the inter company telepresence & video conferencing handbook

8/3/2019 The Inter Company Telepresence & Video Conferencing Handbook

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The Inter-CompanyTelepresence &

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The Inter-CompanyTelepresence &





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HumanProductivity

Lab

This handbook is made possiblethrough the generous support o:

www.HumanProductivityLab.com | www.Brockmann.c

2009 Human Productivity Lab and Brockmann & Company. All rights reserved. No portion o this documentbe reproduced or distributed in print or electronically without prior written permission o the copyright ho

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2/70The Inter-Company Telepresence & Video Conerencing Handbook

Executive SummaryKey Findings

Economic, geopolitical and public health realities are driving the case for inter-company

telepresence and effective visual collaboration as air travel becomes more costly and

inefcient

The higher quality end-user experience of telepresence coupled with capable tools for

data collaboration are providing an acceptable alternative for many face-to-face meetings

Telepresence equipment and network interoperability remains a major stumbling block

towards widespread inter-company telepresence service adoption

The need for quality video connections with partners, vendors and customers can

be enabled through dedicated video overlay networks and telepresence and video

conferencing exchanges which specialize in connecting disparate networks

Security concerns will compel many companies to invest in premium services The cultural and operational issues around inter-company telepresence are as important

to understand and address as the technical issues

Video conerencing had been relegated to thecorners o the enterprise market or the past ourdecades, primarily as a communications servicesuitable or enthusiasts but not really ready or primetime. In recent years, that practice has changeddramatically. The introduction o HD cameras,

codecs and low cost high speed networks denedan expectation or perormance.

It was the introduction o telepresence that showedthe power o quality and the need or a natural,elegant and immersive experience. Now that airlinesare regularly ailing - more than 25 in 2008 alone- and users have broken the must travel to meetexpectation, the technical, operational and culturalhurdles o enabling inter-company telepresence

and video conerencing need to be understoodand overcome. This handbook, the rst o its kind,is a comprehensive overview o these issues andincludes six industry best practices that will enableyour organization to connect with customers,partners and suppliers while reducing the hard, sotand opportunity costs o doing business.

Human Productivity Lab and Brockmann& Company bring decades o experiencein telepresence, visual collaboration,

managed services and inter-networking.

Inter-company telepresence is the nextmajor requirement in the development othe industry

Look or our ollow-on report: The Inter-Company Telepresence and VideoConerencing Exchange Review tobe released in January o 2010. Thereport is a comprehensive look at the

Telepresence Exchange and ManagedService Providers that are enablingsecure inter-company services. Use theorm at the back o this handbook toreserve your copy when released.

About The Collaboration



Table o Contents

Drivers for Telepresence 5

High Growth Is a Confuence o Factors 5

SARS, Swine Flu, Terrorism, Economic Crisis and Natural Disasters 7

Our Goal 7

Fundamentals of Inter-Company Telepresence 8

Its All About The Network 8

Inter-Company Telepresence Architectures 11

ISDN Networks and Video 12

ISDN Gateways 13MPLS VPNs and Video 13

DiServ Introduces Perormance and Complexity 14

Telepresence and Video Conerencing Exchange Providers 16

Telepresence and Video Conerencing Communities o Interest (CoINs) 17

The Internet and Video 17

Internet Security 18

Trivial Firewall Settings or Single Station Inter-Company Video Communications 19

Session Border Controllers & Inter-Company Gateways or IP Video Networks 19

Video Automated Attendants 20

Virtual Waiting Rooms 20

Telepresence Interoperability 20

Collaboration Tools 28

Recordings 29

Best Practices in Inter-Company Telepresence Operations 30

1. Strategic Review o Video Communications 30

2. To Converge or Not To Converge 313. Establish an Inter-Company Telepresence Program Champion 32

4. Expand Your Network by Reaching Public Rooms 33

5. Leverage Your Travel Management Supplier 34

6. Integrate Telepresence Into Sales and Customer Support Processes 35



Conclusion 36

Inter-Company Telepresence and Video Conerencing is a Business Priority 36

Appendix A: Security Resources 37

Cisco 37

Polycom 37

RADVISION 37

Appendix B: Sample Letters 38

Appendix C: The Inter-Company Telepresence Glossary 42

Appendix D: Related Research 47

Telepresence 2009 47

Video Communications 2.0 47

Tips or Improving the Users Experience 47

Cost Saving Strategies: Why Video Managed Services? 47

Why Video Communications is a Business Best Practice 47

The Perect Storm: Why Video Conerencing Will Dominate Business Communications 47

Appendix E: Our Sponsors 48

Human Productivity Lab: Howard S. Lichtman 62

About the Human Productivity Lab 62

HPL Consulting 62

HPL Publishing 63

HPL Sales Force Training 63

Brockmann & Company: Peter Brockmann 64

About Brockmann & Company 64

Customers Know Best 64



List of Tables and Figures

page 10

page 11

page 16

page 20

page 21

page 22

page 24-25

Table 1 Comparing frequency of face-to-face meetings with customers

and telepresence sessions with customers.

Figure 2 -Comparing centralized and decentralized inter-company

telepresence and video communications architectures. The

intermediate network shown could be an ISDN service, an

MPLS VPN service or the Internet.

Figure 3 The telepresence and video conferencing exchange.

Figure 4 Avatars ought to be used in video auto-attendant applications.

Figure 5 The angle between the line of the camera capturing the image

of a participant and the eye position of the person theyre

speaking to on the monitor is the eye-line, which needs to be

as close to 0o as possible for the most natural experience.

Figure 6 Interoperability of six commercially available systems.

Table 7 Telepresence interoperability offsets for a range of leading

market participants.



Drivers or Telepresence

High Growth Is a Conuence of Factors

In three short years we have witnessed enormous growth in room deployments o telepresenceand high denition video conerencing. The rapid growth o enterprise telepresence and theemergence o publicly available telepresence environments in hundreds, growing to thousandso rms, is only the pre-amble or the coming revolution in business communications. We arerapidly approaching a world where a business person can walk into a room and connect withtheir customers, joint venture partners and suppliers anywhere on the globe, instantly in a highlyproductive environment that closely replicates an in-person experience.

Somewhat ironically, one o the actors driving the growth in next generation communications isthe global recession. The worldwide collapse in demand or products and services in 2008 and2009 has caused most i not all organizations to reduce the variable costs in their operations.Most companies cut deeper and aster than at any other time in recent history. Ater the layosand the budget slashing, CIOs and business managers looked to drive new eciencies in the

[1] Telepresence, Effective Visual Collaboration and the Future of Global Business at the

Speed of Light, Human Productivity Lab, 2006

[2] The Future of Telepresence, webcast for TANDBERG, December 3, 2009

[3] The Crash o Commercial Aviation and Telepresence, September 8, 2008

The ability for organizations to instantaneously and effectively

connect with vendors, investors, joint-venture partners and

customers globally will revolutionize business in ways that can

only be speculated on at the dawn of this technologys inception.

This level of interconnection will start slowly but accelerate

rapidly. Currently, fewer than 40 known companies have deployed

telepresence and effective visual collaboration group systems. These

companies have barely scratched the surface of the technology, but

already their benefits have been substantial, the ROI proven and

further adoption among their peers certain.

- Howard S. Lichtman, August 2006[1]

2200 immersive [telepresence] rooms by 2008 to 5,700 in 2010 and

11,600 in 2012.

- Gartner Group, December 2009[2]
http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/2008/09/the_collapse_of_commercial_avi/http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/2008/09/the_collapse_of_commercial_avi/



way they do business in order to adjust to a lower and more sustainable cost structure. GM andChrysler (autos), Nortel (telecom), Japan Air Lines (air travel), Fleetwood Enterprises (recreationalvehicles), Idearc (phone books), Star-Tribune (newspapers), Charter (cableco), Eddie Bauer (retail),BearingPoint (consulting) and many other bankruptcies exacerbated the nancial crisis.

