Video vanguards

An alliance between VideoServer Inc. and video codec manufacturer ABL Canada will give corporations and service providers a way to conduct multipoint videoconferencing over frame relay networks.

ABL Canada will integrate its VT2C Apollo narrowband video codec, which is the first commercially available videoconferencing codec with frame relay interfaces, into VideoServer's multipoint control unit, enabling videoconferencing at speeds ranging from 64 kb/s to T-1 (1.54 Mb/s).

The multipoint nature of VideoServer's technology means that more than two end users can participate in a conference, and each participant can see and hear all the others.

Customers can save a good chunk of money by conducting videoconferences over their existing frame relay networks, said George Petrolekas, director of marketing at ABL. "Frame relay is the most widely deployed data communications network in North America because you're paying by bandwidth used, not by distance," he said. "Over the last couple of years, people have been starting to put voice traffic over the same frame relay network that carries their data traffic, and now we're giving them the power to leverage their investment further by adding video.

The frame relay-enabled MCU can also communicate with other MCUs, letting a caller using frame relay communicate with a caller using ISDN, Petrolekas said.