Tandberg Video Conferencing

theseman

Hey everyone,

One of our companies that is comprised of 4 different geographic locations wants to implement a Tandberg video conferencing hardware-based solution. Has anyone here had any experience with said vendor and offer reviews or details on the quality of the product and service? Basically I need to give a technical recommendation as to what this would take network-wise, and am looking for some input from the great people here.

Thanks

Travis

malcybood

Hi Travis,

We have used Tandberg units since I have worked for my present employer (4 years) and they are good quality units.

We use 3 x ISDN lines each providing 128k each for our VC which is managed by the Telco.

If you opt for 1 ISDN line, at 128K, you'll only get 15 frames per second, which is about half of the frame rate of a television. If you go for 3 lines = 384K connections you will get up to 30 frames per second, which means that your videoconference is getting close to TV quality

We use 42" plasma screens but you can hook them up to a TV with an RGB connector.

Hope this helps

Malc

theseman

Thanks for the reply!

Basically all of our locations already have ADSL or cable connections to the net, and I need to pick secondary ISP's to provide another connection to be used mainly by the video conferencing traffic. If it runs ok on ISDN then I don't see ADSL, Cable, or high-speed wireless having much of a problem. The only site that I am concerned with is the central "hub" of this mini-network. My understanding is that it will require the bandwidth to support each individual connection (ie, for 3 remote calls at 768k, bandwidth would need to be 2+ Mbps up and down. I'm hoping to talk the execs into going with a 384 up for each remote connection, totalling 1.1Mbps.

Sorry if I am ranting a bit it makes it easier to think! lol

Travis

malcybood

theseman wrote:

Thanks for the reply!

Basically all of our locations already have ADSL or cable connections to the net, and I need to pick secondary ISP's to provide another connection to be used mainly by the video conferencing traffic. If it runs ok on ISDN then I don't see ADSL, Cable, or high-speed wireless having much of a problem. The only site that I am concerned with is the central "hub" of this mini-network. My understanding is that it will require the bandwidth to support each individual connection (ie, for 3 remote calls at 768k, bandwidth would need to be 2+ Mbps up and down. I'm hoping to talk the execs into going with a 384 up for each remote connection, totalling 1.1Mbps.

Sorry if I am ranting a bit it makes it easier to think! lol

Travis

One of the reasons ISDN is used for VC is because it is used as Dial on Demand. You are only charged for what you use so I guess it really depends on how often your clients will be using the VC facility. It doesn't really matter what medium you use (I dont think) but I know ISDN is common place. If you are going to be using it for 8 hours every day then ADSL may be more cost effective, if it is occasional you're probably better with ISDN. Look into the costing of it more and do the sums ISDN avg charge vs ADSL rental

I guess you could use an existing ADSL and use QOS to prioritise traffic etc but I've never had any exp of this, maybe one of the guys who work in an ISP on the forums could advise better???

Whoever supplies the solution to you should also be able to explain this to you but it is always good to do the ground work yourself as you're doing.

I only really know how to hook the kit up and get it to work on a site and the other basics I posted in the first reply, but hey that's what we pay the VC support contractors for

theseman

I will look into ISDN (I don't even know if we can get it in Canada anymore), but I was planning on using the new connection as a backup/load balancer for the everyday use when not VC'ing. Thanks for the help and if I have any other questions I'll know who to ask :P

Travis

malcybood

theseman wrote:

but I was planning on using the new connection as a backup/load balancer for the everyday use when not VC'ing.

Good idea, something I might pitch to my people

no worries man any time