Whilst almost two thirds (61 per cent) of people surveyed believe that most business meetings will take place via video conferencing this year, cost rather than technology is listed as the main barrier to adoption. Ian Shepherd, Product Manager for Intelligent Infrastructure at network specialist Telindus, suggests that it is not in fact the cost of the technology that is the problem; rather the cost of the required bandwidth and its allocation within an organisation that limits the adoption of videoconferencing.
“It’s interesting that the public views cost as a major barrier to the adoption of video conferencing, yet the main tangible benefits of conducting meetings via video are reducing cost as well as time and CO2 emissions. This technology is already very much in place and hundreds of organisations across the country use video conferencing on a daily basis, reaping the benefits without cost proving a barrier to deployment. Yet due to its bandwidth hungry and performance critical nature, the use of video conferencing can both put an immense strain on the corporate network and be severely impacted by the presence of other applications of varying business criticality.
“So how can organisations benefit from video conferencing without putting unnecessary strain on their IT network and compromising other activity? For the IT director, throwing more bandwidth at the increased traffic to unclog the network is simply not a solution to this challenge. Instead, by using Application Performance Management to take a holistic view of their network and ensuring that applications are allocated the appropriate levels of network resources according to business needs, IT directors can ensure that business critical applications such as video conferencing can be delivered according to defined SLAs. Thus ensuring that the organisation can benefit from the full promise of the technology without incurring unsustainable bandwidth costs. ”