A video conferencing bridge or MCU, Multipoint Control Unit, can be most affordable in two basic scenarios, First, if you are a small company who conferences often with not more than 4 endpoints at a time and Second, if you are a very large enterprise with many locations worldwide with video conference endpoints at each location.
Let’s analyze the first scenario — a small company who conferences often with not more than 4 endpoints. Many video conferencing units or CODECS have an MCU firmware option to connect 4 simultaneous endpoints at one time. The MCU option at this level is relatively inexpensive, several thousand dollars. If your small business needs to conference with other offices, the supply chain, key accounts, investors, your own MCU can easily pay for itself in several months. One example is project management — You may need to meet with the project manager, the client, a key vendor and the on-site engineer all at the same time to make a critical decision. In this meeting you may need to collaborate with computer input, show video clips and the on-site engineer may need to show live video to all parties in real time from his iPhone, Droid or other mobile device. This allows critical decisions to be made quickly and problems addressed immediately. An in house MCU, Multipoint Control Unit, can have a major impact on a small or medium sized enterprise.
The second scenario is very large enterprise with domestic and international locations and video conferencing endpoints at each location. A fixed bridge, or large rack mountable bridge, will pay for itself quickly. Most fixed bridges can accommodate multiple meetings simultaneously. For example if a large enterprise had a 100 port bridge and enough bandwidth in their network they can have 10 separate meetings with 10 participants each taking place simultaneously.
Most fixed bridges can be sliced and diced “on-the fly” into various sized meeting rooms. The same 100 port bridge can have 4 meetings with 25 participants each or 25 meetings with 4 participants each. Also fixed bridges have easy scheduling meeting management software that seamlessly works with Microsoft Outlook and other contact management. Some fixed bridges have a mobile app or desktop feature that accommodates an endpoint that may not have video conferencing equipment at their location. This opens more opportunities to communicate visually with constituencies important to the enterprise that would otherwise be unreachable with video conferencing. An internal MCU, Multipoint Control Unit, can create time, increase productivity and allow your enterprise to be much more efficient. It’s like having a private business jet without the expense and travel risk.
J.W. Hornyak Videoconferencing & Telecommunications
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