You may have seen the scenario – A company implements videoconferencing and everything is working fine in the beginning. Overtime problems emerge – Unreliable connections; no audio from the far end; poor video quality; and finally no connection. More often than not these are network issues and the equipment is working just as advertised. Videoconferencing equipment is not the problem it will however reveal problems in the network.
In today’s business environment things change constantly. In the enterprise the network changes all the time. Internet and circuit providers change because of increasing competition. The network in the company changes with added services like VoIP. When this happens videoconferencing gets lost in the shuffle. IP addresses are dropped and servers are moved and upgraded. One of our clients deployed videoconferencing several years back. They are growing quickly and the network changed with new providers and an expanded typology. This company works with sensitive financial information so security and firewall maintenance is extremely critical. They need videoconferencing more than ever because of accelerating growth, but unfortunately they had chronic problems with the videoconferencing. They finally gave up using their videoconferencing equipment all together.
Finally the solution presented itself through a CLEC, or competitive local exchange carrier. This circuit provider combines the videoconferencing hardware with a dedicated circuit. There is no upfront capital expense and everything is taken care of including the installation, support and managed services. Because the circuit is dedicated to videoconferencing there are no entanglements with their network. Security is no problem — The IT team does not have to worry about opening ports on the firewall to accommodate videoconferencing. There is no need to contact IT for support — A laminated remote schematic is included with the unit with 800 numbers for both the network and the equipment. Support numbers are also affixed to the remote. The interface is so simple some clients felt they didn’t even need the laminated remote schematic.
There are no more worries about connecting because of the managed services that includes both the videoconferencing equipment and the dedicated circuit. The videoconferencing vendor at the CLEC constantly monitors their endpoints making sure they connect all the time. The IT department can now focus on other critical applications on the network.
Any company, who deployed videoconferencing and experienced these chronic problems — Unreliable connections; no audio from the far end; poor video quality; and finally no connection, really should consider a dedicated circuit for the videoconferencing CODEC, better yet a bundle program with the local CLEC.
J.W. Hornyak Videoconferencing & Telecommunications
Instant Access
