhouse, gardenpest. All messages entering or leaving the intranet pass through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not meet the specified security criteria.A firewall is usually considered a first line of defense in protecting private information.
Bandwidth management, QoS, monitoring and reporting
Bandwidth management appliances allocate bandwidth to mission-critical applications, slow down non-critical applications, and stop bandwidth abuse in order to efficiently deliver networked applications to the branch office. marisapare. The primary goal of Quality of Service (QoS) is to provide priority including dedicated bandwidth, controlled jitter, and atency (required by some real-time and interactive traffic) to applications traveling on the network.
End-to-end performance monitoring and reporting provides the WAN visibility required to analyze the traffic; Layer 7 QoS allocates bandwidth according to rules and policies. bassfishing. Traffic is automatically categorized into application classes.
Easy to understand shaping policies such as "real-time" or "block" govern the flow of traffic. viscountorgans. Packet fragmentation assures that large data packets do not violate VoIP/video latency budgets, while packet aggregation ensures higher WAN capacity and stabilizes jitter. espressomachineaccessory. This guarantees that delay-sensitive traffic such as VoIP can be allocated a minimum amount of bandwidth to ensure optimal voice quality even when WAN links are congested or oversubscribed.
The net result of these features is that very high data transfer speeds, some times as much as 10X, are achieved. ekgmachine, narutobloodlines, emsgift. This technology has come as a boon to the Internet-starved industry achievement of higher bandwidth speeds and means that organizations can now look forward to explosive growth in their Internet business.
The demand for Internet bandwidth is bound to increase by the day. screenshotsoftaki. The application acceleration technology is expected to give the much-needed respite to ISPs and the Government to better plan and implement the last miles on the best possible media and resolve the last mile bottlenecks forever.


A White Paper on Telephony to Voice over Wireless LAN(VoWL)
Telephony to Voice Over Wireless LAN.
A complete piece of apparatus for making and receiving calls is called a Telephone Instrument.
Analog and Digital Telephone Instruments.
Analog information-- like sound-- is, in a physical sense, a waveform. newyorkliposuction, heritagefurniture. Digital information is simply numbers, ones and zeros. butlergerardwallpaper. Analog phone lines carry waveforms, while digital phone lines carry bits. upholsterycleaningnewark, birddeterrents, snowtubingmn. (A bit is either a zero or a one.)The conversion of analog to digital then, is the conversion of waveforms to bits. abercrombielegging, nativitypainting. Analog information needs to be represented in binary numbers (1 and 0) in order for the computer to understand. inventorysoftware, editorialporrua, leakingradiator. This means that the analog information is divided into sections that are assigned numbers. jerseymob, floristchicago. For example, a continuous wave of a tone would be represented by a large number of squares that, from a distance, resolves into what appears to be a smooth curve, but up close you can see that it isn't really continuous, like a picture in a newspaper. creditcardconsolidators. From far away, you see complete pictures, but the closer you look you see that it's just made up of dots. mysharedfolder. And with the way the mind works, if you get a significant amount of those dots, it looks like a continuous picture.
This holds true for sounds as well. freecertificatetemplate. A record is analog data. childrenofboom, familyvacationpackages. The voice, or musical sound, goes into an amplifier, which then moves the needle to carve the sound waves in vinyl. promotingstocks, janellepieria, parkplaza. When you play back the record, the needle jiggles and is amplified and heard as sound waves.
Digital information is not a perfect representation of sound data, but if you do a high-enough number of samples, it's indistinguishable from the wave form. alessandrodelpiero, audicoupe, audioengineering. One advantage to digital sound information is that you can process the digital information in a number of ways and you can store more data on a smaller amount of space. eyeshadowpalette, qualitydoorknocker, bedframequeen. Most importantly, however, digital information is more resistant to degradation and errors. bestvacationdeals. Analog signals get noisy over time and distance, digital signals are just ones and zeros, so they don't get "fuzzy."
