Teleconferencing is a way to organize an interactive group event using an available means of communication. This method has many features, which will be discussed later.
General Description
A teleconference is not only the event itself, which allows you to simultaneously be in touch with many users, but also a whole set of means for remote group communication, for example, electronic bulletin boards, video conferencing, as well as special systems serviced by online providers. For any such online meeting, it is necessary to use special software and hardware that maintains communication between all participants in the group conversation.
How does it work?
The teleconferencing system has been a fairly popular way of communicating with several groups of people at the same time for more than one year. Most often, this method is used in business for meetings at a distance. Now a teleconference is not just one of the ways to show that the company is moving with the times, not just an image element, but a very effective and useful tool. The essence of thistechnology consists in the ability to hold meetings, training or meetings, being at a decent distance from each other, in an atmosphere as close as possible to live communication, that is, using equipment for recording and subsequent broadcasting of sound and video in real time.
Components
In terms of technology, a teleconference is a combination of several components. First of all, we are talking about cameras that record sound and images, as well as screens that show it all. Conducting teleconferences will not be possible without the involvement of special communication channels through which content is transmitted. They can be built on the basis of common communication channels or be exclusive. Another component here is software, that is, there are various codecs for compressing audio and video, which are responsible for broadcasting information over the network, as well as control centers.
What does the market offer?
Today, there are a lot of different solutions in this area. There are super-budget options using free software and fairly cheap webcams, but this is not an option for serious companies, because not only the fact of holding a conference is important there, but also the form, sound and image quality, as well as additional features. There is a completely different order of prices, but the level of implementation of everything is also appropriate. We can consider two competing products thatexperts in the field recognized as leaders at the moment.
TelePresence
Technology offered by Cisco. It is currently recognized by many as the top solution in the modern teleconferencing market. TelePresence Meething may well claim the title of a "turnkey solution", in which not only the technical support of the technology itself is significant, but also the equipment for the room. That is, the company whose choice fell on TelePresence Meeting receives not only special equipment and software for organizing teleconferencing, but also a fully decorated room.
Alternative solution
LifeSize offers a different solution presented in a different concept. Its distinguishing features are the installation flexibility and the budget of the entire solution. Manufacturers claim that their product can be installed anywhere, and its operation can be carried out on the basis of any equipment. Here we are not talking about creating a turnkey teleconference, but only about the necessary technical organization of everything that may be required for conducting communication sessions, and the conditions can be any. Such solutions are much cheaper.
Both solutions are now finding their customers, because the concepts of teleconferencing are completely different. In addition, there are a number of rather interesting products from other manufacturers, and their number will only grow in the future.
Teleconferencing systems
So, it is worth touching on such an important question as to what is the difference between a teleconference and e-mail. Here everything has been further developed. If the e-mail system is about one-to-one message addressing, and each user has an individual mailbox, then the teleconference is a one-to-many addressing system, and all participants are allocated one mailbox.
A bit of history
In the development of the global network of such communication, the most important role is assigned to the USENET teleconferencing metanetwork, which is in close and inseparable connection with the Internet. This network was formed in 1979 immediately after the release of the V7 version of Unix with UUCT facilities. And this is precisely the answer to the question of where and when the world's first teleconference took place.
In 1984, due to the increasing volume of information and news, it became necessary to divide messages into groups depending on topics. After that, in the next version of the program for processing news messages, group encoding mechanisms were added, and in 1986 version 2.11 was released, which supported a new batch processing structure, group naming, compression, and other features. In the teleconferencing system, the unit of news information received the name of the article, which was characterized by the format defined in the RFC-1036 standard. Due to the subsequent inclusion of translation and reading tools using the NNTP protocol into the news processing software package, it became possible to exchange articles via TCP / IP communication.between central USENET teleconferencing sites. The use of the new protocol allowed users to read and send news from computers that did not have the USENET news program installed. To do this, it was necessary to send the appropriate commands to the server where this program is installed.
Types of teleconference
There are global and local. The software takes on such basic functions as including materials in a teleconference, sending notifications of new information, and fulfilling orders. There are audio conferencing facilities. Here, the call, connection and subsequent conversation are no different from telephone communications, but the web is used for these purposes. Bulletin Board is a development very close to teleconferencing in its multifunctional purpose, it allows you to quickly and centrally send messages to most users. The BBS software combines email, file sharing and teleconferencing.
At the moment, real-time desktop conferencing technology is developing more and more actively. Depending on the type of shared information, there are several levels:
- regular email session;
- joint work on a document without using voice;
- joint document processing with voice communication;
- video conference.
As you can see, a teleconference is a modern way for users to communicate in modereal-time, allowing you to quickly resolve current issues.
