The Internet has been around for a while now, infiltrating our daily lives as new
applications and tools are developed. It transports data across the state or around
the world using a standard protocol known as the Internet Protocol (IP). Applications,
such as email, file transfer or web browsers, transport their information across the
Internet using protocols compatible with the Internet Protocol.

It is like speaking into a telephone to someone; your voice is converted into electrical
pulses and transported across the telephone lines. At the other end, these pulses are
converted back to sound by the receiving telephone, and the person you called hears
your voice. When you send an email, the text you typed is converted into digital pulses
that are transported over the IP-based network as packets and routed to the computer
of the person you sent it to.

Videoconferencing over the IP network works much the same way. The camera
pointed at you and the microphone you are talking into send their signals to a magic
box, to be converted and transported across the network. The magic box is a
codec (COder and DECoder). The codec, using an international standard known
as H.323, digitizes and compresses the audio and video signals and prepares them
for transport over the network. At the other end, another codec decompresses and
converts the signals back to analog so that person can see and hear you.

The IP protocol was not designed to carry real-time (live) signals like audio and video.
It’s important that the digital packets arrive quickly and in order so that the codec can
decode and play them to you in a natural way. Too much traffic on the network can
actually cause some of your packets to be discarded. If the packets do not arrive
quickly and in sync, you will experience frozen or pixilated video and poor audio
quality.

Today, many videoconference systems can be set up quickly and easily (almost plug-
and-play with a little rocket science mixed in). Quick and easy means you buy a
videoconference appliance, set it on top of a TV mounted on a cart or on your PC,
plug it into your campus or institutions network, set some menu options, and place
a video call to someone. However, to improve your chances of having a good
experience during the video call, it is very important to include technical staff in the
planning and implementation of a new codec.

Your network must meet minimum standards to minimize the risk of experiencing
problems and increase the quality of your overall experience with videoconferencing.
Replacing hubs with switches and setting up your firewalls parameters to allow
videoconferences through are just two examples of what can improve your video
experience that the technical staff can help with.

Forming a team to plan and implement a new H.323 videoconference classroom is
essential. Include people representing many areas of expertise to determine rules
of best practices for your campus or institution.

To help ensure a quality video experience, your team includes your network staff
(usually referred to as Information Technology), Audio/Visual and classroom support
staff, and room scheduling staff. The team also needs people experienced with
videoconferencing, such as those who train presenters and instructors to use
videoconferencing effectively and representatives from those who have taught over
videoconferencing. Also, include your multipoint video service provider. If you
are planning to connect to videoconference rooms over a wide area network, the
Internet or Internet2, you will need to include your wide area network service
provider as well.

The new team’s biggest challenge initially will be learning to communicate and
understand each other. Recently, I found myself in a conversation with an IT native.
He stated that he didn’t understand the codec users he supported. The users
included technical staff from the telecommunications world, not IT. He tried to get
them to understand his support challenges. I asked him if he was speaking in native
IT, a rather new language spoken by those that have grown up with computers and
the Internet. He responded yes and stated that he expected them to do so also.
Naturally, the users were speaking native telecom, not IT. I asked him what a router
was. He said it was a network device. I replied that the users he supports have a
different definition of what a router was. Next, I asked if he were to visit another
country where English was not spoken, would he expect the natives to understand
him speaking English. If you were there, you would have seen the proverbial light
bulb above his head light up.

It helps to have learned some key phrases of the other person’s language when visiting
another country. The same is true when you are about to implement a videoconference
system with team members from diverse backgrounds. They cannot effectively
communicate until they have learned some of the foreign language used by the other
team members. You must schedule time for each team member to learn from other
members, let them walk a mile in each others shoes.

After learning each others terminology, the team members must next become familiar
with best practices for implementing and supporting a videoconference room using
H.323 over the IP network. Because technology is evolving and changing, it would
be impossible to define those practices here. I suggest a web-based reference
provided by my department and our team partners at
http://www.uwex.edu/ics/support/video/H323/.
We present local area network design recommendations that
will enable your network to transport videoconferences with less frozen video,
pixilated video or poor audio. There is also a glossary and links to tutorials and other
H.323 resources.

Jamie Diana Poindexter, Manager of Teleconference Operations
Instructional Communications Systems www.uwex.edu/ics
University of Wisconsin-Extension
The Pyle Center - Distance Education and Conference Center conferencing.uwex.edu
702 Langdon, Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1487
Phone: 608-262-4931 TTY: 711 or 800-947-3529
ViDeNet video number: 0016082656868