The airline industry suered particularly poorly in 2008, oreshadowing the value destruction across alarger swath o the economy later that year. A combination o rising uel prices, demand destructionand infexible labor agreements in 2008 saw the bankruptcy o over 25 global carriers and our majorairline consolidations. Fortunately or the surviving rms, the industrys resulting capacity reduction o21% - which according to OAG is roughly the equivalent o a major airline ceasing operations in 2009- also saw the average price o commercial fights rise especially in captured cities with ew carrieroptions. In addition, the airlines have added a plethora o surcharge ees including luggage, in-fightmeals, pillows and blankets, pushing the rising cost o travel even higher.

Driven by reduced demand, airlines scheduled ewer fights between city-pairs, enabled more multi-hop fights and removed aircrat rom service. As a result, airlines, in a bid to improve yields per fight,also lowered the available capacity or re-routing passengers whenever bad weather, mechanical

diculty or missed connections disrupt travel plans. This has generally meant less pleasant and moreexpensive travel, not to mention downright dissatisaction when disruptions cause delays. In short, thecost o travel or business users continues to rise in hard costs, sot costs, and opportunity cost. CFOsare looking or ways to cut travel costs and nd alternatives.

As physical travel becomes more expensive and less convenient the awareness o successultelepresence and eective visual collaboration investments is sky-rocketing. Modern telepresenceenvironments have managed to replicate across-the-table proessional meetings with an amazingdegree o realism. Modern collaboration tools letusers easily share PC data, work in real-time in thesame application, view circuit-board-level detail

o physical objects, and white board interactivelybetween locations in meetings where theparticipants are separated by thousands o miles.

Many organizations have leveraged theseinvestments internally over the past ew years, usingtelepresence and video conerencing resourcesand services to connect their headquarters withregional and satellite oces. But to use theseamazing capabilities to conduct business withcustomers, partners and suppliers has proventoo much o a hassle or too many. Coordinatingequipment interoperability, security, quality o serviceand network connectivity have proven to be majorimpediments to widespread adoption o inter-company telepresence. Until recently, hopping ontoa plane was the easiest thing to do.

Yet despite these barriers, smart business leaders are moving toward the puck and improving theirability to connect with their partners, vendors, and customers. They are leveraging telepresence as an

Accenture, the global managemeconsulting and technology service

firm operates 50 telepresence

rooms around the world. In 2009

they pursued an inter-company

telepresence strategy which now

connects them to 31 companies, 6

telepresence rooms, and close to

2,000,000 of their partners andclients personnel.



integral part o the sales and customer engagement process to reduce costs, improve productivity andaggressively accelerate their position in new markets.

SARS, Swine Flu, Terrorism, Economic Crisis and Natural DisastersA modern business aces many risks to continued operations: labor strie, product recall, legaltroubles, ckle customers and industrial espionage to name a ew. The disruption o businesstravel can be just as disastrous to a companys health.

The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks caused signicant disruption in the travel industryand the economy proper as all airports in the United States shut down or two days to designand introduce new security procedures. In 2003, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)inected some 8,000 and killing 775 in 30 countries, disrupting travel, business and public healthoperations around the world. And the massive path o destruction caused by the December 26,2004 tsunami aected service on whole swaths o the Indian Ocean coast. No doubt the 2009swine fu pandemic-in-the-making and viral pneumonia in the Ukraine is raising alarms or manyexecutives being asked to spend hours in the constantly re-circulated environment o aircratcabins with 200 other strangers o unknown health status.

Further complicating business planning are the ongoing uncertainties o the global economy.The potential or rapid changes in the nances o nation-states and their leading rms wasunderscored by the 2008-9 Icelandic nancial crisis which saw the collapse o the countrysnancial institutions, a 90% drop in the Iceland stock market, double-digit interest rates anda sudden decline in the value o the Icelandic krona o more than 35% against the euro romJanuary to September 2008. The more-recent solvency struggles o Dubai World, Caliornia, andGreece echo these troubles and symptoms.

Leaders in major companies around the world understand the need or business travel andace-to-ace communications to keep key employees in contact with key customers, partners

and suppliers. Smart organizations are hedging their bets and cost-justiying a portion o theirinvestment in telepresence and visual collaboration technologies as part o their businesscontinuity and disaster recovery plans. Its not a stretch or them to view telepresence as aneective substitute and productive complement or business travel. Ater all, even in the ace opublic health calamities, natural catastrophe, nancial crisis or war, company and ecosphere-wideglobal collaboration must go on.

Our GoalThis handbook is a guide or overcoming the obstacles to inter-company telepresence andvideo conerencing. With these technologies, you will be able to connect your organization

with business associates old and new more requently and intensely. You will learn how to usetelepresence and visual collaboration to reduce the cost o doing business and enter new marketswith a greater velocity than ever beore. And youll learn to make these enhanced inter-companytelepresence capabilities become your Business Continuity Plan should a urther deteriorationo economic conditions, currency crisis, pandemic, or a cataclysm arise.



Fundamentals o Inter-CompanyTelepresence

Its All About The NetworkThe link between connection possibilities and value to users is intuitively obvious, but Metcales

Law crystallized it. In the 1970s, Robert Metcale, the inventor o the most successul networkingtechnology ever created Ethernet spoke about the value o the network as a proxy or thenetworks utility to the users o the network. The dierence between a network o 10 nodes anda network o 1,000 nodes is a greatly expanded possibility o connecting to more nodes, morepeople and thereore more potential value.

Extending Metcales observation, David P. Reed, the designer o UDP (and now an adjunctproessor in MITs Media Lab) observed in 2001 that some networks, especially Group FormingNetworks (GFNs), had the ability to grow aster than networks without social networkingcharacteristics. Inter-company telepresence meetings and networks exhibit many i not all o theproperties o GFNs. Many dierent independent organizations require robust communications

with any given rm: suppliers, customers, joint-venture partners, outside law rms, recruiters,accountancies, advertising agencies, oreign distributors, industry analysts and investment bankersto name but a ew potential participants. Inter-company telepresence networks have the ability togrow exponentially as the interoperability, security, perormance, and cultural issues are addressed.

[4] David P. Reeds, The Law of the Pack, Harvard Business Review, February 2001, pp 23-4

The value of a network increases proportionally with the square of

the number of nodes on the network.

- Metcalfes Law, Robert Metcalfe

Metcalfes Law understates the value created by Group Forming

Networks (GFN) as they grow. Lets say you have a GFN with

n members. If you add up all the potential two-person groups,three-person groups, and so on that those members could form,

the number of possible groups equals 2n. So the value of a Group

Forming Network increases exponentially, in proportion to 2n.

- Reeds Law, David P. Reed [4]



Organizations deploy an initial batch of three to six telepresence

systems, and then come back between nine and 18 months later

for a second batch, which brings the total up to between 15 and 20

rooms. Thereafter, additional deployments are modest, and few

organizations ever surpass 30 systems. Given the overwhelmingfocus on Fortune 5000 companies, this places the upper bound of the

core addressable market at something like 150,000 systems (5,000

organizations each with 30 systems). By 2013, we expect that less

than a third of this market will have been addressed. [5]

Telepresence has redened the user expectations o what the video communications experiencecan be. As a matter o principle, telepresence environmental designers careully control lightingand wall coverings, employ high density audio designs, and use modern and pleasing urnitureimplementations - on top o large fat screen monitors, video walls and/or beam splitters thatshow remote participants in realistic lie-size and real-time settings. The telepresence equipmentindustry has established a de-acto standard o three screens capable o displaying two lie-sized participants on each screen in a product category we are calling Group Systems. Thecompression algorithms and codecs involved are careully engineered to assure the highestquality and most lie-like experiences ever seen. Using what had previously been consideredobscene quantities o bandwidth, telepresence suites create a business class consistency oquality between locations.

These complex and highly controlled environments are congured with user controls thatassure they work instantly, without serious participant intervention or technical experience.Many vendors o these systems incorporate managed services as part o the oer assuringconcierge-level service that monitors and xes all aspects o the telepresence environment andits communications. With telepresence systems users nally have a high quality experience with

peace-o-mind operations.

