Videoconferencing enables point-to-point or multipoint communication and has been touted as an important meeting tool for years, allowing companies to broadcast their meetings and communicate with executives at other sites. The process hasn’t really caught on, perhaps because the technology has been inadequate or the facilities unavailable at meeting sites. All that is changing. Three major hotel chains offer three different kinds of videoconferencing technology, from satellite, the first that was developed, to Telesuite, the latest, which transmits sound and pictures through dedicated T1 phone lines. While each form of videoconferencing relies on different technology, each also serves a different need, from large group meetings where a speaker at one end broadcasts to a crowd at the other, to small group meetings where a team of executives at two or more sites interact with one another.

Satellite links at Marriott

More than 120 Marriott hotels in the U.S. have satellite dishes on their roofs, enabling them to offer satellite videoconferencing on site. The hotels can serve as uplinks or downlinks, sending original satellite broadcasts from the hotels or receiving them from other sites. Broadcasts can be sent to other Marriott hotels or to anyplace that has a satellite dish. In the hotel meeting rooms, broadcasts are projected onto 27″ monitors for groups of less than 20 and 7′ x 10′ screens for large groups.

“Because of the big screens, satellite is ideal for a larger audience,” notes Susan Hodapp, a Marriott spokeswoman. In this respect, satellite differs from the other videoconferencing facilities that use TV monitors or smaller screens. Another important benefit of satellite is the high-quality picture, which is as clear as satellite TV broadcasts.

Satellite videoconferencing is normally used to broadcast a speech from one location to another, making it ideal for meetings that involve product introductions or motivational speeches by company presidents. Hodapp says the Marriott facilities have been used for many meetings like that, including an automotive launch by one of the big automakers.

Two-way communication isn’t really possible with satellite videoconferencing, except in the form of phone calls being placed to the uplink site from viewers at the other locations, much like a television talk show.

Last December, the Texas Credit Union League used Marriott’s satellite facilities for an important event: a meeting called to disseminate public relations information about a national dispute between credit unions and banks. A panel of national credit union officials and public relations company personnel spoke at an uplink site in Washington state and took calls from TCUL executives who were viewing the program at nine sites in Texas, including seven Marriott hotels and two other sites Marriott had arranged. Marriott also provided food and lodging for the attendees. Jill Tomlin, vice president of meetings for TCUL, lauded Marriott for helping her out in a pinch, claiming the event was planned and executed in three weeks. She said videoconferencing is “a good alternative when you need to get important information out quickly.” She also said it reduced travel costs, since TCUL executives didn’t have to fly to Washington for the event. They simply drove to the nearest Marriott.

Sheraton and Picture Tel

Sheraton and VueCom, a specialized communications company in Annapolis, Maryland, have teamed to develop GlobalVue, a global videoconferencing network that will be available at Sheraton Hotels worldwide. Currently available at 25 hotels in the U.S. and three international locations, the network is utilizing Picture Tel dial-up videoconferencing systems, which provide point-to-point and multipoint communication through ISDN telephone lines.

The Picture Tel units feature 32″ monitors with a camera perched on top that is controlled by a key pad. Full pan, zoom and tilt features are available, meaning you can control the picture you send to the other locations. Ideal for sending live pictures of the people in the room, the system has attachments that can be used to send snapshots and documents. You can also plug in a laptop to send data.

To use a Picture Tel unit, you simply dial a telephone number on the key pad that connects you to a remote Picture Tel unit. Once the connection is made, the two units can begin sending audio and video feeds through three ISDN phone lines in each unit.

A major advantage of the Picture Tel system is that more than two groups can interact. When more than two groups are involved in the communication, they all dial into a bridge number that connects them. If four groups are involved, the picture is divided into quadrants so all four can be seen. If more than four are involved, a voice activation system projects the picture of the party that is speaking.

Picture Tel units can be used for large or small meetings because they can be moved from room to room. Each Sheraton hotel has three different size rooms wired for use, meaning the units can be used for everything from large conferences to small private business meetings.