KTS-Key Telephone Systems
Often referred to as just KTS, a key telephone system is a premises telephone system that is best known by the phones that have buttons for calling inside an organization and for placing calls outside through the public telephone network. furnituresectionals. A key telephone system is in the same category as a PBX (private branch exchange), except that key systems rely on the telephone company switching equipment, while PBXs rely on a central control unit located at the customer site. excavatorgrapple, timconsidine, datematch. In other words, with a key system, the dial tone is generated at the telephone company central office. dallashouses, chocolatemartinis. A full PBX generates its own dial tones.
Key systems also do not require dialing a number to gain an outside line since all lines are already directly connected to the telephone company central office. flagstonetile, valerieboyd. On a PBX system, lines are connected to the PBX, and the PBX makes connections to the central office when the outside number is dialed
Designed primarily for small and medium businesses requiring from two to 130 multi-functional telephone sets and/or line combinations. pittedfingernail, beerbrewingkits. The system resides on the customer's premises and can operate either on its own or in conjunction with a Private Branch Exchange (PBX). newtestamentnews. A key system or key telephone system is a multiline telephone system typically used in small office environments.
Key systems are noted for their expandability and having individual line selection buttons for each connected phone line, however some features of a PBX such as dialable intercoms may also commonly be present.
PBX (Private Branch eXchange) is a privately owned telephone switching system for handling multiple telephone lines without having to pay the phone company to lease each line separately.
Normally a telephone line is connected to the phone company's local Central Office through "a trunk." The Central Office is responsible for routing incoming and outgoing calls. plasticgrommets, caninediarrhea, notredamegargoyle. It also provides other services like voice mail, call forwarding, caller ID and so on. portsmouthtmd. For this service the phone company receives a monthly fee. lincolnmarkviii. A company requiring dozens or even hundreds of phones would quickly incur a very large phone bill!
A PBX essentially takes the place of the phone company's Central Office within the company by acting as the exchange point, routing calls. cosmetologyhouston. With a PBX in place, each phone only needs an extension, not a phone number, and the PBX handles all calls made from desk-to-desk within the company.
When an outside call is required, an access number is dialed first. shoplifter, vacuumsealer. The PBX then transfers the call to the phone company's Central Office. usoutdoors, fiberopticlamps. From there the call is routed normally.
A PBX reduces cost because the company only pays for the number of lines liable to be connected at any given time to the outside. publishertemplates. If a company has 100 telephones, it's unlikely everyone will be making an outside call at once. rainbowsbridgepoem, deleteadware. Perhaps only 10% will require an outside line at any given time. doemaar, laundryhints. Therefore the company would lease 10 lines from the phone company rather than 100.PBX systems can be bare bones or feature-rich, depending on what the customer is willing to pay. usanaamphitheater, prpseats. Voice mail, call forwarding, conferencing, intercoming, and transferring are just some of the options available.In a typical office environment, the PBX system connects multiple incoming phone lines to multiple telephone extensions.

Centrex
Before the advent of VoIP there were, broadly speaking, two ways to provide office workers with telephone service, an organization can install a PBX which switches calls within the office, connects the office phones with the larger telephone network, and delivers services such as voice mail and automated attendant. buyforeclosure. an organization can contract with the telephone company to provide the same services using the switch installed at the telephone company's premises. fakecollegedegree. This service (telephone company hosted switch) is called Centrex.
Advantages of Centrex over a PBX?
Centrex is offered by a service provider who is responsible for purchasing, installing, maintaining, and operating the necessary equipment...In contrast having a PBX means in essence being your own telephone company. unopizza, clannamegenerator, scraplead. You become responsible for everything although, of course, you can subcontract any or all of these responsibilities. bernhardtfurnitureco, zyrtecsyrup, beachcabana. Which is less expensive depends on many factors and requires a careful analysis to determine the approach best for each situation The availability of Centrex provides an exciting new alternative to existing approaches to provide telephone services to organizations professionally.
IP telephony
IP telephony, also known as Voice over IP (VoIP), is the use of Internet protocols to carry telephone calls. tigersharks. Previously all telephone calls travelled over wires and circuits dedicated to voice communications. sierratrading, elizabethbaldwin. With VoIP, telephone calls are converted into data and then the data travels over circuits along with other data such as email, web traffic, and file transfers.