Telepresence systems are almost never purchased in quantities o one unit. The initial businesscase or telepresence is almost always to replace business travel or internal meetings. Gartnerconservatively characterized the deployment pattern or telepresence in enterprise organizations:

This assessment o the growth in the market seems to refect static usage through 2013. Itdoesnt refect growth due to the availability o inter-company telepresence and public availability.Publicly available telepresence and inter-company telepresence increases utility, usage and theneed or overfow capacity and thereore the number o deployed rooms. Publicy available andinter-company telepresence increases usage and deployments increases beyond the classicGlobal 5000 rms.

[5] Scott Morrison, Gartner Group Video conferencing Products and Services Market Forecast,

Worldwide, 2007-2013



Table 1 Comparing frequency of face-to-face meetings with customers and telepresence

sessions with customers. [6]

Table 1 above shows that there are 7 x more meetings with customers that are ace-to-ace thanusing telepresence services. Why? Partly because o the cultural expectation that nothing beatsa ace-to-ace encounter in securing or improving business relationships. However, there are alsotechnical, cultural, and operational hurdles also stand in the way o eective and ecient inter-company telepresence and visual collaboration capabilities. These hurdles include:

Performance Connecting telepresence and visual collaboration systems oten involves joiningdisparate and competitive network providers with dierent policies and practices or Quality-o-Service and IP addressing. It gets even more complex when multiple providers and their dierentadvanced services get into the mix.

Security It can be a sad truth that when integrating networks, the security policies o the leastsecure participant can become the security policy or all. Thats why most security proessionalsare skeptical o network integration. Its essential to pay special attention to the interacingtechnologies, assuring these issues dont risk network integrity or enterprise operations. Theresalso the increasing phenomenon o co-opetition to worry about. In co-opetition, companies thatmay be partners in one market, can be erce competitors in another. The risk o establishing livevideo connections and potentially sharing meeting inormation with partners or competitors canbe enough to give anyone pause. Are the whiteboards in your executive telepresence and videoconerencing rooms cleaned o ater each meeting? What can a competitor or investor deducerom your room reservations i they can see that your executive telepresence suite is bookedevery day this week at the exact same times as that o a publicly speculated acquisition target? Interoperability A common practice in the early lie o a communications product categoryis that the initial generations o product are not optimized or inter-brand interoperability, whichis seen as a low priority eature (and the standards and testing mechanisms are not well denedeither). Besides, in the land rush that is the initiation o any new market, vendors hope toconvince customers to stick to one vendor: them. Furthermore, not every telepresence or videoconerencing vendor conorms to every standard the same way. In act, not every product releaserom every vendor conorms to the same standard the same way. Overcoming these variations insuite-to-suite operations is never trivial. Operational The procedure or reserving an inter-company session or or establishing an adhoc session can be complicated and onerous. It all depends on the blend o technologies that

your rm has implemented and the technical priorities o the rms you hope to connect your userswith. Ensuring a high quality experience with ease-o-use or end-users (push this button) is thekey to the conduct o successul sessions and unearthing the value expected rom Reeds Law. Cultural Since it is the culture that denes what is acceptable, what is expected, andwhat is allowed, the cultural hurdles have the greatest impact on the successul adoption otelepresence or any other technology. Dierent organizations adopt new applications and newtechnologies in dierent ways. Successul telepresence organizations have imbedded inter-

Meeting Class Average Frequency Per Month

Face-to-Face meetings 5.7

Telepresence sessions 0.8

[6] Brockmann & Company unpublished study, www.brockmann.com, conducted Spring 2009.



company telepresence directly into the way they do business, making it a natural extension o thecompanys communications-rich operations. People have to use the technology to help them dotheir job. Addressing these hurdles will enable secure, convenient and high perormance inter-company telepresence and video conerencing services.

Inter-Company Telepresence ArchitecturesTransmitting video over IP networks involves complex processes or capture o audio and images,compressing, packetizing, transmitting it over the network(s) and then decompressing the videoat the remote site(s) or presentation on the screen. Store-and-orward applications like emailand web browsing can tolerate lost, late or out-o-sequence IP packets, but not real-time videoor voice communications. These service deects cause video artiacts that ruin the immersiveexperience and jolts the brain into a state o disbelie, while a one-way latency o over 100milliseconds result in a perceptible and annoying delay when remote participants speak causingaudio collisions and stilted communications. Good network architecture is essential in minimizingthe negative eects o delay and packet delivery inconsistency.

Inter-company telepresence and video communications implementations typically ollow one o

two architectures, centralized or decentralized designs. Figure 2 compares the centralized anddecentralized architectures.Each o the appropriateWAN services, ISDN,Internet connectivity andMPLS are discussed later,but can be adapted in inter-company congurations tosupport either centralized ordecentralized architectures.

Figure 2 Comparingcentralized and

decentralized inter-

company telepresence

and video communications

architectures. The

intermediate network

shown could be an ISDN

service, an MPLS VPN

service or the Internet.

Enterprise A Enterprise B

Enterprise A Enterprise B

Central control point



In the centralized architecture, all inter-company session initiation messages and media fows areconcentrated through a central portal such as a session border controller (SBC) or a specially-congured video bridge. Since all the trac is centralized, the security administration is simpliedand more easily monitored. Similarly, the telepresence manager can poll the device or reportson the history o every inter-company communication including destinations, service quality andduration, which can be useul in chargeback-or-service environments.

In the decentralized design, every video communications device is empowered to communicatewith any other video communications device that its network connectivity can address. In adecentralized design, security policies are more dicult to implement since it oten meansmodiying practices and technologies in a large number o independent endpoint devices.

The type o Wide Area Network (WAN) service employed to connect internal video endpoints areimportant considerations or the inter-company implementation.

ISDN Networks and VideoFor two decades, most video communications operations in companies relied on ISDN, theIntegrated Services Digital Network. While much o video trac has or is migrating to IP, ISDN still

has a signicant share o the market to warrant an overview and is occasionally the only optionavailable.

The worlds telephone companies came up with ISDN as the telecom industry migrated romanalog communications to digital. Today, ISDN is oered in two basic designs, a low speedBasic Rate Interace oering two bearer channels o 64 kbps each and a 16 kbps data channelor telecom signaling (2B+D) and a high speed Primary Rate Interace oering in North America23 x 64 kbps channels with 1 x 64 kbps channels set aside or signaling. The European PRIstandard oered 30 x 64 kbps channels and 2 x 64 kbps channel or signaling, timing and alarminormation.

ISDN BRI did not gain much traction as a residential connectivity service in North America,primarily because o the higher price with no perceived increase in user value. ISDN BRI didgain much traction in western Europe where the service providers oered it as a lower pricedalternative to analog dialtone.

ISDN PRI circuits are popular as a method or corporate PBXs to be connected to the PublicSwitched Telephone Network (PSTN), since they provided a separate channel or signaling datathat presents the caller ID inormation to the digital telephone and indicate to the PBX which DIDor oce extension the incoming call on a particular circuit was destined or.

In concert with the development o video codecs and endpoint optics, the ISDN bridge perormedE.164 dialing and usually bound several ISDN point-to-point circuits together. These aggregatedcircuits to create the connection speeds associated with a higher quality experience, at n timesthe cost where n is the number o 64 kbps circuits involved. ISDN services are typically priced ona monthly ee plus time and distance and so the total ISDN WAN costs vary month-to-month withdemand.



ISDN services, because o their circuit-switched origins, are not responsive to service disruptionsin the network which is not usually an issue or three-minute phone calls, but can oten result innasty service disruption in multi-hour video meetings. A circuit ailure means the bridge has toredial which oten requires participant intervention. At the same time ISDN services are generallyviewed as secure because o the physical separation o trac and the tight phone companycontrol o the physical access.

ISDN GatewaysThe major eature o the ISDN-IP gateway is the interacing between circuit switched and packetswitched networks such as enterprise IP networks or the Internet. This device converts mediatrac, addressing and signaling inormation rom an ISDN network to an IP network and vice-versa. The gateway supports both IP and E.164 address space. This allows an enterprisemigrating their internal video architecture rom a legacy ISDN deployment to IP to continue toreach both internal and external ISDN end-points.

From a perormance perspective, ISDN networks can theoretically support the multi-Megabitservices that high quality telepresence systems demand, but since it takes the initiation and

binding o 125 channels o 64 kbps each (6 x ISDN PRI) to deliver one circuit o 8 Mbps betweentwo codecs in a typical telepresence suite-to-suite session and there are usually three codecs thatmight need as much as 8 Mbps each, it is not a practical option.