Towers Perrin, a management consulting firm, used the system to conduct a meeting between executives in their Dallas, London and Toronto offices. The meeting was initiated in London, where executives made a presentation that Mary Magoon, an assistant to the managing partner, saw at the Sheraton Park Central Hotel in Dallas. “They wrote some figures on a marker board and we saw all that,” Magoon says. The London executives appeared on the screen in Dallas, with the Dallas executives appearing in the lower right-hand corner. The Toronto executives came onto the screen and replaced the London executives when they spoke.

“Because of the cost and time involved for Dallas consultants to travel to London, we thought it would be more cost effective to set up a videoconferencing system,” Magoon says. There were other systems available but they chose the one at the Sheraton because the meeting was held during business hours in London, which was 3:00 a.m. Dallas time. “I needed a facility that could accommodate the time,” she says. And the Sheraton, of course, is open 24 hours a day.

Hilton’s new Telesuites

Hilton, IBM and TeleSuite Corp. have combined to develop the Hilton Telesuite Network, which they call “virtualconferencing” instead of videoconferencing because it virtually brings two groups at different locations into the same room together. The groups enter telesuites at six Hilton hotels where they see life-size images of the other group on giant 100″ screens. Both parties are seated at identical half-size conference tables, so when they view the screen it appears as if they are looking at the other end of the same table.

TeleSuite Corp. manages the telesuites from its headquarters in Englewood, Colorado, takes reservations for their use at a toll-free number and turns the systems on at the appointed hour. All the parties have to do to participate is show up. Voice and sound are transmitted through T1 phone lines and processed by a variety of technology from IBM and other vendors.

There is currently no way to send pictures or other graphics from a telesuite, but that will change soon when fax machines and hookups for PCs will be installed in the suites, according to Hilton’s director of marketing, John Luft. Currently, it is only possible to communicate with one telesuite, but three-way communication is planned as well as broadcast communication, where one group can project itself to a range of locations. The other locations will see only the lead group, while the lead group will be able to see all the other locations, Luft says.

Telesuites are limited to small group meetings, since only 10 executives can sit in each suite. Luft says a company plans to use the telesuites to communicate with its national sales force by meeting with each group separately at different telesuites. Over a two-day period, the company president will conduct three-hour meetings with groups in four different cities. The groups will come to telesuites in New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles where they will see the president who, from another telesuite, will discuss goals and strategies and issue a motivational speech.

Telesuites provide such lifelike communication that Luft believes people will want to use them again and again. “All you need to do is sit in on one session for the bar to be moved,” he says. “After that, anything less seems a compromise.”

While Hilton is proud of its new telesuites, it also offers Picture Tel units in eight hotels. Since each is suited for a different type of meeting, it makes sense to have both.

The future is now

With videoconferencing now available at three major hotel chains, its use at business meetings will grow. In the past, videoconferencing hasn’t been used extensively because the technology has been unacceptable, with fuzzy pictures and distorted sound. “In sales and motivational meetings you can’t have a sound lapse or an awkward-looking picture,” says Ed Griffin, chief executive officer of Meetings Professional International. “To create momentum, you have to have it perfectly coordinated. If the technology is missing its sharpness, it blows the meeting’s purpose.”

Griffin is exactly right, but videoconferencing technology has improved, thanks to the introduction of better components and the use of ISDN and dedicated T1 phone lines for transmission. “In the ’90s, the quality of videoconferencing has become phenomenally good,” says Picture Tel spokesman Kevin Flanagan. “The technology has become more sophisticated and the compression of video and audio signals which is essential for the phone lines has gotten better and better.”

Flanagan was defending the quality of Picture Tel as compared with satellite broadcast, which provides television-quality picture and sound. Meanwhile, Hilton’s new telesuite’s audio and visual are just as sharp. So, it appears that all three videoconferencing facilities provide high-quality sound and picture, good enough to make your next meeting more productive!