The use of internet today has made communication for the people very easy. The telephone also may have reduced the distance between the people but the uses of internet are wide ranging and most efficient. Now people can see, hear, and communicate at the same time. There is no need to personally face or meet people sitting in different corners of the world with the use of internet. People now enjoy faster communication with the use of net.

Audio Conference
Audio conferencing systems help organizations improve business processes and communications while significantly reducing conferencing costs. In addition, audio conferencing solutions are easy to use and more effective communication among employees, customers and partners.

 

The basic modes of a video conferencing system are:

• Point-to-Point: a video conferencing system that connects two locations.
• Multi-point: a video conferencing system that connects more than two locations through a Multipoint Control Unit (MCU).

Video Conference
Video conferencing is about connecting people. It's about improving the way we work, the way we communicate with each other and the way we manage our business relationships. Face-to-face meetings are vital to the success of these relationships and endeavors, and the only way to maximize your level of collaboration in our fast-paced business world, is by utilizing video conferencing.A Video Conferencing System is a set of interactive telecommunication technologies allowing two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions at one instance. simultaneously. It has also been called visual collaboration and is a type of groupware. It differs from videophone in that it is designed to serve a conference rather than individuals.

A conferencing system consists of basic components:

• H.323 terminal: is an endpoint in the LAN that participates in real-time, two-way communications with another H.323 terminal, gateway, or multipoint control unit (MCU). A terminal must support audio communication and can also support audio with video, audio with data, or a combination of all three. User equipment interfaces are the set of cameras, screens, microphones, speakers and data applications with their respective interfaces.

• Gateway: These devices provide many services, including the needed translation function between H.323 conferencing endpoints on the LAN and other ITU-compliant terminals on other ITU-compliant circuit-switched and packet-switched networks. In addition, the Gateway also does the translation between audio and video CODECs if this is needed as well as performs call setup and clearing.
• Gatekeepers: perform two important call control housekeeping chores which help preserve the integrity of the corporate data network. The first is address translation services between LAN aliases for terminals and gateways and IP or IPX addresses. The second Gatekeeper function is bandwidth management. The collection of all Terminals, Gateways, and Multipoint Control Units managed by a single gatekeeper is known as an H.323 Zone.
• MCU: An MCU is an endpoint on the LAN that provides the capability for three or more terminals and gateways to participate in a multipoint conference. It controls and mixes video, audio, and data from terminals to create a robust video conference. An MCU can also connect two terminals in a point-to-point conference that can later develop into a multipoint conference.
• PROXY H.323: An H.323 proxy server is a proxy specifically designed for the H.323 protocol that examines packets between two communicating applications. Proxies are able to determine the destination of a call and perform call-connection steps, if necessary.

Voice conferencing system on IP 

Point to point voice conferencing system   

Multi-point system with MCU at the main site

Voice conferencing system on ISDN 

Conference system on ISDN using H.320 standard with MCU at the Master site