Telecommunications is a vast industry but one thing our company can claim with 100 percent certainty is that GIPS is synonymous with HD voice. It’s not just because the company has developed the wideband codecs, which are an integral part of providing HD voice, it’s because our whole company lives, breathes and sleeps media processing- whether it’s HD voice or HD video.

When a company licenses GIPS technology, they get the entire remedy, not just the codec, to deal with the IP gremlins that live out in the network. The result is an HD voice call… something the codec alone cannot guarantee.

Those gremlins – network congestion (getting on a London Tube at rush hour every few seconds would be easier), packet loss (just think of trying to find your luggage with no identity tags, no specific baggage claim area at Heathrow during an airport strike ), echo (Yodeling through the grand canyon to communicate with your friend at the other end ) and jitter are just a few of the network issues that must be overcome to provide HD voice.

We’ve had a number of requests from customers that want to identify their product with HD Voice. So we put together a logo that should make it clear to everyone that they are using HD voice.

We hope you like it.

I’m trying to find a study rather than anecdotal evidence that web meetings/web conferencing is on the rise. I know it is because I see more companies entering the realm but also because in my daily life I use it more frequently for meetings.  Plus in all fair disclosure we have a number of customers using GIPS’ technology to support web meetings, such as WebEx and Citrix. I never did understand the concept of dialing in via the telephone and logging online to participate in a web meeting – especially as you can utilize HD voice via your PC.

There is one issue that does come to mind though on the topic of web meetings and that is etiquette.

There has been no guide book written on web meeting etiquette but I feel I should propose a few common sense guidelines – especially as a few of my meetings have caused some annoyance.

No Typing!

For one simple reason – everyone else can hear your typing and it is very distracting to all parties. If you really need to type – put yourself on mute.

No children or animals.

While it’s a well-worn quote, ‘Don’t work with children or animals’… in the background at least. It’s worthy advice, especially during a business call. I had the pleasure recently of listening to dogs barking (incessantly), parrots squawking and two little children taking lumps out of each other. Rather funny, but not ideal for a conference call.

Avoid Being a Conference Hog

OK, we’ve all been there. We’re sitting in a conference room meeting and someone is a conference hog and seems to loves the sound of their own voice (and it’s just not that loved by others!) While you’re in a room it’s much easier to get the conference hogs attention but on a call it’s much more difficult. With HD Voice there aren’t the scrambled confused voices overlaying each other – so give time to everyone to speak.

To Mute or Not to Mute

One recent conference call, I heard a background conversation of one of the participants. Whether you are using a headset or your computer’s microphone beware that the technology really does pick up side conversations. For one it’s distracting but you also don’t want an embarrassing episode either.  Just think when video comes along what could happen!

A recent PC World article by Peter Judge says unified communications (UC) is a good investment during recession. The article goes on to quote a Redshift survey commissioned by Mitel that claims that workers in the UK are demanding UC solutions. Unified communications is of course a very popular term these days, and many communications offerings seem to fit under the UC umbrella as companies rebrand products.

Judge made a statement about simplicity which I found particularly interesting. He makes the point that UC in its simplest form, is just teleworking through a DSL connection using an IP phone (which can in itself be just software).  I agree very much with this, as I think companies can benefit a lot from adding simple functionality on top of their existing infrastructure instead of engaging in large replacement type installations. Just adding an IM/VoIP client is a simple first step for improving efficiency by fostering collaboration, improving the ability to reach co-workers, and untying employees from their desks.

The next step is to add conferencing capabilities which can also be accomplished through software solutions. Even though this may increase complexity for servers hosting conferencing applications, the investment can yield very large cost savings compared to traditional conferencing services.

Simplicity is elegant!