True telepresence requires crystal clear high-definition video to maintain the illusion that participants are in the same physical space.  Lost or delayed IP packets and/or packets that arrive out of sequence cause video codecs to seize up and display video artifacts on the screen and/or clipped sound that can annoy and jolt participants out of their immersive experience.  While most network operators have the ability to maintain exceptional quality on their own networks they need to connect to other networks to enable high quality inter-company telepresence and videoconferencing sessions with their customers' partners, vendors, and clients. 

Telepresence and Videoconferencing Exchange Providers are Service Providers that connect together disparate networks while maintaining QoS so that video traffic can flow without compromising video quality.  Many Exchange Providers are providing additional services that simplify and facilitate inter-company telepresence and video sessions between partners including: Directory Services to enable the scheduling of resources in other organizations, Security Services that implement security policies that protect the networks and organizations that connect at the exchanges, and Diagnostic Tools that can identity where problems arise across disparate networks and video network infrastructure elements.

Next week the Human Productivity Lab and Brockmann and Company are publishing the first comprehensive review of telepresence and videoconferencing exchange providers.  The review is written for organizations who are interested in connecting to their partners, customers, and vendors.  We researched and surveyed the top exchange providers and managed service providers that are providing both wholesale and retail exchange services including: AT&T Business Exchange, BCS Global's Global Video Exchange, BT Conferencing's Global Video Exchange, Easynet Managed Virtual Meeting, Glowpoint's Telepresence interExchange Network (TEN), MASERGY, Telemerge, Teliris B2B On-Demand Gateway, Verizon Business' Immersive Video Exchange (VIVE). 

This article provides a sneak peak and excerpts from the upcoming report and the opportunity to save 20% by purchasing a pre-publication copy before 5:30 PST / 8:30 PM EST on Tuesday, February 16th.  (Click Here for Faxable Order Form)





In our recently published work, The Inter-Company Telepresence and Video Conferencing Handbook we defined the most significant factor to improving the utility of telepresence and video conferencing as the ability to easily conduct inter-company sessions with customers, partners and suppliers as a substitute for physical travel and as a substantial upgrade to the typical audio conference.

The main problem of connecting to partners, vendors, and customers is that they are typically on different networks with different QoS schemes, private addresses, and have different security policies.  Additionally, issues of how does one schedule inter-company telepresence calls with another organization, handle inter-operability with disparate systems, and whose MCU/Bridge will host the call must all be addressed. 

Using a model, not unlike the architecture of the Public Switched Telephone Network, telepresence and video conferencing exchange providers are making the physical connections required to connect one organization to another. Although most services are currently manually initiated, just as telephone calls were in the first half of the last century, they will become increasingly automated in setup, in reservation and in operation.

In The Inter-Company Telepresence and Video Conferencing Handbook we were first to discuss the drivers, challenges and technologies enabling inter-company visual collaboration and exchanges. Our goal was to provide a guide for forward looking organizations that saw the benefits of inter-connection but needed to better understand the business, operational, and cultural issues that needed to be addressed to create an effective program.  

In the Exchange Review, we provide the first overview of the technology providers who are developing solutions to enable the physical connections and provide the operational tools that enable ease-of-use including: directories, dialing plans, and end-to-end monitoring tools that pin-point problems across multiple networks.  We identify the service features to look for and provide the first feature comparison matrix highlighting how nine leading service providers are delivering exchange services today. These two reports provide a complementary view to the need for and operation of exchanges.






The Inter-Company Telepresence Context
In trying to replicate the experience of a face-to-face meeting, traditional video conferencing often fails the human brain's perceptual test and innate expectations related to interpersonal communications. Participants are tiny, the acoustics poor, the motion jerky, and the setting unnatural. In our research working with users of such systems and talking with psychologists, it also causes communications fatigue as the brain processes two incongruent inputs simultaneously: "The Medium" and "The Message".