ISDN services are however appropriate or inter-company video conerencing in a decentralizedinter-company architecture. Thats because any endpoint can dial out to any other endpoint overa dedicated circuit with no rewall traversal issues. However, the low speeds attained alwayspresent an inerior experience or users, not to mention the time and distance charges. ISDNservice can be congured as part o a centralized architecture where IP-attached users connectinto a video bridge or MCU, which then engages with the ISDN network to dial out to the ISDN-attached sites or enable dial-in rom the ISDN-attached users. Interestingly, many carriers are

hollowing out their ISDN networks by migrating ISDN trac onto an IP transport WAN. ISDN-dialed trac is packetized by ISDN-IP gateways at the access central oce and depacketized atthe egress central oce.

MPLS VPNs and VideoMany large enterprises have deployed telepresence and video conerencing either in a standaloneor converged network using a carrier-provided Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) service.In an MPLS network, transmission packets are assigned headers called labels including tracclassication speciying eight classes o packet priority, which are processed by the networkinghardware to quickly route the packet without regard to the contents or protocols o the packet

being transported. This allows any communications to traverse any network regardless o theunderlying physical inrastructure, whether SONET/SDH, Ethernet, ATM or rame relay.

Carrier implementations o MPLS typically create logically-unique Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)or their enterprise customers that aggregate many dierent customers trac onto a sharednetwork. For internal applications such as intra-company telepresence, MPLS provides tracsegmentation so video packets get the priority they deserve and very ast transmission.



Peering MPLS VPNs through a carrier or by connecting to a telepresence and video exchange areeective methods or reliable and secure inter-company telepresence networking. Each enterprisemember o an MPLS peering group enables connectivity and MPLS tunnels to the central peeringpoint or Network Access Point. Each enterprises VPN terminates on a Gbps Ethernet interace othe peering service providers switch, isolating the enterprises internal address and security policiesrom any other network participant, but enabling inter-connectivity with any other participant.

This mechanism assures both peering o SIP registry servers and very low transit delay in processingmedia transport, regardless o the number o carriers involved in the communications path.

DiffServ Introduces Performance and ComplexityMuch o the complexities in interconnecting independently operated MPLS networks - as wasthe case with every predecessor virtual network technology (ATM, Frame Relay and X.25 beorethat) - was the coordination o signaling speciying packet treatments or congestion across peernetworks and especially across carrier networks. This is an issue because there are preerencesand in many cases economic consequences associated with dierent classes o trac, denedby the Dierentiated Services (DiServ) architecture or IP networks.

MPLS and DiServ however, do not work naturally well together since they operate at dierentlayers MPLS operates between the network and data link layers while DiServ operates at thenetwork layer and are subject to diering proprietary treatment on trac.

DiServ is a class-based mechanism or trac management, rst proposed in 1998 by the IETFas a mechanism or assigning each packet to one o 64 possible trac classes so each router ina DiServ domain can uniormly dierentiate each packets priority treatment on the basis o itsclass. At the time, routers processed each IP packet on a rst-come, rst-routed basis. In the lowspeed, high congestion designs o the 1990s, this resulted in many packet discards and a pooruser experience in real-time services such as voice or video. DiServ was developed to enable

disparate trac classes to traverse a common IPnetwork with appropriate priority available to real-time applications.

DiServ-congured routers implement Per-HopBehaviors (PHBs), which dene the treatmentexpected or each class. Some PHBs may bedened or low-loss, low-latency trac andothers or best-eort delivery. DiServ makesrecommendations to network operators about

router operations and does not mandate a specicclassication or voice or video trac. In practice and despite the 64 possibilities, there are ourcommonly-dened PHBs:

Default is typically a best-efforts delivery.

Expedited Forwarding is for low-loss low-latency trafc (like video).

Assured Forwarding assures delivery below some subscription maximum.

Inter-company telepresence

often teaches you about

how good your IP network

operation really is.



Class Selector provides backward compatibility with earlier mechanisms.

But since MPLS was dened beore DiServ, the MPLS protocol designers agreed to use the3-bits that had been set aside or experimental purposes in the MPLS label header, or Qualityo Service, enabling 8 possible PHBs in MPLS. Aligning one IP network implementation oDiServ with another IP network implementation o DiServ is hard enough, yet the complexityis compounded more severely when you have to similarly align the DiServ implementations odisparate MPLS service providers as well on opposite sides o a telepresence exchange.

It is not surprising then that DiServ is a requent source o inter-company telepresence problems.It is at the edge o networks where DiServclassication happens and where it rstbecomes apparent that two carriers and twoenterprises have dierent practices or tracclassication. Inter-company telepresence is allabout expanding the edge o networks.

Inter-company telepresence services pushbeyond the pre-determined boundaries ocarriers where sessions are viewed as eitheron-net or o-net. Only the peer enterprisetelepresence manager has to worry aboutthe end-to-end experience. Their contractuallimits extends to the edge o the telepresenceexchange, but not across their partners carrier.Users may never notice that a ew emailpackets are being discarded on the othernetwork since the application quickly

retransmits. But telepresence users can quicklyspot a degraded experience as a result opacket loss or greater instance o packet jitter.Given these sensitivities and complexities, theburden o higher complexity is more than osetby the higher quality experience associated withmodern trac management practices.

Economics of Carrier

Inter-Company Telepresence

The telephone network o the past centuryoriginated with service providers operatingin distinct local ootprints. As it becameclear that users in one locality were willingto pay to speak with users in another, theindustry developed procedures or settlingpayments or trac originating on onenetwork and terminating on the other andvice-versa. In wireless networks, roamingservice agreements between mobile operatorsassures their users are granted mobile servicesin territories and countries well-beyond theootprint o their home service providers.

There are no standard settlement processesor carriers terminating or transporting one-anothers telepresence trac at this time. Soalthough carriers are interested in acilitatinginter-company telepresence services, it will onlybe as a mechanism to grow the overall serviceutilization in the early days.



Telepresence and Video Conferencing Exchange Providers

A telepresence and video conerencing exchange is a service provider that sits between multiplenetworks (carrier and private) that requently use dierent DiServ classes, dierent MPLS taggingschemes and have independent network addressing policies and practices. An exchangeprovider will typically provide some or all o the ollowing services:

Physical network connectivity between networks

MPLS tag matching

IP address conict resolution between public, private or public-public or private-private

address conficts E.164 calling support

Directory services for inter-company video sessions and publicly-available telepresence suites

Telepresence exchange services can include access to shared video network inrastructure ormulti-site calls, and access to publicly available telepresence and video conerencing rooms.

Pricing-wise, exchange services can include one-time charges or on-boarding each endpoint andor port activation. Clients can then expect to pay a monthly recurring charge which can includeeither a fat-rate ee or a certain amount o bandwidth transer between your network and yourpartners, or a per-minute charge. Options oten include access to video network inrastructure

ExchangeProviders MCU(s)IP / ISDN Gateway

Your OrganizationsNetwork

(Carrier or Private)

Your OrganizationsMCU

Partner, Vendor,or Customers

Network

Call Control /Gatekeeper

TelepresenceStudio

SharedWire-Speed

Switch

E.164 Dialing, ExchangeProviders

Call ControlPolicy Enorcement

Call Control /Gatekeeper Video Conerencing

PartnersMCU

ExecutiveTelepresence

Video Conerenc

TelepresenceExchangeProvider

Internet

Video Conerencing

ISDNPSTN

Video Conerencing

End-to-EndDiagnostics & SLA

reportingDesktop / PC

or Mobile

Figure 3 The telepresence and video conferencing exchange

TelepresenceStudio

TelepresenceStudio



and usage-based ISDN gateway services. Attractive value-added options include end-to-end calldiagnostics to pinpoint quality issues among multiple networks, carriers and service providers.

