Putting a Face on Business Communications

February 18, 2004

Thanks to Internet protocol (IP) technology, companies can now use video communications as easily as making a phone call or sending email. As part of a recently announced host of enhancements to the Cisco IP Communications system, the company now supports video communications with its IP Telephony system. By using a personal computer in conjunction with a Cisco IP Phone, business executives and office workers can include video in any of their typical voice calls. Since the video is carried over the Cisco IP Communications network that manages all office phone communications, users retain the same functions of any typicalphone call, including mute, hold, conference calls, voice mail and other features.

News@Cisco recently spoke with Marthin De Beer, vice president and general manager of Cisco's IP Communications business unit, about the company's new video telephony offering and the other enhancements to its IP Communications portfolio.

What is Video Telephony and how does it work?

Marthin De Beer: Cisco Video Telephony (VT) allows users to make instant, face-to-face video part of an everyday call to a coworker or to initiate a videoconference to a variety of video conferencing devices. Cisco VT Advantage is a desktop product that requires an inexpensive Cisco USB camera, a PC, a Cisco IP phone, and the Cisco VT Advantage desktop software. Cisco Video Telephony can deliver video to a PC monitor linked to a Cisco IP Phone, as well as in-room videoconferencing endpoints that support the H.323 protocol. Once users establish an instant face-to-face video call, they can continue to use all of the familiar features of their Cisco IP Phone such as hold, transfer, and conference. These functions apply to the video as well.

How does this video telephony announcement fit within the overall Cisco IP Communications strategy?

Marthin De Beer: Five years ago, Cisco announced Cisco AVVID (Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data), a standards-based architecture designed to enable data, voice, and other rich-media applications over converged IP networks. Since then Cisco has delivered on its vision for the AVVID architecture and converged IP Communications with a number of products and technologies. In January 2004, Miercom selected the Cisco IP Telephony system as the overall winner of its prestigious IP PBX Review against entries from Alcatel, Avaya and Nortel Networks. This offered further proof we are successfully delivering on our vision for converged communications. Where we still needed work was in the area of video. But now Cisco VT Advantage has addressed that missing link of convergence. We feel our Video Telephony product is a major step toward fulfilling the vision of accessible, affordable and easy-to-use rich media communications.

How is Cisco Video Telephony different from what is currently on the market?

Marthin De Beer: We believe Cisco VT Advantage is a breakthrough innovation because it addresses most all the problems that have held back video communications in the past. To date, video has been expensive and cumbersome. Video systems have not been architected for quality, so the video has been grainy and jerky. The cost, complexity, and lack of performance of video have limited its adoption. Only about two percent of conference rooms today are equipped with videoconferencing equipment, and video is almost nonexistent on the desktop.

Cisco Video Telephony brings to our IP Phones advantages unmatched by any phone or video conferencing system. First, Video Telephony takes advantage of a converged IP Communications infrastructure. Instead of being a standalone system with different endpoints, administration, and dial plans, the video runs on the same IP network which carries a company's data and voice communications. Unlike many inexpensive desktop video systems before, the quality of Cisco Video Telephony is superb. It is as if you are really talking with someone live, via a TV broadcast-quality picture. And it is easy to use. Instead of requiring several technicians and 20 minutes at the beginning of a meeting to get the video portion of a conference up and running, using Cisco VT Advantage is no more difficult than dialing in to an audio conference call.

How is it possible for Cisco to remove the barriers to video communications that have frustrated the industry for so long?

Marthin De Beer: The key to Cisco Video Telephony is the systems approach of Cisco AVVID and Cisco CallManager software—the foundation technologies which run our converged IP Communications phone systems. These were architected from the ground up for IP communications. Our technology is not based on hybrid IP or traditional TDM PBX (private branch exchange) system. Because of our seamlessly converged IP network, we are able to combine any form of communications—data, voice, or video—on the same infrastructure. Certainly, video communications is the most technical challenging of all mediums, given its bandwidth needs and sensitivity to network bottlenecks. But we believe that our IP-base Video Telephony product provides by far the most flexible, user-friendly, and affordable option for rich media communications.

Video communications sounds like a neat idea, but given today's tight corporate budgets what's the incentive to invest in such capabilities?

Marthin De Beer: If I am a sales manager calling my account managers asking them whether or not they are going to make their sales goals for the quarter, I want to be able to see their reactions, see whether they are confident or nervous. This is just one example of how powerful video can be in communications. We are born to communicate with more than our voices. Body language, hand movements, and facial expressions constitute a major part of the communication experience. Studies estimate that over 60 percent of communications is non-verbal. The ability to call a coworker or initiate a conference and participate with the other parties—-not just hearing their voices but also seeing them with broadcast television clarity—gives everyone a far richer, more productive experience.

In the past, you've talked about globalization and how this changes the way enterprises need to communicate. How can Cisco Video Telephony help global organizations?

Marthin De Beer: In the past few years, travel has become a major issue for corporations, especially with the need to drive down costs. Cisco Video Telephony allows companies to conduct virtual meetings that are as effective as in-person meetings, while saving the expense and time their employees spend traveling. Certainly, some face-to-face meetings will always be necessary, but Video Telephony will further reduce that need, just as quality phone communications and email have done.

What are some of the other important aspects of this Cisco Video Telephony announcement?

Marthin De Beer: In addition to Cisco Video Telephony, we are also boosting collaboration and communications capabilities with Cisco MeetingPlace. Cisco MeetingPlace allows user to participate in and control audio and Web conferences through their Cisco IP Phone or PC. Cisco IP Phone users can easily view schedules, set-up audio conferences, and attend real-time meetings using the controls on their phones.

Since IP Phones run over data networks, isn't security a concern?

Marthin De Beer: Security is always an important consideration. To address this, Cisco announced important security enhancements to its IP Telephony line. Cisco CallManager 4.0 will ship with the new Cisco Security Agent (CSA), which provides proactive and adaptive threat protection for Cisco IP Phones as well as data servers and desktop computing systems. At no extra cost, we will provide our customers with additional levels of safety and protection required for converged network services. This includes standards-based authentication and media encryption support. This capability will also be available to the majority of our CallManager installed base. Older CallManager systems can be upgraded using software alone, resulting in major investment protection for our customers and a powerful tool for companies concerned about security.

What other aspects of the announcement should customers be aware of?

Marthin De Beer: The final crucial piece of this launch revolves around migration and interoperability. The Cisco IP Communications system is being deployed by our largest customers around the world. All of these customers are using some sort of legacy PBX system. From the beginning, the Cisco strategy has been one of peaceful coexistence and the ability to interoperate with PBX systems while users migrate at their own pace to the new system. Cisco now offers an even higher level of interoperability and migration flexibility with new native support for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Q.SIG signaling in CallManager 4.0. With the addition of SIP support, CallManager 4.0 customers can easily add SIP applications such as Cisco MeetingPlace that integrate with the Cisco IP Communications system. With support for Q.SIG, the worldwide signaling standard for private PBX networks, global CallManager 4.0 customers have more choices with respect to how they integrate and interoperate Cisco IP Telephony with a broad range of existing hybrid and PBX systems. Once installed, administrators can leverage products from AVVID partners such as Unimax to extract user and configuration information from their legacy systems and import them into the CallManager database, without manually re-entering this information. It is just one more way that we are easing migration to Cisco IP Communications systems.