Telepresence v Video Conferencing
What’s right for you?
By Dave Glasgow, Sales Director
Video conferencing has been around for years. In the early 1990’s it ‘had potential’, but it is only in recent years that video conferencing has started to realise that potential. What’s changed? Well, in short, connectivity. The internet has improved sufficiently to enable the transmission of low bandwidth, high definition video with an acceptable Quality of Service from a speed, resolution and audio perspective. Hence, the success of YouTube.
So video conferencing has finally come of age... no sooner does it realise its potential and its sibling takes over the limelight.
So what is the difference between video conferencing and telepresence?
Fundamentally, telepresence provides an immersive experience for the user where everyone in the meeting ‘feels like they are in the same room’.
According to Wikipedia, "Telepresence refers to a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance that they were present, or to have an effect, at a location other than their true location. Telepresence requires that the senses of the user, or users, are provided with such stimuli as to give the feeling of being in that other location."
One way to look at the difference between telepresence and video conferencing is to compare them to watching a film. If you go to the cinema, the room has been designed to give you an immersive experience, presenting the picture in high quality, with a large screen and surround sound. When you watch the same film at home, on your 32” TV with no surround sound and the children fighting in the background, the quality of the experience is somewhat diminished. Whatever the technology, the outcome is the same – you still know what the film was about.
Why use telepresence?
So, why is telepresence becoming one of the most talked about technologies for investment in 2011? Fundamentally, it is delivering significant benefits to the enterprise such as saving 30% on corporate travel costs and reducing the time-to-market for new products and services by 24%.
Savings can also be seen in decreasing recruitment times by 19%, saving 25% on employee training and reducing employee downtime by 27%. On top of these quantifiable savings, telepresence can support your sustainability programme by reducing your carbon footprint.
The technology is being deployed in a variety of industries and application scenarios, from meetings with employees and suppliers, to providing training to employees located across the global. Major growth areas include education/learning environments, telemedicine, organisations that need a robust business continuity programme, companies under pressure to reduce their carbon footprint and those that have a significant travel bill that needs to be cut.
A practical approach
Not everyone can afford the luxury of telepresence. Having said that, Wainhouse Research reported that for the companies that do invest in telepresence suites, their utilisation of the technology is far greater than video conferencing and therefore delivers the same return on investment.
So is video conferencing that bad? Absolutely not. It is a more practical and affordable approach to collaborative working using video.
Which is right for you?
Ultimately, it’s the business requirement that will determine whether telepresence or video conferencing is the right solution for your business. Though there are countless other factors to consider such as
- how is the solution networked, and the Quality of Service that network can deliver
- the integration of the solution with your telecommunications
- is it easy to use, and therefore easy to adopt
- its features and capabilities to meet current and future business needs
- how reliable and secure is it
- will the solution deliver an ROI in a reasonable timeframe
Whether you’re looking at a video conferencing solution or a telepresence suite, IP Integration can help you find the right solution to meet your business needs. Please call 0800 316 6670 or email connection@ipintegration.com to find out more about the latest technologies available and how they could impact your business.