Leading providers include:

Cisco has developed an inter-company architecture for

Cisco TelePresence. Tata Communications, BT Conerencing,Orange Business Services, Telmex, NTT, Teleonica, Telus and

AT&T oer services based on Ciscos architecture. Number oendpoints supported in practice is not available. IPV Gateways is a major wholesale exchange that matches

DiServ tags on 20 carriers with potential connectivity to 700other carriers through its partner, Telx. IPV supports tens othousands o downstream endpoint connections on some othe largest telepresence, video conerencing managed serviceproviders including MASERGY, IVCi, Telemerge, InterCall, York

Telecom and Providea.

Independent Video Managed Service Providers runningtheir own exchanges with the option to connect to wholesaleexchanges include BCS Global, Glowpoint and Iormata.

Telepresence and Video Conferencing Communities of Interest Networks (CoINs)A telepresence and video conerencing CoIN is a specialty network where the participants o theCoIN can reach any other member o the CoIN and are united by the equipment vendor, the carrierand/or managed service provider. Some telepresence and video conerencing CoIN providersinclude MASERGY, HP Halo HVEN, Glowpoint, Iormata and Teliris. Some telepresence CoINs haverelationships with Telepresence Exchange Providers to route trac to other networks.

The Internet and VideoThe commercialization o the Internet in 1995marks one o the most important milestones in thehistory o the telecommunications industry sinceit inaugurated an amazing period o innovation inprotocols, applications, access equipment, servicesand end user experiences. Today, 74% o US homeshave broadband Internet access using cable, DSL,WiMax or Fiber connectivity at an advertised averagedownload speed o 9.4 Mbps. The widespread

availability o high speed Internet access orresidential applications at only $15-$140/month is amajor infuence in what business users expect to payor high speed connectivity to the Internet.

Part o the great success o the Internet is dueto it being a giant shared network. It is a best-eorts delivery service where packets in transit

Desktop Video Configuration

Desktop video services such as

Skype video and instant

messaging-based video

applications dont need special

firewall configuration since they

typically originate from withinthe enterprise LAN and often

rely on port 80 (http service)

to get around any firewall

configuration issues.

The Human Productivity Lab andBrockmann & Company arepublishing the ollowup report, TheInter-Company Telepresence and

Video Conferencing Exchange

Review in January 2010. Get adiscount or placing a pre-releaseorder now. Get more inormation onthe report and a discount or placing apre-released order now on page 60.



are discarded in the event o network congestionand all applications and all users have an equalprobability o being correctly processed. Applicationsare assumed to correct or discarded packets byrequesting retransmission, which is not practical indemanding real-time applications such as voice orvideo communications. For applications like email andweb browsing this is a huge shared-cost advantage.

However, being a shared network is a giant liabilityor real-time applications like voice and videocommunications. Since each o the packets in aninter-company video communication has an equalprobability o being processed or queued as an emaildispatch or web browser communication, there is also

a high probability o jitter, which is variation in transit time across the network. Jitter and packet loss arethe two most requent and signicant quality-o-experience problems associated with the Internet.

Although the Internet oers inexpensive access, the trade o is that theres no Quality o Servicein practice where some applications jitter and discard tolerances are respected. Instead everyapplication and every user is treated the same.

As an important shared network resource, the Internet has also been the major vector or inormationcrimes including viruses, spyware, eavesdropping, identity thet and denial o service. As a result othese threats, the security o trac traversing the Internet needs to be a major concern or enterprisetelepresence managers.

Internet address space is a nite resource so many companies and home users rely on Network

Address Translation (NAT) to expose only one IP address to the Internet and then use a dierentdynamically-assigned addressing scheme in the company or the home network. Packets traversingthe NAT rewall have addresses substituted as appropriate so that the external site knows only o theaddress o the NAT rewall and cant reach the hidden computers, appliances and devices without therewalls active cooperation. This way the many computers in the oce are hidden rom any probesoriginating rom the Internet.

Internet SecurityA rewall is an inter-network security appliance that is designed to intercept and process all incomingprotocols, ports and service requests unless otherwise noted, in conormance with some enterprise

security policy. The simplest o these is the packet orwarding rewall that lters trac on the basis odirection, protocols and port numbers. Ports are used in the transport layer (as TCP or UDP) o the IPprotocol suite to name the ends o persistent logical connections with certain port numbers reservedor specic protocols. For example, email servers pass messages on port 25, email clients retrieveemail on port 110 or 143. Web browsers generally communicate on port 80 while https occur on port443. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) messages are passed through port 5060 or as secure SIP usingport 5061. Similarly, H.323 signaling messages are passed through port 1719 and 1720.

Tip for Better Internet Video

Third party solutions such

as IPeak Networks IPQ can

reduce packet loss on best

effort networks. The IPQ splitspackets into segments and

adds redundancy detail in

case packets are lost.



Trivial Firewall Settings for Single Station Inter-Company Video CommunicationsIt is instructive to consider the trivial home oce setting. In many small oces or home oces(SOHO) there is only one video communications endpoint so it is not necessary to implement anaddress manipulating solution that enable complex interactions or reporting services. To supportInternet-based inter-company or inter-oce communications to and rom this endpoint, it isrecommended to:

Assign a dedicated IP address from within the internal address pool to the endpoint.

Acquire a dedicated IP address for the SOHO router from the Internet service provider. Publish

that IP address to the video communications participants. Congure the rewall to forward all incoming H.323 and SIP messages to the endpoint.

LifeSize users: dene a minimum of 8 UDP ports and 2 TCP ports in the range port 60000

64999 or each o the maximum number o other endpoints in a multiway conerence and pointthe rewall to orward this trac to the endpoint. A three-way conerence rom this endpointneeds 16 UDP and 4 TCP ports. Polycom users: Ports 1718 with UDP, 1731 with TCP and then allow dynamic use of ports

1024-65535 with both UDP and TCP services.

TANDBERG users: Ports 970-973 with UDP, Ports 2326-2373 with UDP, Port 2837 UDP andPort 5587 i Multipoint Control Unit (MCU) is present and 5555-55xx TCP, orwarding to theendpoint.

More sophisticated small oces might also have an installed IP PBX server requiring SIPcommunications to and rom the SIP trunking service provider. In these circumstances, it is notappropriate to orward all the SIP and H.323 trac to the video endpoint so a more sophisticatedsolution, such as a session border controller, is in order.

As compared to the PC video implementation, the communications industry has to replace thiscomplicated security regime with simple, built-in works-anywhere unctionality i there is any hope

at enabling broad market deployment. Under no circumstances should trivial implementationsrequire any rewall conguration, let alone the specications dened here.

Session Border Controllers & Inter-Company Gateways for IP Video NetworksSession Border Controllers (SBC) provide a specialized real-time communications intermediaryservice typically at the boundary o IP networks or the enterprise-service provider demarcationpoint at the edge o a SIP trunking service provider network. They isolate addressing conficts andassure ecient real-time packet fows without compromising security.



Video Automated AttendantsFigure 4 Avatars ought to be used in video auto-

attendant applications.

Although typically deployed in support o SIP-basedtelephony networking over IP, SBCs are increasinglynding applicability in SIP and H.323 inter-companyvideo communications applications. These specializedgateway applications provide services such as back-to-back user agent service where signaling and media fowtrac is terminated on each side o the SBC and passedbetween the internal and external interaces to overcomeaddressing issues, H.323-to-SIP signaling gateway services and can provide encryption/decryption service or packets traversing the Internet thereby reeing the endpoint rom onerousencryption/decryption processing.

Another gateway-class o network inrastructure, the video automated attendant unctions like its

VoIP-equivalent. It enables video users rom outside the company to access a corporate directoryo video users within a centralized architecture and initiate an ad hoc video communication.Visitors see and sometimes hear a message, peruse the corporate directory and select theperson or room that theyd like to video with. The auto-attendant then hands o the session ontothe appropriate endpoint with corporate standards or bandwidth and messaging.

When used in conjunction with the SBC unctionality, the automated attendant maintainsconsistency with corporate standards or addressing since the SIP registry/H.323 gatekeeper areaware o the online status and dynamic IP address o all internal users and that inormation is notshared with incoming sessions.

