Decreasing costs, technological advances and enhanced experience mean the future is bright for telepresence via satellite.
If you have participated in videoconferences, you would have noticed how the experience has changed over time. What used to be little more than a video phone call on relatively small screens presenting distorted faces and often affected by slight voice delays has become an experience that delivers impressive voice and audio quality to and from multiple locations and truly engages the senses. Like so many other applications and technologies, what is now commonly referred to as telepresence has grown from being an expensive niche technology — limited to the boardrooms of multinational companies — to an application used in a host of disparate sectors. The addition of enhanced features to the delivery of audio and visual transmissions of meetings has added to the experience: the possibility of real-time sharing of documents as well as adds-on like computer-displayed information and whiteboards has made telepresence into a mainstream application for a variety of industries. From simple videoconferencing between two offices, telepresence now is employed to facilitate distance government, allow remote access to hazardous environments, provide education to communities and even perform remote surgery.
Yet the fundamental business proposition for telepresence remains unchanged. At a time when companies around are under pressure to increase connectivity while reducing costs associated with travelling, telepresence seems to be the ideal solution to this conundrum — transporting information rather than people is the expression often used to describe the new way to conduct business. For example, a technology industry leader such as Polycom, which markets itself as provider of unified collaboration solutions, is now promoting telepresence as a solution that allows customers to cut costs and travel while boosting productivity.
Green Technology
While telepresence grew in sophistication and quality, technology advances both in the hardware and delivery chain made the delivery of telepresence via satellite a reality. This comes at the same time as an increasing number of companies demand applications that involve signals relayed over satellite to remote or multiple locations. After all, the advantages of satellite communications over terrestrial technologies remain true for telepresence as for other applications — e.g., mesh topology networks, broad geographical coverage, multicast capabilities, etc. “The true value-add of telepresence over satellite is the ability to bring a rich communication and collaboration experience to two or more parties who need to connect robustly, but who are geographically separated or on-the-move,” says John Morris, senior manager, global government solutions group, Cisco. “Further, parties who are dependent upon this flexible wireless satcom medium because a fixed wired infrastructure between them is not accessible, due to non-existence, cost, lack of security or other reasons, would look at a satellite-based solution. People involved in defense, oil and gas, telemedicine, desert or at-sea platforms, disaster recovery operations, remote governance in low-populated areas, and others share these same limitations,” he says.
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