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Thursday, May 17, 2012
Feature: May 2009
Virtual Realities
How teleconferencing is growing up and spreading out
Story by Christine Stanley
While segments of the telecommunications market are flat or declining, the conferencing segment is looking up — way up. Largely as a reaction to painful gas prices last year and a tremulous economy, more companies are looking to teleconferencing as a means to skip a flight, save a buck and connect with staff and clients.
As a result, the overall conferencing market rose 10.8 percent in 2008 to $5.8 billion, according to the 2009 ICT Market Review & Forecast published by the Telecommunications Industry Association. Web conferencing, the smallest component of the market, was the fastest growing, with a 23.1 percent gain, compared to 12.1 percent for videoconferencing and 5.2 percent for audio conferencing.
The report estimates the market to grow 9.9 percent annually, reaching $8.5 billion in revenue by 2012.
The majority of today’s demand is in the audio-Web space. Web conferencing has been around for a while, but the convergence is where the demand is,” says Doug Jones, AT&T’s executive director of teleconferencing services.
Web conferencing is a less expensive alternative to in-person meetings and provides more functionality than audio conferencing. The technology, which is provided by companies such as Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Citrix Online LLC, allows users to hold meetings online that combine voice communication with live, desktop activity, such as PowerPoint presentations. It can also be coupled with instant messaging and video.
“The demand — let’s call it the rate of return — is about time and money.
If everybody has to fly here, it doesn’t take too many meetings to equal the cost
(of the technology).”
— John Morris, CTO and director of operations, Drexel University, Sacramento
Locally, SureWest Communications does not provide video conferencing or like products, but the company does provide Internet and broadband services for Web conferencing, though any necessary hardware must be purchased from a third-party provider. Comcast has no such services available.
Cisco Systems, which recently acquired Rancho Cordova-based WebEx and is now offering that company’s products, provides users with Web conferencing subscription services.
“In the Sacramento area, we target individual users — I can buy [WebEx] and expense it if it makes my job easier,” says Cisco Marketing Manager Sara Perry. “The rest is primarily sub-100 or even sub-50 employee companies.”
Cisco’s most popular WebEx service in the Capital Region is a $59 monthly subscription to its online conferencing service, which allows up to 25 users at a time and provides integrated phone conferencing and voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP, connections.
“We see it used by financial companies for training new associates on offerings, medical software training, product development, online courses at education institutes, financial managers that want to increase interactions with clients and consulting firms that are creating market presence,” Perry says.
The TIA expects Web conferencing to grow faster during the next two years than in 2008 as the economic downturn fuels demand for the cost-saving products. According to the market report, the telecommunications industry can anticipate a 33 percent jump in 2009 and a further 25 percent gain in 2010 in this category.
“You may have a weekly session where people touch base. In the past, it was audio only, but now you can add Web conferencing so people can have the agenda on the screen, and we can each type on the screens ourselves,” Jones says. “And for a presentation, it’s that much more productive because not only can people listen, they can see the materials.”
That’s just what Stephanie McCorkle uses the technology for. As the director of communications at the California Independent System Operator, McCorkle depends heavily on teleconferencing to keep stakeholders, media and staff on the same page.
California ISO manages the bulk of the power grid in California and operates a small portion of the state’s energy markets. As such, the group is also highly involved in related legislation.
“There is a lot of policy discussion, and we need to be very inclusive; we need to allow consumers, the utilities and state and federal groups to share ideas and comments about our energy proposals. We have stakeholder meetings and not everyone can come here in person, she says.
“So in order to include as many viewpoints as possible, we have teleconference calls with WebEx demonstrations … because our issues are so complex, a simple fact sheet will not do. So I do a teleconference call in conjunction with a Webinar through which I can provide a tutorial on very complex policy. It actually saves us a tremendous amount of money because we’re not hosting people here on site.”
A public service motivation for conferencing also has emerged during the past two years, according to the TIA, which points to the implementation of eco-friendly strategies to minimize a company’s carbon footprint.
“Telepresence is just a very expensive intercom
if you can only call others within your company.”
— Alan Benway, executive director, AT&T Telepresence Solution
“Plus, for me to go to the East Coast is nine hours. To come back, it’s seven, so you lose the whole day,” says John Morris, chief technology officer and director of operations at Sacramento’s Drexel University, a hub for teleconferencing technology. “The demand — let’s call it the rate of return — is about time and money. If everybody has to fly here, it doesn’t take too many meetings to equal the cost (of the technology), especially when you factor in hotels, and meals and entertainment.”
But the product and service costs aren’t always cheap. Low-tech teleconference phone call charges can run just a few pennies per minute per phone connection, while the most sophisticated of integrated teleconference technologies can range from $250,000 to $1 million. New, lower-cost systems are making their way onto the market, however, and consumers can now find high-definition videoconference systems for about $3,000.
