Telepresence Vs. Videoconferncing - Resolving the Cost/benefit Conundrum

Many in the end user community are very familiar with videoconferencing, a solution set that has been around for over twenty years. Videoconferencing provides two-way, interactive audio and video communications between two or more end points. In the past decade, videoconferencing technology and products have advanced along multiple fronts - including the move to IP networks that provide higher bandwidth, lower costs, and vastly improved connection reliability; the evolution from low resolution to high resolution images and now to high definition (720p and 1080i) video; and equally important - the advances from tinny, low bandwidth (3 kHz) AM-quality audio to 7, 14, and even 22 kHz wideband, stereo, spatial audio that is equivalent to CD quality, greatly improving speech intelligibility while vastly reducing "Meeting fatigue."