The Medium - the observant experience itself:  the obvious TV set/flat-panel display, unnaturally sized remote participants, the visible camera, the stiffness in conversation caused by signal delay, and poor audio quality, all conspire to remind the participant that this is not a face-to-face meeting.

The Message - What is being said verbally and communicated through body language and social interactions.

The brain consciously or unconsciously objects to the conflict of trying to pay attention simultaneously to both the Medium and the Message and, quite naturally, resists the experience.

Telepresence and well-integrated HD video conferencing systems address the human factors of participants to create immersive experiences where the brain is able to accept the illusion of being in the same physical space.  The more a visual collaboration system is able to simulate a natural human interaction through life-size images, crystal clear photo-realistic resolutions, spatial acoustics, hidden cameras offering natural line-of-sight eye contact and natural collaborative tools the better the participants are able to focus on the remote participants and on what is being said increasing end-user acceptance, usage and Return on Investment.

One of the most important requirements affecting the user experience is the need for crystal clear video. Users of immersive real-time video are particularly intolerant of packets that are lost in transit or packets with widely variable delay. The video codec will not be able to process the image fluidly and the result will be random video artifacts on the screen, aka visual noise. Codec manufacturers implement a range of technologies to overcome or minimize missing packets , but clearly the network is responsible for delivering packets in sequence, without loss, variability or delay. The network plays what we have come to learn is in fact the key role in allowing tele-presence and video conferencing services to exceed the expectations of user's.





Typical Inter-Company Visual Collaboration Problems
This sensitivity to transmission defects is why Quality of Service (QoS) is such a big issue for users and IT organizations. It's also why many leading telepresence service providers recommend independent network designs that leverage the traffic classification capabilities of the Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) service  so that packet loss, packet jitter and packet delay are minimized.

Inter-company telepresence and video conferencing services needs to overcome three major technical challenges:

a.    Network traffic classification - if two companies, with two different MPLS carriers and two different Video Managed Service Providers try to inter-connect in order to conduct a telepresence session, the six companies will be faced with reconciling their disparate network traffic classification practices. However, as onerous as that sounds, many times the network is so fast, the network is so isolated from other applications, the telepresence or video environment operates with such low utilization that the probability of congestion is low and the need for extensive concern is overblown.

b.    Addressing - some solutions, such as the Cisco TelePresence system requires the assignment of E.164 addresses to telepresence suites so that the Cisco Unified Communications Manager IP PBX can perform the session signaling, authorization and policy treatment of suite-suite sessions. Other solutions are IP-only and assume E.164-defined suites as ISDN-attached calls. Session border control appliances are appropriate for allowing public IP addresses and private IP addresses and SIP URI-defined to participate freely. Many Cisco users have learned to configure their IP PBXs to correctly process SIP or H.323 session requests involving TelePresence suites.

c.    Security - session security is a concern whenever senior corporate officers from multiple companies gather and when all communications occur over networks, which is what happens in many inter-company telepresence sessions. Inter-company telepresence and video conferencing security needs to assure privacy of communication and control access. Privacy can be assured using well-known high performance encryption/decryption implementations and by leveraging SBC infrastructure that prevents unintended traffic flows through firewalls, but allows properly conforming SIP and H.323 session flows to pass cleanly.


Typical Inter-Company Operational Problems

Inter-Company telepresence services ideally assist with these operational hurdles:

a.    Directory, Reservation, and Resource Scheduling - Directories provide a discovery service where users and administrators discover which partners have a telepresence or visual collaboration environment/endpoint, where that capability is located, and can also reserve a session at some future time, or initiate a session immediately. However, because of the topics discussed during and high levels of executives involved in many telepresence sessions, most user organizations have different levels of visibility and permission for different facilities. Some have implemented an automated reservation application  that coordinates session resources - suites, catering, network operations - which often runs on independent platforms such as Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, TANDBERG TMS or myVRM.com, for example. Managed Service Providers want to provide information that would simplify inter-company calls with their customers but many are leery about releasing the contact details of the person that is responsible for telepresence and video conferencing services. They often fear that that information would also help their competitors. Some providers are providing directory and meet-me services including both web-based schedul-ing tools and a special concierge service that interacts with the technical and facilities resources in multiple organizations to get a technically challenging conference session scheduled which may include time for testing and troubleshooting if experience with the equipment and service providers involved is particularly low.


