Investing in videoconferencing

Matthew Light, Managing Director of Tempura Communications, lifts the lid on how his videoconferencing solutions can deliver tangible benefits for organisations.

“Our preference is to hold an exploratory meeting with clients at the earliest opportunity once either a project is beginning in planning or as part of that planning exercise”
-Matthew Light, Tempura Communications

With the global recession taking its toll on some of the organisations that haven’t evolved in particular, the opportunity to implement cost justified enhancements that give an edge against competition is now. Here at Tempura Communications we work with an array of suppliers that enable us to bring together the best of breed based on technology, geographic locations and customer requirements. Our primary focus is in delivering WAN infrastructures or internet access to businesses of all sizes. Our project values are of varying sizes, but at last the converged network is really starting to happen. With VoIP and videoconferencing a driver behind the requirement for quality of service networks that can be cost justified through the savings in inter-branch communications and travel costs or assisting the acceleration of the technology.

MPLS is one of the network designs that have enabled convergence, but bandwidth availability and technology advancements are another. With greater availability comes volume that brings down the cost. Recently we replaced a 30Mb leased line with 100Mb and still saved the customer money. In terms of MPLS connectivity we can offer anything from two sites to 255 sites across technology from aDSL to leased line available across the world in over 180 countries. Unlike the individual providers themselves, we are able to offer a choice of ISP services with the key differentiators identified, as well as adding in our managed services such as desktop-hosted VoIP and hosted videoconferencing.

Just into the New Year a requirement was raised for videoconferencing from one client that had 16 offices, some of which were in remote locations in Africa, was fulfilled utilising our TempuraVIDEO software service, with high-definition video being delivered over a combination of leased line and DSL services and satellite broadband in Africa. The video technology employed is designed to work over shared or low quality networks, but when combined with leased line infrastructure is truly amazing.

Other requirements that are commonplace at present are centred on resilience. This is where our product mix pays a key role as we offer complete resilience across different providers, perhaps different technologies, and even over different physical technologies such as our 10Mb Symmetrical Wireless failover service offered on fibre leased lines.

Our preference is to hold an exploratory meeting with clients at the earliest opportunity once either a project is beginning in planning, or as part of that planning exercise. From that meeting we can gather the requirements and ‘nice to haves’ and come forward with often more than one possible solution as well as add in the possibilities with other technology.

As another recent example of this, following a meeting to discuss a network upgrade requirement replacing individual internet connections with an MPLS to facilitate a distributed CRM system. In the end the project upgrade was justified through the implementation of VoIP and linked the key management across four sites in the UK and France with desktop video.
We hold these meetings with the aim to understand the problem build a solution but also demonstrate other ideas. With technology changing so quickly it is possible to overlook what can be done, and this is where our experience and values come in. With no cost, nor obligation to perform these meetings, there is no downside to organising a face-to-face, videoconference, or teleconference call to see if there is any synergy between the two organisations.

We encourage organisations to engage with us early in their plans, to receive a general over view with the network being core to the delivery of services to a dispersed work force, or to the desk in a single office environment. Our solutions cover movement of data; telecoms and video enable a comparative and universal approach. For more complex meetings we have the full backing of organisations such as BT, easynet, NTL, Polycom, and Sony and can bring in expertise or utilise offices of these organisations to host further talks or demonstrations.

Matthew Light, MD of Tempura Communications based in Basingstoke, UK, has over 11 years’ videoconferencing experience and works to advise UK, European and American businesses from SMEs, corporate and government departments and organisations, as well as reseller channel partners on both the networking and conferencing aspects of the projects at hand.