IP Convergence: Beyond VoIP, Beyond Cost Savings

When I was asked a few months ago by a customer who was also a CIO what all the fuss about TelePresence was I thought long and hard about my response … not because I was concerned that a competitor was trying to sell into the customer an alternative solution but rather I was thinking differently as to what the potential customer was really asking – that is, what were the main issues or challenges in not only deploying a fully immersed panoramic video solution but also how he or she would eventually support it to their internal customers while achieving some cost velocity reductions along the way.

Before we go there a few interesting tidbits about the TelePresence space … according to a few research firms sales associated to TelePresence opportunities were expected to nearly triple in 2007 to $169 million from just $64 million in 2006 and these same research firms see sales of possibly $1 billion by 2011. Wow, that’s an impressive CAGR ! According to John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, he noted “TelePresence systems orders grew from the prior quarter by over 300%. In Q4 (ended July 28), the number of TelePresence systems grew by over 400% from Q3." That is pretty impressive if one thinks about what goes into a TelePresence offer from a service diameter perspective and in fact the actual revenue tied to the TelePresence service industry could be higher engineering, consulting, installation, etc  are factored in above and beyond equipment.

So what’s all the fuss about TelePresence? It’s like deploying any other real time sensitive application on the network isn’t it? In some ways yes and in some ways no …. First lets start with why its different … the amount of work that goes into the room engineering to ensure the immersive nature and performance associated to customer experience is at the highest quality is significant. Not only do normal electrical, network and physical build out aspects play a role but so to does acoustic balancing, lighting, video performance analysis and engineering needs to occur. Without a properly engineered room (or rooms depending upon how many systems you deploy) you may not achieve the level of visual and acoustic quality desired or intended driving higher consumption experience. More common to core telecommunication and equally important is the criticality that the underlying network achieve the best possible engineering principles in order to achieve optimal video and acoustic performance from a data delivery perspective. It goes without saying that the level of traffic engineering associated to QoS (classification, policing and shaping) and the corresponding core network behavioral network attributes and principles need to be defined such that the end users who are leveraging TelePresence capabilities see value and drive consumption while ultimately eliminating costs.

In the end TelePresence isn’t a “do it yourself” job for everyone but rather should be approached much in the same way you would approach packetizing your voice communications infrastructure – following well though out, well defined architectural and engineering principles in order to achieve success.  What goes into this well defined architectural and engineering design is choosing equipment suppliers and service providers who can live up to the demands of the underlying  service diameter needs. You do this and you are on your way to a quality, immersive video experience increasing employee productivity through engaged collaboration while reducing the overall cost velocity associated doing business across the globe.