b.  Video Network Infrastructure - Scheduling a call on the front-end between two or more organizations can create a resource problem on the back end.  Whose video network infrastructure will be used? If the call requires a usage-based service like an ISDN dial out who pays? Some exchange providers require the customer to own the MCU or telepresence switch and some providers include access to MCUs or telepresence switches as part of their service offerings.

c.  Multi-network Diagnostics and SLA Enforcement - If a call between two networks is experiencing packet-loss, an access circuit is generating bit-errors, and or an intermediary device is out-of-service, how do you know which provider is to blame?  How do you enforce SLAs for quality across multiple providers' networks?  Some exchange providers are providing tools that provide an end-to-end view of session quality to identify problem responsibility.

 Despite these challenges, many managed service providers are designing, reselling and implementing exchange services to be able to facilitate the next wave of growth in telepresence and video conferencing.


Introducing The Telepresence and Video Conferencing Exchange
Telepresence and video conferencing exchanges are the physical place where users on one enterprise and/or carrier telepresence and video conferencing network service can connect securely and reliably with users on one or more other telepresence and video conferencing networks. An exchange offers enterprise users a convenient, secure and high performance method for visual collaboration with telepresence and video conferencing users in another company, on another network or serviced by another Video Managed Service Provider.




Effective inter-connectivity is more than a physical and logical connection. As shown in figure 2, in support of a modern business' use of telepresence and video conferencing services, the exchange typically delivers some number of the following services:

•  Multi-megabit per second connectivity with imperceptible delay across the exchange

• Logical separation so more than one enterprise can be part of the exchange, but only virtually connected when scheduled to be so connected

• Services to overcome private-public and private-private IP addressing

• Mechanisms for scheduled and ad hoc session initiation
•  Directory so users of the exchange can easily discover each other
• Meet-Me Services - The ability to schedule/request resources in partner organizations
• Connectivity access to public telepresence and video conferencing rooms
• Services for bridging multipoint sessions
• Help desk support, including session initiation, monitoring, trouble ticketing, problem diagnosis and troubleshooting
  

Typical pricing models run the gambit of possibilities including flat rate monthly fees, per-use fees and the included-with-VMSP service or some combination of the range. Most exchanges surveyed have integrated the exchange as a feature of their service portfolio.

Wholesale Exchange Services
Although a relatively nascent service, the competitive landscape shown in the Review is both innovative and rapidly developing. Many Video Managed Service Providers (VMSP) have advanced their managed service operations to enable either their own exchange, resale of a wholesale exchange service or are somewhere between these two extremes to offer their own value-added services for enabling inter-company telepresence and video conferencing. Two firms in particular are focused on the exchange as a wholesale service - IPV Gateways and Cisco Systems - where users purchase their exchange services as part of a broader service offering delivered by the VMSP.

IPV Gateways of Toronto Canada, is the original telepresence and video conferencing exchange having offered a wholesale exchange service since 2004. Their infrastructure services are designed to be resold by VMSPs that blend IPV capabilities for equipment hosting, physical networking, VPN coordination, SBC support, ISDN gateway service and systems supervision with the VMSPs own operational services for comprehensive inter-company telepresence and video conferencing. VMSP partners such as Telemerge, Providea, York Telecom, IVCi , Intercall, TANDBERG, Solutionz,  KPCOM, Nortel/Avaya, City IS,  MASERGY, Savvis and many others integrate IPV Gateway services into their offers. IP-V Gateways estimates that 80,000+ downstream video conferencing endpoints can be reached through their exchange. IP-V has a partnership with carrier neutral meet-me room provider Telx where IP-V's video network infrastructure is located at 60 Hudson Street, New York City allows the company to rapidly provide connections to the 700+ networks that physically connect in the facility.