Virtual Waiting RoomsA similar approach or scheduled inter-company video meetings involves the deployment o aMCU in the enterprise De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) where each video-authenticated employee inthe enterprise is assigned a virtual video meeting room, just as they might be assigned an audioconerence bridge ID and moderator password. The MCU supports two (or more) Ethernetinteraces where one connects to the public Internet and the other conorms to the enterprisenetwork. Incoming participants are authenticated at the MCU and electronically ushered into avirtual waiting room where they authenticate themselves and listen to music while perhaps viewingthe upcoming meeting agenda i the organizer had published it to the virtual waiting room. Whenthe organizer is ready to proceed, they authenticate themselves to the MCU and all the meeting

participants are bridged together.

Telepresence InteroperabilitySystem-to-system interoperability is not as simple as implementing standard codecs or audioand video presentation and transmission. In legacy video conerencing implementations,single cameras and single screen presentations are quite common. Thereore, interoperabilityinvolves only a ew degrees o reedom or each critical dimension o the communications path.



In telepresence systems however, many more degrees o reedom need to be actored intothe interoperability equation. Figure 6 on the next page shows the operating attributes o sixcommercially available systems. As you can see, the basic assumptions about which camerashould be shown on which screen, and at what relative size and so on are important to deliveringon the user expectation in an inter-company telepresence session. Frequently, systems may beinter-operable, but they may only be able to connect a single screen while losing high denition,spatial acoustics and the ability to collaborate on data.

Figure 5 The angle between the line of the camera capturing the image of a participant

and the eye position of the person theyre speaking to on the monitor is the eye-line, which

needs to be as close to 0o as possible for the most natural experience.

When the CFO decides she would like to conduct an inter-company telepresence sessionand asks you to make it happen, the answer may hinge on the level o system-to-system

interoperability between disparate telepresence suites. Even when the network challenges areovercome, the quality o experience might be considerably lower than end-users are accustomedto when connected with like-systems. The endpoints rom dierent telepresence vendors havedierent assumptions around the number and placement o cameras, the geometries o monitorsand the availability, location and quality o speakers.

Eye-Line



Figure 6 Interoperability of six commercially available systems.

Cisco CTS 3000Center Mounted 3 Camera Array, proprietarycodec,3 fat screen monitors, 3 position spatialaudio, interoperable with traditional videoconerencing via MCU.

Digital Video Enterprises

Tele-Immersion RoomSingle camera, single codec located at eye-levelbehind beam splitter. Uses standards-basedvideo conerencing endpoint as the engine.

LifeSize Conference 200Three cameras each positioned below or aboveeach monitor, 3 fat screen monitors, H.264standards-based video conerencing compliant

Polycom RPX 400 Series

Four pencil sized xed cameras mountedbehind the screen at eye-level, our 4x4rear projection video wall segments. H.264standards based codecs.

BrightCom Lumina Telepresence L37Three 37 screens and a three cameraarray over the center screen. ProprietaryH.264 codec with support SIP.

Teliris VirtuaLiveSingle moveable camera over each screenwith 2-5+ fat panel monitors dependingon conguration. Proprietary H.264 SVCcodec interoperable through gateway.



Thats because telepresence interoperability goes beyond being able to connect codec to codecand passing video streams. The magic o telepresence is creating an experience that as closelyas possible replicates being in the same physical space. This experience is the combinationo many tightly engineered actors including: eye-line and spatial acoustics where the speakerclosest to the speakers image plays her spoken audio stream so that the direction o the soundso the person speaking are consistent with the image o the person speaking.

Table 7 on the next page provides observations about the interoperability osets associated witheach o two-vendor telepresence sessions.

Video conerencing interoperability is a simpler challenge since it is something that the endpointvendors have been working on or a decade or more, and since the number o screens and audioinputs is greatly reduced, oten to one each. Even two-monitor systems typically display the nearand ar ends on each monitor as a deault, with the ar end and an H.239 data display availableas the next-to-deault setting. In addition to the much simpler expectation, endpoint vendors havealso been quick to exploit new monitor technologies capable o 720p or 1080p HD presentation,

and deployed codec electronics and sotware that can really take advantage o the H.264standard or a crisp visual experience.

In audio terms, the improvements in audio sampling and compression rom the digital musicindustry associated with Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) take audio treatments way beyondthe telecom assumptions in the old standby G.711 and G.729 techniques. These newimplementations have paved the way or signicantly superior experiences over the classicStandard Denition and telecom audio treatments, but negotiate with the legacy device to thehighest common denominator.



This chart eatures sel-reported interoperability inormation rom each vendor represented in the1st column and each vendors answers are represented across their row. Each vendor alongthe top row was invited to participate and some declined or a variety o reasons. This chart

is intended to help telepresence managers understand the issues in connecting to disparatesystems and is not intended to be an authoritative guide. It doesnt contain inormation on avariety o systems especially single screen systems and some vendors are not represented at all.

Table 7 Telepresence interoperability offsets for a range of leading market participants.

Telepresence Group

Sys tem Screens , CapabilitiesBr ig htCom Lumi na 37 Ci sc o CTS 30 00 & 32 00 DVE Tel eImmer si on Room

HP Halo Studio and Meeting

RoomLifeSize Conference 200

Magor High Definition

Meeting Room

BrightCom Lumina

37

Lumina Telepresen ce Series -

Group Syst ems: L37 (modular),

L65 (fixed room), L85

(customized fixed room)- 3 Flat

Panel Monito rs, 3 Camera Fixed

Array, Over Center Screen,H.264. Supports HD 1080p

30fps. Support for SIP. Series

range from 2 to 24 telepresence

participants. Data and video

displayed and automatically

adjusted on any of three

screens.

Can It Call / Answer: Yes / YesMaxResolution/FR: 1080p / 30

Audio Fidelity: G-722

Spatial Audio: Yes

TP Multipoint/#of Streams: Yes /

3

Data Collaboration: Yes

Caveats:

Can It Call / Answer: Yes / Yes -

see caveat

MaxResolution/FR: CIF / 30

through gateway

Audio Fidelity: G.711 (3.4kHz)

through gatewaySpatial Audio: No

TP Multipoint/#of Streams: /

Each codec receves one stream

from MCU which can include up

to 16 CP images

Data Collaboration: No

Caveats:Proprietary Connection

Can It Call / Answer: Yes /

No

MaxResolution/FR: 1080p /

30Audio Fidelity: G-722

Spatial Audio: No


N/A


Caveats:When using a SIP

compliant codec as engine

Can It Call / Answer: No / NoMaxResolution/FR: /

Audio Fidelity:

Spatial Audio:


Data Collaboration:

Caveats: Proprietary

Connection

Can It Call / Answer: Yes / Yes

MaxResolution/FR: 1080p / 30or 720p / 60

Audio Fidelity: G-722

Spatial Audio: No


N/A


Caveats:

Can It Call / Answer: /

MaxResolution/FR: /

Audio Fidelity:

Spatial Audio:


Data Collaboration:

Caveats:

LifeSize Conference

200

1080p 30 fps, 720p 60 fps, 4

cameras + H.239 data, LifeSize

phone. 4 monitors and

placement is dealer

respons ibility, H.264, AAC-LC


(SIP)

MaxResolution/FR: /1080p30

Audio Fidelity: G.722

Spatial Audio: No

TP Multipoint/#of Streams: No /

No

Data Collaboration: N/A

Caveats: Is SIP standards based?

Can It Call / Answer: No / No

MaxResolution/FR: N/A

Audio Fidelity: N/A

Spatial Audio: N/A

TP Multipoint/#of Streams: N/A


Caveats: Proprietary -Requires

TP Gateway

Can It Call / Answer: Yes /

Yes

MaxResolution/FR: /

1080p30 or 720p60

Audio Fidelity: AAC-LC

Spatial Audio: No

TP Multipoint/#of Streams:

N/A


Caveats:When using

LifeSize codec as engine


MaxResolution/FR: N/A

Audio Fidelity: N/A

Spatial Audio: N/A

TP Multipoint/#of Streams: N/A


Caveats: Proprietary


MaxResolution/FR: / 1080p30

or 720-60

Audio Fidelity:AAC-LC

Spatial Audio: No


N/A


Caveats: N/A


MaxResolution/FR: /

Audio Fidelity:

Spatial Audio:


Data Collaboration:

Caveats:

Polycom RPX 200

Series

2 Rear Projection Video Wall

Segments (8 feet), EyeConnect

technology, 2 in-screen

'EyeConnect' cameras, H.264,

content monitors built into

tables. Supports HD 1080 p

30fps and HD 720p 60fps,

supports 22kHz wideband

audio.


