CONFERENCING GETS THE PICTURE

If you want something built right, you have to do it yourself. The adage may be clichéd, but Michael Brandofino found it held some truth two years ago when he set out to implement the world's first IP video network.

Brandofino is the executive vice president and chief technology officer of GlowPoint, a facilities-based carrier that sells only video conferencing services to businesses. He's responsible for the first and largest global IP network that traffics solely in video. In doing so, GlowPoint seemed to be going against all industry wisdom. The call word of the day being convergence, looking for a way to completely segregate one service from the others seems a step back. But Brandofino demurs. Convergence may be the order of the day when carriers talk about voice and data, but when it comes to video they're usually only giving the application lip service, he said.

“There are a lot of carriers that talk about converged data, video and voice, but what you find is that video falls to the wayside,” Brandofino said. “Most carriers don't really provide a video conferencing service. They provide you a network you can run your services on. We saw the need for a dedicated video provider.”

So Brandofino and a team from WireOne, a video conferencing equipment reseller, set out in 2001 to create that provider, but when it came to piecing together their network, Brandofino's team ran into problems. They discovered that while vendors have optimized their gear for voice over IP, their support of IP video was lackluster to say the least. Routers were misidentifying packets. Corporate firewalls, while taught to identify VoIP calls, were shunting video calls. Existing billing and management software couldn't distinguish between IP-to-IP calls, IP-to-ISDN calls and all the various grades of multipoint connectivity. Back office servers weren't managing the new system of IP video “phone” numbers the company had devised.

Brandofino and WireOne had to build it from scratch. They designed their own back office and billing software. They set up their own certification lab to test vendor network equipment and video end points. They ended up leasing clear pipes to avoid getting muddled in their carrier partner's routing protocols, and they put MPLS into the backbone to prioritize that video traffic and instill critical redundancy elements into the network.

IP networks are haunted by three problems: packet loss, latency and jitter. Brandofino said GlowPoint has managed to bring its jitter levels from the 20- to 30-millisecond industry standard to a fraction of a millisecond. In addition, it has over-engineered its network capacity to account not only for video conferencing's odd traffic patterns — everyone seems to conference right around lunch-time — but also to keep its pipes largely empty. At its peak traffic cycles, GlowPoint hardly ever cracks 20% of its capacity on individual fiber routes. Brandofino is fond of pointing out that GlowPoint's network is not a data network modified for video — it's purely a video network designed and implemented as such from day one.

Now GlowPoint has 14 points of presence — 10 in the U.S. and four around the world — and is capable of linking most major urban centers into its network. In the U.S. it has agreements with Covad Communications and New Edge Networks for DSL and T-1 access similar to provisioning arrangements with international carriers. It has also installed a series of video gateways around the world, that act like their VoIP equivalents, except they convert ISDN video calls to IP. While GlowPoint runs an all IP network, Brandofino acknowledged that 80% of the video conferencing traffic in the world is still done over ISDN lines. GlowPoint had to make some accommodation to bring that traffic onto its network.

That investment into the network has allowed GlowPoint to create a conferencing service which functions as a managed video PBX. Customers simply dial the 10-digit “Video” number of anyone they're trying to connect and they're connected on screen. Dial 0, and the customer gets an operator. Dedicated conference bridges let customers set up conferencing sessions on the fly, without any arcane technical setup or the need to make appointments hours or days in advance. Outside users can even dial a GlowPoint video number from any phone line and connect with that customer in voice-only mode.

The network has been live for more than six months now, and the new carrier seems to be doing well. GlowPoint has 300 corporate customers, with 2500 endpoints in service. It's making 8000 IP video calls with an average duration of 55 minutes each month. Brandofino is still tweaking the network, but the goal is now to sell the service. That's where GlowPoint's conundrum lies. The more GlowPoint and carriers like it popularize the service, the more attention IP video will get from the major carriers, who all have MPLS networks ready-built for converged video, said Jim Andrew, analyst for Adventis.

“Today [GlowPoint] has a market for a product,” Andrew said. “Tomorrow, they'll find competition from a lot of very powerful carriers throwing video into their mix.”

GlowPoint doesn't deny that convergence is bound to happen. When video does finally get equal footing with voice and data in that mix, Brandofino said, GlowPoint will probably find itself managing video services on other carriers' networks. But that day is still a while off, Brandifino said and until it comes he believes those customers will be knocking on GlowPoint's door.