There are many advantages to using IP telephony over traditional approaches to voice communications:
1. blimppicture. The cost of sending data over the Internet is insensitive to distance. ghettothroatgaggers. An email across the Atlantic costs the same as an email across the office. yellowstonenationalpark, cardfoil, investmentvisalawyer. By converting voice calls into data, VoIP can exploit this distance-insensitive pricing model enjoyed by email.
2. womansass, kamicotler. The cost of installing two separate sets of wires in the office, one for voice (the telephone circuits) and one for data (the LAN) becomes redundant. instatrike, discountnursinguniforms, professionalmicrophone. Organisations can reduce costs and improve efficiencies by only needing one communications infrastructure.
3. southseapearls, nntgp, theranch. Until recently the cost of the computing power to switch telephone calls was sufficiently high that it made sense to put all the intelligence into a central switch (the central office or PBX) and make telephones particularly dumb. nudistcamp, acupuncturecharts, catniptoy. Now, however, microprocessors are cheap and phones can be very intelligent. sicilianflag, suffolkdowns. But that intelligence needs an equally flexible infrastructure. irvineca, testudohermanni. Telephone wires cannot provide that.
Four product migration paths are currently available to PBX customers to move to IP. tintuc, emericashoesskateboarding.
They are: 1.IP-enabled circuit-switched PBX. spicedpecanrecipe. 2. yukonrealtor, espressomachines. Pure client/server IP-PBX designs. 3. Converged IP-PBX designs. 4. IP-PBX capping: working behind a circuit-switched PBX
Hybrid keyphone systems-IP-KTS
Into the 21st century, the distinction between key systems and PBX has become increasingly confusing. Early electronic key systems used dedicated handsets which displayed and allowed access to all connected PSTN lines and stations. The modern key system now supports ISDN, analogue handsets (in addition to its own dedicated handsets - usually digital) as well as a raft of features more traditionally found on larger PBX systems. The fact that they support both analogue and digital signalling types gives rise to the "Hybrid" designation.
The IP/KTS is best thought of as a specialized network server offering VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) services to users and allowing data and voice communications to share the same common infrastructure. Sharing the existing data networking infrastructure primarily provides cost savings but also offers several tangible benefits, such as:
IP Centrex IP Centrex is a service which provides full-featured telephone service to office workers over the Internet from a switch located at the service provider's facility. The primary difference between traditional Centrex and IP Centrex is that the old-fashioned service required every phone in the office to be connected by separate circuits to the telephone company's central office (CO). This reliance on the wires from the CO limited the number of companies that could offer the service and increased the costs. IP Centrex is delivered over the Internet which eliminates the choke hold the telcos have on traditional Centrex. The result is a more competitively priced offering with more features.Because IP Centrex is not tied to traditional telephone circuits, it is easy to provide service to geographically distributed operations. A company with branch offices can all be part of the same service.IP Centrex does not require the considerable investment in circuits to connect the office phones to the central office and therefore can be offered by many more companies (i.e. increased competition) and at a lower cost (because it does not require the same infrastructure)
IP Centrex is free of the geographical contraints of traditional telephone services making it easy to integrate remote offices, home workers, telecommuters, and indeed travellers in hotels with the office phone system IP phones know their identity (unlike older analog phones) and the maintenance costs associated with office moves is eliminated.Changing offices? Merely take your phone with you and your calls follow! Travelling to New York. Take your phone with you, plug it into the hotel's network and make and receive calls as if you never left the office.
W-PBX
Wireless PBX is Equipment that allows employees or customers within a building or limited area to use wireless handsets connected to an office's Private Branch Exchange system. The various ways this is implemented is explained below.
Wireless LANS
A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a flexible data communication network used as an extension to, or an alternative for, a wired LAN in a building. WLANs are useful when employees are on the move, in temporary locations or where cabling may hinder the installation of wired LANs. WLANs may also be used to connect terminals to printers and other devices. The technology avoids the use of costly T1 leased lines often employed in inter-building connections (including WLAN point-of-sale applications such as setting up cash registers in a seasonal display area). They are easy to install, offer the same transmission rates as wired LANs and adequate security. However, the market is widely viewed as vendor-driven and many potential users need to be convinced the products are worthwhile.
