A teleconference is what? System, conduction and types of teleconferences

A teleconference is a way of organizing an interactive group event using an accessible means of communication. This method has many features, which will be discussed later.

general description

A teleconference is not only an event itself that allows you to be in communication with many users simultaneously, but also a whole set of tools for remote group communication, for example, electronic bulletin boards, videoconferences, and special systems serviced by online providers. For any such online meeting, you need to use special software and hardware that supports communication between all participants in the group conversation.

How it works?

The system of teleconferences for more than one year is quite a popular way of communicating several groups of people simultaneously. Most often this method is used in business to hold meetings at a distance. Now a teleconference is not just one way to show that a company is moving in step 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, being at a decent distance from each other, in an atmosphere close to maximum to live communication, that is, with the use of equipment for recording and subsequent broadcasting of audio 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 recording sound and image, as well as screens showing this all. Conducting teleconferences will not be possible without the involvement of special communication channels, through which the transfer of content. They can be built on the basis of common communication channels or be exclusive. Another component is the software, that is, there are various codecs for audio and video compression, which are responsible for broadcasting information over the network, as well as control centers.

What does the market offer?

In this area to date, there are a lot of different solutions. There are superbudgetary options with free software and fairly cheap webcams, but for serious companies this is not an option, because it is important not only the fact of the conference, but also the form, the quality of sound and images, as well as additional opportunities. There is a completely different order of prices, but the level of implementation of everything is also appropriate. You can consider two products that are competing with each other, which experts in the field have recognized as leaders at the moment.

TelePresence

The technology is offered by Cisco. Many of it is currently recognized as the top solution in the modern teleconferencing market. TelePresence Meething may well claim to be a "turn-key solution", within which not only the technical support of the technology itself, but also the equipment for the premises, is significant. That is, the company whose choice fell on TelePresence Meething, receives not only special equipment and software for organizing teleconferences, but also a completely decorated room.

Alternative solution

LifeSize offers a different solution, presented in a different concept. Its distinctive features are the flexibility of installation and the budget of the entire solution. Manufacturers claim that their product can be installed anywhere, and its operation 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 for conducting communication sessions, and the conditions can be any. Such solutions are much cheaper.

Both solutions now find their customers, because the concepts of holding teleconferences are completely different for them. In addition, there are a number of quite curious products from other manufacturers, and their number will only grow in the future.

Teleconferencing systems

So, it's worth mentioning also such an important question about what is the difference between a teleconference from an e-mail. Here everything was further developed. If the email system is about addressing a one-to-one message, and each user has an individual mailbox, the teleconference is a one-to-many addressing system, and one box is allocated to all participants.

A bit of history

In the development of the global network of such communication, the meta-network of USENET teleconferences, which is in close and inextricable connection with the Internet, is assigned the most important role. This network was formed in 1979 immediately after the release of the V7 Unix version with the means of UUCT. And this is precisely the answer to the question of where and when the first teleconference was held in the world.

In 1984, due to the increasing volume of information and news, it became necessary to divide messages into groups depending on the topics. After that, in the next version of the program for processing news messages added mechanisms for encoding groups, and in 1986 released version 2.11, which supported a new structure of batch processing, naming groups, compression and other features. In the teleconferencing system, the news information unit received the article title, which was characterized by the format defined in RFC-1036. Thanks to the subsequent inclusion of NNTP broadcast and reading tools in the news processing software package, it became possible to exchange articles via TCP / IP communication between the central nodes of USENET teleconferences. Using the new protocol allowed users to read and send news from computers on which the USENET news program is not installed. This required sending the appropriate commands to the server where the program was installed.

Types of teleconferences

There are global and local. The software takes on such basic functions as the inclusion of materials in the teleconference, the distribution of notices of new information flows, the fulfillment of orders. There are audio conference facilities. Here, the call, the connection and the subsequent conversation are no different from the telephone connection, however, the web is used for these purposes. Electronic bulletin board is a development very close to a teleconference for a multifunctional purpose, it allows you to quickly and centrally send messages to most users. The BBS software combines e-mail, file-sharing and teleconferencing.

At the moment, more and more developing technology of desktop conference communication in real time. Depending on the type of shared information, there are several levels:

- regular session by e-mail;

- joint work on the document without the use of voice communication;

- Joint processing of the document with voice communication;

- videoconference.

As you can see, a teleconference is a modern way of communicating users in real time, allowing you to quickly solve current issues.