Videoconferencing: Recent Experiments and Reassessment

We describe several recent videoconferencing experiments and deployments. An extensive literature has shown limited benefits from video in support of live meetings. However, technical, cost, and behavioral shifts suggest that new opportunities are emerging. To understand the prospects requires careful differentiation among videoconferencing configurations along dimensions such as point-to-point vs. multi-point, conference rooms vs. offices, and ISDN vs. IP. Behavior can be affected in ways that are not always intuitive. Still, declining costs, increasing ease of use, and growing use of personal video are having an impact. Will the new generation of IP-based videoconferencing overcome past obstacles to wider use of video? We review the challenges and opportunities and emerge with guarded optimism.