MaxResolution/FR: /

Audio Fidelity:

Spatial Audio:


Data Collaboration:

Caveats:

Can It Call / Answer: No / No (

Not directly, only through

gateway)

MaxResolution/FR: / CIF

through gateway

Audio Fidelity: G.711 (3.4kHz)

through gateway

Spatial Audio: No




to 16 CP images


Caveats:TP Multipoint requires

MCU


MaxResolution/FR: /

Audio Fidelity:

Spatial Audio:


Data Collaboration:

Caveats:


MaxResolution/FR: / No

Audio Fidelity: No

Spatial Audio: No


No


Caveats: N/A


MaxResolution/FR: /720p

30fps

Audio Fidelity: Siren 14

(14kHz)

Spatial Audio: No




to 16 CP images

Data Collaboration: Yes, using

H.239

Caveats:TP Multipoint requires

MCU, we tes ted with RMX 2000


MaxResolution/FR: /

Audio Fidelity:

Spatial Audio:


Data Collaboration:

Caveats:

.

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

.

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:


26/70


27/70


28/70



Collaboration ToolsFor most video conerences or telepresencesessions, its not enough to see and hear the remoteparticipants. Its increasingly important to be ableto share PowerPoints, documents, high resolutiongraphics and movies. Collaboration tools and servicessuch as data sharing, interactive white boards, highresolution image sharing and document cameras,are increasingly an important part o any eectivetelepresence system operation. Users need thetelepresence technology to support the artiacts andcollaboration processes that they would normallyneed to participate in during ace-to-ace meetings.

Most o these collaboration tools use the ITUs 2003standard, H.239, which species the method ormulti-vendor data-sharing as an integral part o the

communications media fow between participatingendpoints. In practice, video conerencingsessions with less than 384 kbps o bandwidthavailable experience a severely degraded video, audio and or data-sharing presentation. Sometelepresence vendors integrate a web conerencing server with the telepresence system enablingnot only high denition document or screen sharing, but also the control o the telepresencesession rom within the web conerence screen.

Interactive WhiteboardsFor collaborations with partners, vendors and customers where a higher degree o interactivity orshared experience is appropriate technologies such as interactive white boards where you draw

on the white board in the telepresence room in Berlin and the results appear on the interactivewhite board in San Jose are appropriate. The San Jose user can then use their interactive whiteboard to make edits to the drawings and share the results with Berlin. However, it is usually arequirement that both telepresence rooms need to be equipped with the same interactive system,a dedicated collaborative computer and be accessible over the IP network.

A popular deault approach is the simultaneous execution o a web collaboration session. Ocourse, this introduces urther complexity to the meeting participants who must bring their PCs tothe telepresence session, exchange meeting invitations and then independently authenticate in tothe session.

Visualizers and Document CamerasThe ceiling visualizer (an optional HD camera mounted on the ceiling to present documents andphysical objects), is one in a series o video input devices that oten times needs to be actoredinto interoperability plans or inter-company sessions. Support or document camera inputstreams is not entirely the same approach rom one vendor to another, let alone one organizationto another. So, telepresence managers need to be sensitive to the capture and presentation

Activision, a leading video

game producer (Call of Duty,

Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk series)

uses HD video conferencing

to accelerate video gamedevelopment enabling faster

QA cycles. Remote QA

engineers are able to share

their experience with the game

developers without either

party leaving their offices, or

the software load leaving the

development studio.



requirements o both their company telepresence and video conerencing systems and thoseo customers, partners and suppliers that they may be expected to conduct inter-companytelepresence sessions with.

RecordingsThe ability to record conerences is a handy eature. Depending on your industry, it may even be aregulatory requirement. In some industries such as nancial services sector and in some countriessuch as the United Kingdom, all electronic communications - including video communications- are required to be recorded and later made available in regulatory investigations. Regardlesso the legal requirement, there are merits in recording sessions even i its not legally requiredin your industry or state. Thats because the communication can then be edited, replayed andotherwise improved to satisy training, saety or quality needs. Recording sessions can be playedback or colleagues that couldnt make the meeting but need to hear and see the meeting, aspart o training courses, litigation deense, remote casting calls, deposition and to simpliy thecommunications required with rolling sotware development initiatives across multiple time zoneswhere the recorded video conerence at the start and stop o each day leaves a recorded statusreport or the next team.

Recordings o inter-company meetings involve privacy and legal sensitivities. Some jurisdictionsrequire the permission o only some participants, while in other jurisdictions it is required to gainthe permission o all participants.



Best Practices in Inter-CompanyTelepresence Operations

No report or presentation can credibly claim to deliver all o the industry best practices in a eld asdiverse and dynamic as telepresence and video communications, and this handbook is no exception.For your consideration and proessional review we present several best practices or an inter-companycommunications ramework.

1. Strategic Review of Video CommunicationsThinking o video communications as a strategic service within the company puts a greater emphasison the strategic planning o the service. It also puts emphasis on the investment prole and thestang o the video communications management unction. An independent audit o the videocommunications resource in the enterprise is the best place to begin the strategy development

process. This audit procedure should articulate the location, condition and standards or thecompanys video inrastructure, endpoints, administrators and key users. Randomly checkingprocesses and resources through onsite inspection and interviews can determine the condence inthe data gathered as the baseline or the operation.

Higher quality, greater numbers o endpoints, sessions and length o sessions, and signicantgrowth in inter-company video communications aremajor industry trend lines. Sharing the audit resultsand mapping them onto these industry trend linesin video communications have implications orthe many assumptions in the original design anddeployment o inrastructure. This process will highlightthose assumptions that no longer t with the overallimplementation expectations and goals within thecompany.

For example, a common practice has been in the pastto install MCUs at the corporate HQ. Ater all, mostcommunication fows are rom the HQ to the regionalsites and the regional sites to the HQ. However, in aninter-company telepresence setting, this may no longer

be valid. Instead, a lower cost, and ultimately higherperormance operational practice would indicate thathousing the bridge and other inrastructure in the cloudis more eective. This would involve relocating yourvideo and VoIP servers and inrastructure into a carrier-neutral collocation acility preerably at a telco-hotel. Youcan connect to various video, voice, data network and

Recommendation:

Conduct an independent aud

of your video communicationscapabilities, infrastructure,

practices and operations.

Map the audit results

onto the trend lines for the

industry and reconsider the

basic assumptions inherent

in endpoints, network,

operations, infrastructure andadministration.

Develop and present strategic

plan. Reset assumptions about

operations and investments.



exchange service providers using cross-connects versus pulling multiple dedicated T1-E1/T3-E3/Ethernet circuits to your HQ, which may or not be available but most certainly will be expensive.

Managing those resources remotely with aid o the Video Managed Service Provider (VMSP)connected to a telepresence and video conerencing exchange provider will drive eciencies, reducebandwidth bottlenecks and increase service availability than i the inrastructure was centralized at HQ.

While most telepresence rooms establish a business class consistency o quality in capture, distanceto camera and screen, lighting, and acoustic wall treatments, classic video conerencing rooms do not.Sometimes the camera and monitor are placed at the end o a boardroom table, sometimes in thecorner, sometimes across the table. Standardizing or minimizing the variations in a room congurationis a boost to user condence and user satisaction.

For example, in one client, all camera presets are standardized so that 1 is the wide shot o theroom, 2 is the head o the table, 3 is let speaker position and 4 is right speaker position. All roomsare congured with speaker phones in the center o the table, speed dial 1 is the help desk and VGAcable or H.239 data presentation on the right side o the table. This simplies the user experience in

much the same way that standard invocation o telephone eatures (76 is delete message commandin a popular voicemail application) improves personal productivity.

And, in another circumstance, the companys implementation o the video auto attendant serverorwards all problem sessions and or misdialed calls to the on-duty video engineers endpointor immediate attention. This best practice impresses video visitors with its responsiveness andaccelerates repeat use or inter-company visual collaboration.

