in how many ways could I connect different company for telepresence?

[daccna1903]

Hello everyone, 

I'm new in the video conference and telepresence field. 

I'd like to know how many ways there are to connect different company to make a telepresence session.

Currently I'm managing a telepresence infrastructure in which all the different location are 30 Km distant and are all part of the same intranet.
Obviously we have a VCSc and VCSe and a MCU.

If I don't have an intranet and I'd like to connect different location, how could I do? VPN? Is it possible to use just the public internet?

for example, if I have 3 location (200 km distant) and every location has an SSDL connection (down 4 Mb/s up 4 Mb/s), can I connect them?
I was thinking to use for example a VCS Espress starter pack in one location and 3 codec SX20.
Is it possible to have a 720p call considering the distances?

 

[juriss]

I would have those distant sites that are SSDL connected have their SX20s register to your existing VCS-E at your main site.   Once they are registered you dial their alias just like the others at you 

I would recommend using SIP rather than H323....  I have found that passes the near and far end Firewalls better than H323

4meg up and down is fine for 720p if there is not much other traffic....  We run 384K and we get 640x360 pretty reliably

Hope this helps

[Jens Didriksen · Accepted solution]

Just to add to juriss' comment; don't forget to include 20% for overheads for each call when you calculate the bandwidth you can use. I.e. for one 768kbps call, you'll need a minimum of 922kbps available b/w.

I would create a separate subzone on the existing VCS-E for these systems to register with, which will allow you to specify max b/w available within the zone and also max allowable b/w per call. That way you won't have to worry about potential problems caused by someone connecting at a higher rate.

/jens

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[daccna1903]

So Can I use the public internet? The  overhead that you say is referred using VPN or public internet?
Using VPN obviously I have the encryption overhead!

Thanks for the answer

[Jens Didriksen]

Both, it is layers 2, 3 and 4 overheads.

/jens

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[daccna1903]

The main question is: Can I use public internet for my purpose without using VPN?
 

[Jens Didriksen · Accepted solution]

Yes, you can, but it does become a trial and error scenario.

We've been doing that for years to some very remote sites (+800kms), however, we've had to keep the b/w to 384kbps, and we do see some packet loss at times, but this mainly involves older endpoints such as MXPs, whereas the C-series and the SX endpoints handles it much better.

We're now in the process of moving these sites on to a managed 10/10Mbps connection which will allow us to implement QoS.

We also have another very remote island site where we only have a 2/2Mbps connection, and we restrict b/w to a max 512kbps to/from this site, and we haven't had any issues at all.

And these links are not used exclusively for video, but these remote sites use them for all their internet traffic.

Just on a side note, I run HD videconferences from home, but then I have a 100/40Mbps fibre connection, but it still goes across the public internet - and I haven't had any issues yet. :)

As I said at the top, it's trial and error; stress test the link at various times without VPN first, then move to VPN if needed. It's not as simple as a "yes" or a "no".

/jens

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[daccna1903]

Thank you so much for your help! I appreciate that.