A teleconference is a way of organizing an interactive group event using the available means of communication. This method has many features, which will be described below.
general description
A teleconference is not only the event itself, which allows you to simultaneously be in touch with many users, but also a whole set of tools for remote group communication, for example, electronic bulletin boards, video conferences, as well as special systems served by online providers. For any such online meeting, you must use special software and hardware that supports communication between all participants in a group conversation.
How it works?
For many years now, the teleconferencing system has been a fairly popular way of communicating with several groups of people at the same time. Most often, this method is used in business for holding meetings at a distance. Now, a teleconference is not just one way to show that the company is moving with the times, not just an element of the image, but a very effective and useful tool. The essence of this technology is the ability to conduct meetings, training or meetings, at a decent distance from each other, in an atmosphere as close as possible to live communication, that is, using equipment for recording and subsequent broadcasting of sound and video in real time.
Components
Speaking from the point of view of technology, a teleconference is a combination of several components. First of all, we are talking about cameras that record sound and image, as well as screens showing it all. Teleconferences will not be possible without the involvement of special communication channels through which content is transmitted. They can be built on the basis of common communication channels or be exclusive. Another component here is the software, that is, there are a variety of codecs for compressing sound and video, responsible for transmitting information over the network, as well as control centers.
What does the market offer?
In this area, today there are a lot of different solutions. There are super-budget options with free software and fairly cheap webcams, but for serious companies this is not an option, because not only the fact of the conference is important there , but also the form, sound and image quality, as well as additional features. There is a completely different order of prices, but the level of implementation of everything is also corresponding. You can consider two products competing with each other, which experts in this field have recognized as leaders at the moment.
Telepresence
Technology is offered by Cisco. She is currently recognized by many as the top solution in the modern teleconferencing market. TelePresence Meething may well qualify for the title of "turnkey solution", within which not only the technical support of the technology itself is significant, but also the equipment for the room. That is, the company, whose choice fell on TelePresence Meething, receives not only special equipment and software for organizing teleconferences, but also a fully decorated room.
Alternative solution
LifeSize offers a different solution, presented in a different concept. Its distinctive features are installation flexibility and budgeting of the entire solution. Manufacturers claim that their product can be installed anywhere, and its work can be carried out on the basis of any equipment. This is not about creating a turnkey teleconference, but only about the necessary technical organization of everything that may be required to conduct communication sessions, and the conditions can be any. Such solutions are much cheaper.
Both solutions are now finding their customers, because the concepts of teleconferences are completely different. In addition, there are a number of rather interesting products from other manufacturers, and their number will only grow in the future.
Teleconferencing Systems
So, it’s worth mentioning such an important question about the differences between teleconferences and email. Everything was further developed here. If in the e-mail system we are talking about addressing a one-to-one message, and each user has an individual mailbox, then a teleconference is a one-to-many addressing system, and one participant is allocated one mailbox.
A bit of history
In the development of the global network of such a connection, the USENET teleconference meta-network, which is in close and inextricable connection with the Internet, plays a crucial role. This network was formed in 1979 immediately after the release of V7 Unix with UUCT tools. And this is precisely the answer to the question of where and when for the first time in the world a teleconference took place.
In 1984, due to the increasing volume of information and news, it became necessary to divide the messages into groups depending on the topics. After that, group coding mechanisms were added to the next version of the news processing program, and in 1986 version 2.11 was released, which supported the new structure of batch processing, group naming, compression, and other features. In a teleconferencing system, the news information unit received the name of the article, which was characterized by the format defined in RFC-1036. Thanks to the subsequent inclusion of broadcast and reading tools using the NNTP protocol in the news processing software package, it became possible to exchange articles via TCP / IP communication between the central teleconferencing sites of USENET. Using the new protocol allowed users to read and send news from computers on which the USENET news program was not installed. For this, it was necessary to send the appropriate commands to the server where this program is installed.
Types of newsgroups
There are global and local. The software takes on such basic functions as the inclusion of materials in a teleconference, sending out notifications of new information, fulfilling orders. There are audio conferencing facilities. Here the call, connection and subsequent conversation are no different from telephone communications, however, the web is used for these purposes. An electronic bulletin board is a development that is very close to a multifunctional teleconference, it allows you to quickly and centrally send messages to most users. The BBS software combines email, file sharing and newsgroups.
At the moment, real-time desktop conferencing technology is developing more and more actively. Depending on the type of shared information, there are several levels:
- regular email session;
- joint work on the document without the use of voice communication;
- joint document processing with voice communication;
- video conferencing.
As you can see, teleconference is a modern way of user communication in real time, allowing you to quickly solve current issues.