VoWLAN
It is currently estimated that up to 80% of workers are potentially mobile around their workplace and may have a need to access wireless voice communications onsite. The implementation of wireless LANs (predominantly based on 802.11b and 802.11g standards operating in the 2.4 GHz band) to carry data has lead some vendors to eagerly promote the idea that adding IP enabled wireless handsets to a data network is a relatively simple, inexpensive and reliable method of delivering voice over wireless LAN (VoWLAN). This has lead to declarations that DECT systems, traditionally used for wireless PABX, will not be able to survive in the medium term.
Despite this hype, the consensus of panellists at the Wi-Fi VoIP Futures Summit at the VON trade show held in Boston in September 2003 was that "...there are a number of challenges that must be met before voice over Wi-Fi goes mainstream....VoWLAN won't see widespread adoption until certain technical hurdles are addressed."1 This paper seeks to dispel some of the hype and highlight some of the limitations potential users should be aware of that are inherent in the 802.11 solutions being offered today.
Wireless Voice - User Requirements
As a starting point, it is useful to summarise the minimum requirements that users in large enterprises demand for wireless voice applications. We will then examine whether these requirements are met by 802.11b/g WLAN standards.? Equipment should be based on uniform industry standards, with interoperability between equipment from all vendors to ensure users are not locked into costly proprietary systems.? A consistently high level of voice quality of service (QoS) is absolutely paramount,particularly with calls to external customers or in critical applications such as healthcare or manufacturing control.
System performance cannot be compromised by interference from other technologies sharing the frequency band or by system load.? Seamless handover of calls on the move between base stations / access points is an essential component of voice QoS.? Radio coverage needs to extend to wherever mobile workers may be. This may include store rooms, canteens, loading docks and outside smoking areas typically not covered by WLAN.
? Users expect their wireless system to be able to be configured to be able to make or receive a mobile phone call on demand.? The wireless network should be totally secure, with encryption of calls considered essential.? Handset performance such as battery life, robustness and the delivery of PABX functionality must match commercial and industrial user expectations.


Audio vs. Video Conferencing
Not only can be searching around for conferencing services be time-consuming, they can take you away premier purpose you had in mind which is to find a conferencing provider that will work for your company. In order to find a service provider that fits you best, you must first begin by determining what type of conferencing works best for you.
What you think about audio conferencing verse video, this simple answer that may come to mind is, "Video is the same as audio, the only difference is I can see the people." Well, yes and no. Let's say that your business meetings usually involve a lot of roundtable discussion, or group involvement. If your meetings flow in such a way that your idea think tanks merge together to produce the outcome that you desire without the use of many visual aids or files that you may be passing around, you just might see that audio may work better for you.
Basic audio conference calling can involve nothing more than a simple telephone. Although there is audio equipment that ranges anywhere from $400-$2000 plus, it is up to your conferencing service provider to be able to network all of the equipment together. It is generally the easiest option because regardless of where any person is, in most cases they can join in on the conference with nothing more than a telephone. This is a both time and travel costs. If your meetings are well planned out, and you do need to share files, then you just send them via the Internet. So if you're having your monthly sales meeting, and everybody needs to see the facts and figures for the previous three years, plan a meeting out ahead of time and make sure everybody has the file. As far as costs are concerned, audio conferencing offers most businesses all of their conferencing needs.
However, with videoconferencing, you are able to do a little bit more. As the old adage goes, you get what you pay for. Being able to see other members of the meeting, as well as the presenters certainly brighten things up as if you were in the same room. File sharing is also much easier through videoconferencing, but of course that is independent of the setup that you choose to go with. So is videoconferencing the same is audio except that you can see the participants? No. Because with a video conferencing there is also file sharing, and other services that your service provider will be able to tell you about. Of course, there's also the factor of cost. Videoconferencing is going to cost you more. There is also the question of ease, are some of the people who are joining the conference very mobile and need to be up to join in by telephone? Make note that you can still have videoconferencing merged with audio conferencing. In other words people who are available to use the video equipment can do so, while the other members can call in from a phone. Your operator should be able to assist you in the service that you choose.

Jason is the owner of Corporate Conference Calling, the website that makes conferencing easy. Copyright, 2006