2. To Converge or Not To ConvergeEnterprises have historically implemented video communications within the constraints o their ongoingbudget or connectivity services theyve typically implemented the highest speed and most ecient

network services that their budgets can tolerate in some utile attempt to balance cost with quality. Thepower o the immersive experience however, turns this old practice on its ear.

Converging real-time voice trac with best eorts data trac has been an initiative within enterprisenetworking or the better part o the past decade. Its driven carriers, bandwidth budgets andequipment vendors in a race or the astest, cheapest and highest perormance capabilities orprocessing, managing and troubleshooting these dynamic, mission-critical environments. The recentchanges in communications habits and technologies promises to reset this strategy and drive videoonto a new, particularly high perormance WAN, independent o the converged voice and dataenvironment.

O-enterprise-network mobile communications is increasing as is video communicationsuse.Telepresence 2009 report by Brockmann & Company shows that the requency o videocommunication has doubled since 2007. This greater requency and longer duration o video sessionsis coupled with the reduction in enterprise-terminated voice sessions. It is entirely likely that thecorporate share o bandwidth allocated or transport o video services exceeds the corporate volumeo voice trac in many organizations.
http://www.brockmann.com/report-library/abstracts-collaboration-mainmenu-120/1757-telepresence-2009.htmlhttp://www.brockmann.com/report-library/abstracts-collaboration-mainmenu-120/1757-telepresence-2009.html



Some organizations dampen the insatiable appetite orvideo bandwidth with a corporate-wide constraint on thevideo service, limiting any one session to a maximumo 384 kbps, even though the lowest cost personal HDvideo system can easily consume as much as 1,000 kbpsin a point-to-point session. In this way, the rm can moreeasily converge the voice, video and data trac onto asingle enterprise WAN. Yet, there are consequences interms o the user experience and overall satisaction withthe service.

And, because any one telepresence session uses morebandwidth than most organizations have or all otherapplications, telepresence acilities oten dont t in theconverged WAN at all. In the short to medium term, thetrac engineering and bandwidth management practicessuitable or converging voice and data may not be

appropriate or the very high per-session requirements o video trac.

Instead, leading organizations have implemented specialized video overlay networks or theirtelepresence and video trac. Instead o hiring a video-specic WAN management team, they haveengaged with video managed service providers to enable the rm to manage video as a strategicservice or the enterprise. This way the investment in equipment and inrastructure can best deliverhigher productivity and higher business perormance and the VMSP can best be held accountableor operational excellence. As part o this initiative, the rm should insist on DiServ in all networkequipment and conduct periodic ormal reviews with the VMSP to discuss outages, perormance gapsand corrective actions taken or to be taken.

3. Establish an Inter-Company Telepresence Program ChampionAs discussed in this report, inter-company telepresence is not easy nor simple. But the benets areextensive and real, particularly in large organizationswhere business travel to visit, train or support customersin other large organizations is a major hard cost, sot cost,and opportunity cost reduction target or both rms.

Hiring or developing a Virtual [Inter-Company] MeetingSpecialist is a best practice because it aligns responsibilityor an initiative with a proessional resource that can be

held accountable, or that hold others accountable asappropriate. A Virtual Inter-company Meeting Specialistis a dedicated employee whose responsibility wouldbe to coordinate, monitor, measure, and promote inter-company virtual meetings between the organization andvendors, joint venture partners, and customers. They arethe ocal point and project manager or implementing

Recommendation:

Move video communications

onto the telepresence MPLS WAN

Engage a Video Managed

Service Provider to assure thehighest quality user experience

and performance.

Insist on DiffServ commonalitie

Periodically, and formally revie

reports on service levels and

outages with VMSP.

Recommendation:

Systematic prioritization and focu

on the benefits of inter-company

telepresence assures that:

Efforts are rewarded with benefi

The changes stick

Success momentum continues

drive the initiative forward

Lessons learned are applied



the necessary technological, cultural andorganizational changes so that the rm cancapture the benets.

Build the business case or inter-companytelepresence by working with the travelaccounting department, vendor relations, trainingand the major accounts manager. Together, youcan analyze the business travel to the top tenmajor customers. Keep in mind that productivitygains rom avoiding even local travel are both

time saved in travel avoidance and cash cost to the rm. In one case inter-company telepresencebetween the Los Angeles Police Department and the City o Los Angeles instead o ace-to-acemeetings saved thousands o hours sitting on that citys congested reeways.

With a systematic approach, the specialist can work with the network, operations and businessunits to overcome all o the hurdles preventing widespread inter-company telepresence. The role has

a mentoring responsibility in communications with suppliers and customers who may or may notshare the rms priority or inter-company telepresence. Picking a manageable number o customersor suppliers in a pilot mode as part o a controlled project assures that the mistakes made in thecontrolled pilot are not repeated across the entire organization. Apendix B oers sample letters toinitiate various dimensions o an inter-company program.

4. Expand Your Network by Reaching Public RoomsPublic room telepresence providers operate or coordinate video-capable rooms or an hourly ee.Earlier this summer, a number o alliances were announced bringing equipment, business hotels andnetwork service providers together. The alliances include:

These relationships bring global networks o rooms o both telepresence and video conerencingcapabilities to bear. Top hotel and executive conerencing brands partner with telepresence serviceproviders and equipment vendors to create networks o telepresence systems linking their capstone

properties in convenient locations in key cities. Clients can participate in telepresence businessconerences on a moments notice, and in many convenient locations rom the extensive inventory othousands o video conerencing rooms or dozens o telepresence acilities at a ar lower cost basisthan owning and operating their own meeting rooms.

Although most services are marketed as telepresence between suites within an alliances inventorywhich has some business potential, the real opportunity is to expand the range o connection

On March 24-25, 2010, the HumanProductivity Lab will be hosting a conerenceto help organizations develop an inter-company telepresence business strategy anddevelop eective virtual meeting specialists.See our ad in this handbook or more. Contact

us i youre interested in developing a customprogram or your organization.

Venue Telepresence System(s) NetworkStarwood Properties Cisco CTS 3000 & 1300 Tata CommunicationsSheraton, Westin, W Hotels

Regus Executive Suites Polycom RPX Cable & Wirelessand Virtual Oces

Marriott, JW Marriott, and Cisco CTS 3000 AT&TRenaissance sorts

Taj Hotels, Resorts, and Palaces Cisco 3000 Tata Communications
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]



possibilities to mix enterprise and public rooms. Thatswhy developing interoperability procedures with theseleading public room service providers is such a strongrecommendation. It greatly expands the ootprint o yourvideo network, expanding the opportunities to avoidtravel and thereby accelerate the business, without thecost o owning one more telepresence suite or onemore video conerencing room or unit. Users can dointer-company video conerencing or telepresence withcustomers or suppliers whos employers dont have ordont allow inter-company telepresence but are willing totravel locally to an executive suite, hotel or conerenceacility to participate in telepresence sessions.

Costs o service are closely associated with consumption,so theres no xed cost. O course public rooms couldbe used or internal sessions too. In this case, reviewing reports rom the public service provider could

provide insight on where the company ought to expand its own video service network.

Overall, inter-networking with one or more public room service provider is a great way to expand thepotential endpoints that your users can reach, increasing the appeal and utility o the service just asReed and Metcale predicted it would.

5. Leverage Your Travel Management SupplierSubstituting business travel with telepresence sessions can also conveniently be done at the pointo sale or travel services. Leading travel management companies are beginning to oer clients theability to intercept travel reservations and present telepresence or video conerencing alternatives thatare lower cost, greener and aster transactions than the typical business trip. In its initial release, these

services acilitate intra-company telepresence wherethe travel management can fag the routes most likelyrefecting intra-company trips and access the companysinternal telepresence and video conerencing schedulingresources.

The on-boarding o these services typically involveshaving the telepresence manager share their roominventory, including their preerred public room serviceproviders. Oten the telepresence manager makes

available an interace into the company room schedulingcapabilities, so that agents and or the web travel portalcan book appropriate transactions directly and in real-time. Eliminating any transactional riction is the goal othis initiative, making the substitution o video servic

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