Cisco Systems is not generally known as a service provider, and does not intend to be a wholesale service provider for much longer. In 2009 Cisco established a production lab with a set of tools and solutions that simplify the connection of inter-company telepresence calls between Cisco TelePresence users and with public Cisco TelePresence suites. Cisco managed service providers such as AT&T, BT Conferencing, Orange, TATA Communications, Telstra, Telefonica and Telus are currently offering inter-company services through the Cisco exchange to their global customers. The inter-company solutions services include an ad hoc MeetMe service, a scheduling portal and a directory service.

Using this lab environment as the template, Cisco and its partners plan to establish connections between their served customers and to each other in the coming months.

Not all inter-connections are commercially possible at this time. In February 2010, the inter-company Cisco TelePresence service capabilities are limited such that Cisco TelePresence endpoints on the AT&T Telepresence Business Exchange can reach other AT&T Cisco TelePresence customers and can reach public TelePresence suites at Marriott public rooms but can NOT reach Cisco TelePresence customers of BT. While there are no technical limitations to carriers exchanging traffic between networks, and Cisco TelePresence traffic is flowing between other networks than those noted in this example, the Cisco service providers are working through commercial issues and are expected to offer service by June 2010.

Enabling Cisco TelePresence customers to conduct telepresence sessions with one another is merely the first step. Critical multi-vendor features such as SIP-H.323 gateway support are exclusively available for a period of time to a limited channel. As this capability is proven in, we expect support for universal connections to standards based video conferencing end-points to accelerate in the second half of 2010.

Services Defined
The Exchange Review presents the suvey results from nine VMSPs and carriers who offer inter-company exchange services in the winter of 2009-2010. The basis for the Review is a survey of exchange capabilities that incorporated the following elements which is summarized in figure 3:

VPN - how do customers logically connect their operation to the exchange? Is that part of the service? Some VMSPs place all endpoints onto the same private IP network and therefore don't need a VPN. Doing so however limits their ability to support ad hoc sessions, since all inter-company sessions consume MCU resources.

Session Border Control - The only effective method for overcoming addressing challenges, routinely and securely bypassing firewalls and enabling a highly scalable service is the use of session border controller technology. However, if all endpoints are on the same private IP network, there's no need for an SBC, except to connect the private network to other IP networks.

MCU - Some exchanges support only MCU-based inter-company service, which leaves equipment interoperability issues for the MCU vendor. This approach typically forces ad hoc sessions into a scheduling server for control and capacity management. This also increases the end-to-end delay in point-to-point sessions.

Key vendors - it is illustrative to understand the key vendors that exchanges consider relevant for their operation. Some enterprises will be assured by the availability of brands they use, they know or they respect as integral elements of service delivery.

Typical packet delay from carrier demarc to carrier demarc across exchange - here the goal was to determine the design expectations for delay in packet transport.

SIP registry - In SIP applications, endpoints authenticate themselves to their local registry so the registry knows the address of all participating endpoints and is able to forward session requests to the appropriate peer registry through a redirect mechanism if the endpoint is a client of another service or to the endpoint. In commercial implementations, the registry also tracks endpoint state and is able to process mid-call feature requests. Some implementations of telepresence rely on SIP for signaling instead of the more traditional H.323.

SIP proxy - In SIP applications, the proxy server forwards service requests to known registries.

H.323 gatekeeper - in H.323 applications, the gatekeeper performs a call admission control function where it keeps track of sessions in progress and decides to accept or deny a session request on the basis of bandwidth availability. The gatekeeper also plays an address translation role, translating E.164 addresses into the appropriate IP address.

SIP-H.323 translation - this is an appropriate feature of exchanges with broad multi-vendor interoperability expectations.