Where the cost — and consumer interest — really peaks is in telepresence technologies. Telepresence takes video conferencing one step further and makes for a more interactive media environment with high-definition screens projecting real time, life-size information with two-way audio and visual capabilities. Telepresence rooms are even painted, furnished and arranged in such a way that allows for a seamless barrier between the live and telepresent audiences.
The videoconferencing equipment market, including telepresence, jumped 30 percent in 2007 and an additional 27.5 percent in 2008, according to the ICT market report, making it the fastest-growing telecommunications equipment category the past two years.
To date, such services are not available through local media providers such as SureWest Communications or Comcast. However, Rancho Cordova-based Cisco Systems is a major provider to the local market.
“It’s a new technology; there are some complexities as far as the requirements and costs, and there is a lot to manage. Over time, as the prices come down, that will help,” says Alan Benway, executive director for AT&T Telepresence Solutions, a division of the company that launched within the past year. “At some point we are going to reach a tipping point where there will be enough companies in enough locations that it will snowball.”
Until then, use is limited to large corporations and educational institutions that can afford the upfront and ongoing costs of the technology’s hardware.
Drexel University has spent nearly $1 million outfitting its Capitol Mall campus. The Philadelphia-based school offers classroom lectures that are roughly 60 percent in-person and 40 percent technology-based. Classes that are technology-based rely heavily on telepresence: Drexel students in Sacramento watch live lectures happening elsewhere in the country and can make eye contact, converse with and be seen by the professor on the other end of an array of high-definition plasma televisions.
“It’s largely for use for intracompany calling, but now we are enabling the ability to call between different companies. … You can make it a true collaboration,” Benway says. “Otherwise, telepresence is just a very expensive intercom if you can only call others within your company.”
But while telepresence might be the next great thing for employees, it might not be the best choice for all aspects of business.
“I think in some cases, [you need] a mix of both in the sales or customer service process,” Perry says. “You might want to have a face to face now and then, but it gives you the opportunity to be high-touch without being face to face all the time.”
Doctors’ 21st century ally: telemedicine
The next decade will likely see great medical advancements, but progress won’t be limited to the treatments patients receive, it will also change the way treatment is delivered.
Doctors and professionals in the medical field say telemedicine will transform health care within the next 10 years and beyond. Telemedicine, or telehealth, is an umbrella term that covers any technology related to health care, including monitoring patients outside a hospital. Telemedicine allows face time between the care provider and patient even if those people are thousands of miles apart.
“We can provide consultations, or our critical care doctors can help a pediatrician take care of the sickest pediatric patients that are too unstable to even transport,” says Dr. Javeed Siddiqui, associate director for the UC Davis Center for Health and Technology.
The university launched its telemedicine program in 1996 as a way to provide specialty care to rural Californians. Rural medical providers and patients can speak directly with UC Davis doctors via live video and discuss treatment and care. Since the program’s inception, UC Davis doctors have conducted more than 20,000 telemedicine interactions and have provided assistance in more than 50 medical specialties, including HIV care, infectious diseases, neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery and pediatric critical care.
The Telemedicine Development Act of 1996 calls for insurance companies doing business in California to provide reimbursement for telemedicine, so the affordability is manageable.
“If you are doing true telemedicine in real time, there is no difference from that encounter or a brick-and-mortar encounter,” Siddiqui says.
Gov. Schwarzenegger has been a leading proponent for telemedicine in California, and the business and medical communities are slowly taking notice.
“The demand hasn’t been there because the products are only recently appearing, and there isn’t a consolidated [place] you can find those products. I look at where we are with home telehealth as where we were with the Internet in the mid-90s when it was ready to take off and take off big,” says Dr. Larry Ozeran from his private practice in Yuba City.
Ozeran is looking for investors for a telehealth startup, so he can treat chronic illnesses before patients get so sick that they end up in the hospital.
“We can cut some of the cost of health care if we can manage patients better,” Ozeran says. “The idea of the home telehealth market is to better monitor people to make sure that they’re in the best shape they can be in. Some of the home telehealth products will allow us to provide services in the home that up till now we’ve had to provide in a hospital.”
Care could likely occur online, says Ozeran, where doctors and patients could converse in real time via Web video or instant messaging and patients could provide greater information for medical records by journaling issues and ailments online.
“The most important thing in a business like this is what we can do the quickest to get to a positive cash flow, and we don’t know what that is yet,” Ozeran says. He is still determining the right products to sell and in which venues he would most like those products to appear, be it private practices or homes.
“In 10 years I hope it will be an everyday part of health care with broad-scale acceptance and utilization,” Siddiqui says. “That’s our goal.”
— Christine Stanley
photographer
Mike Graffigna
