Video conferencing use continues to rise - Techworld
The annual revenue of video conferencing services companies for 2006 almost doubled to $607 million from $308 million in 2005, according to a recent survey. That's in spite of last week's findings that companies are only paying lip service to the notion of green computing, of which video conferencing is seen as one element because of its ability to reduce business travel.
As the technology continues to improve and more and more IP based solutions become available, video conferencing is becoming increasingly common, said analyst company Point Topic, which produced the video conferencing report.
Point Topic, which surveyed UK businesses, said it found that the popularity of video conferencing is increasing rapidly. "Fifteen percent of UK organisations report using some form of it, an increase of three percent in just six months," said John Bosnell, senior analyst at Point Topic.
The rise in the annual revenue goes side by side with the slight increase in the monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) which grew from $668 in 2005 to $679 in 2006.
This is against the backdrop of rapidly decreasing unit prices, said Point Topic. A two-room system, used to connect two sites of a company, cost up to US$30,000 in 2001. The same system was likely to cost less than US$5,000 in 2007. Service subscriptions on online video conferencing services are rapidly growing in popularity, with prices falling from over US$200/month for a basic package to less than $100.
However, video conferencing has always rubbed up against a number of challenges, some of which are resolvable as a result of the growth of cheaper bandwidth. The main challenge of attempting normal human communication, with all its nuances and body language, via a display largely remain, although some companies are attempting to address this issue.
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