Gateway service to ISDN devices - despite the preponderance of IP video conferencing equipment for sale today, there are still large communities of legacy endpoints that rely on ISDN services for connectivity. To properly serve their customers, exchanges should strive to reach as many other possible users as possible, which may include ISDN devices for a long time yet.

MCU Colocation - many enterprises own multi-control unit capacity and may prefer to deploy that functionality 'in the cloud' where any of their corporate users can access it efficiently.

Video bridging service - support for multi-point, multi-enterprise sessions. This is the most prevalent service of the exchanges reviewed.

Ad hoc: meet-me style - in the world of dynamically-assigned IP addresses, many enterprises have deployed solutions where endpoints don't need to know the addresses of other endpoints. Users simply agree to point their endpoints at a convenient server with a dedicated url or IP address, authenticate themselves where they might be ushered into a virtual waiting room. The session begins when the moderator arrives. RADVISION was the first to develop an MCU implementation with this User Interface design.

Ad hoc: direct point-to-point - can the exchange enable two users from different companies to connect on demand? Some exchanges choose to protect their exchange resources requiring scheduling processes even on short notice.

Scheduled calls - a high proportion of the human resources in an exchange includes reservationists and processes for establishing and monitoring the complex connections necessary in an inter-company communication. Scheduled sessions give the exchange time to engineer and test these complex arrangements as well as assure that resources are available at the appointed time.

Reservations can be made through a range of communications such as a reservation portal, through an email request, telephone call to the reservationist or a reservation through a Microsoft Outlook client plugin.

Directory - users need to discover the address and connectivity options for rooms and suites in the companies that they would prefer to reach. Sometimes it's a PDF detailing the E.164 address or IP address. Othertimes, it's a URI

Cisco, LifeSize, Polycom, TANDBERG, other endpoints supported. Some exchanges are engineered to enable solutions from a particular vendor, from a small set of vendors or all vendors through standardized interoperability.

Physical location of Exchange - where is the exchange located?

Video tour of exchange - The idea is to allow prospective customers to use their video equipment to view the exchange remotely. This was not a well-accepted service feature. Most exchanges cited security reasons for denying access. The authors see this as an opportunity to highlight the little things as an advantage in exchange operation.

Video tour of VNOC - Less than 20% of exchanges support the use of video to tour the VNOC. Similarly, most cited security and privacy concerns. A few mentioned that the engineering team had a suite available for troubleshooting and live session monitoring.

Typical sessions/day, Typical minutes/day - Only 33% of exchanges were willing to quote the number of sessions and minutes supported. Prospective customers need to understand the success.

Public room connections - The use of public video rooms and public telepresence suites were identified as a best practice in the Handbook. Nearly half of exchanges support inter-company access to public video rooms.

Trouble-free sessions in Sep 2009 - Part of the best practices in operations is the systematic measurement of critical business processes. Trouble-free sessions is one such metric. Less than half of exchanges reported their proportion of trouble-free sessions.

Typical time-to-service - How quickly can a customer be onboarded.

Length of standard contract - Standards and typical commercial commitments are discussed.

What are the typical pricing structures? Minimum monthly, setup fees, usage fees.

Number of endpoints supported - This is a measure of approximately how many endpoints are represented in the exchange, not necessarily the number of simultaneous users on a multi-point call. It is a measure of the maturity of the service and a measure of the scale of the operation.

Number of customers - A measure of the maturity and stability of the business. Young businesses of course have few customers while mature, stable businesses have many customers.


The Telepresence and Videoconferencing Exchange Provider Review will be published on February 16th, 2010.  It is a follow-on report to The Inter-Company Telepresence and Videoconferencing Handbook which is available as a free download.  The cost of the report is $1,750 with a discount of 20% available if your order is received before EOD on February 16th, 2010.


Please contact us for more information on the Review here: Info@HumanProductivityLab.com