On December 4, 1996, Doctor James Martin gave a lecture on "Cybercrop" from London. The lecture was organized by Manufacturer's Association for Information Technology (MAIT) and was attended by Chief Executives of numerous Indian Industries, sitting in Hotel Maurya, Delhi. The session lasted for three hours and required no travelling or any other logistics arrangements. The number of people who attended the lecture were any day more than those who could afford to attend it otherwise. And all this was made possible through the amazing technology of Video Conferencing. The System for conducting the Video Conference was provided by NIC.
By presenting a social presence, Video Conferencing most closely resembles face-to-face meetings. Not only can people hear what is being said but can also see each other.
Organizations are making use of this technology for a number of purposes - a product announcement; press conference; shareholders meetings; educational programmes etc. Some of the areas in which Video Conferencing is currently being used are Distance Education and Training; Business Conferences and Presentations; Remote Problem Solving; Tele-medicine; Marketing and Project Monitoring.
NIC- VIDEO CONFERENCING SERVICES
The National Informatics Centre is providing the Video Conferencing Service through the high speed satellite network-NICNET, National Information Highway. NIC is providing high quality Video Conferencing facility free of cost to the Central Government and State Government Officials.
NIC has the complete infrastructure for providing Video Conferencing services for Group Video Conferencing; Desktop Video Conferencing and Multi-point Conferencing.
At present NIC centres at Delhi, Calcutta, Bangalore, Pune and Ahmedabad are connected with the studio based Group Video Conferencing Systems. NIC is also providing Desktop Video Conferencing services from another eight major cities - Patna, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bhopal, Chennai, Bhuvneshwar and Chandigarh in addition to Delhi. It is also possible to do international Video Conferencing from the New Delhi studio.
NIC also offers a complete solution for setting up Video Conferencing studios, right from planning of network; system engineering to making it work on your desktop.
WORKSHOPS AND SEMINARS
With a view of acquainting the general public with the benefits of the Video Conferencing technology, NIC had organized a couple of Workshops.
On the World Science Day a Workshop on Video Conferencing was jointly organized by NIC and Bihar Institute of Technology at the Planetarium Complex in Patna. It was attended by over 400 participants which included Officials of the Bihar State Government and Business People.
NIC had also put up a stall at INFOCOM'97 held at World Trade Centre at Mumbai where Video Conferencing was the area of focus. At both the places the participants were given hands on experience of the powerful media of Video Conferencing.
Demonstrations of Video Conferencing facilities of NIC are being conducted for all the Senior Officers of the Government of India including IAS Officers during the Training Programmes which are conducted at NIC Headquarters.
GROUP VIDEO CONFERENCING
NIC's Group Video Conferencing Systems can operate on transmission speed from 128 Kbps upto 1920 Kbps using satellite network and it can provide near television quality resolution at higher speeds.
These Systems allow atleast six to seven people to sit in each studio and are equipped with dual monitors; cameras for sharing documents; 35 mm slide attachment; facility to add audio only sites and VCR support to record conferences. All the functions of Video Conferencing System can be controlled with the help of a touch screen controller including remote control of cameras; volume adjustment etc.
Desktop Videoconferencing
DESKTOP VIDEO CONFERENCING Desktop Video Conferencing Systems are primarily used for one-to-one communication and the systems used are very portable and PC-based.
NIC's DTVC is working across LANs located in different cities, over NICNET-info- highway. These services are also operational on ISDN lines, supporting data rate of 128 Kbps. Desktop Conferencing Systems can run on any Pentium machine (100 Mhz or higher) with Video Conferencing accessories.
The functions provided by these Systems include one-to-one Video Conferencing document sharing; remote application sharing; collaborative computing.
MULTI-POINT VIDEO CONFERENCING The Multi-point Conferencing Unit (MCU) allows three or more Group Video Conferencing sites to participate in the same discussion. This facility is available at NIC Headquarters, New Delhi.
Presently multi-point video conferencing is available for Group Video Conferencing Systems only. However MCU standards are coming up on LAN/ISDN network and it will soon be available on Desktop Video Conferencing Systems.
NEAR FUTURE ROAD MAP NIC is in the process of setting up Video Conferencing facility from major Ministries/Departments of Central Government and will be connecting them to the Chief Minister's Offices in different States. NIC plans to create studios for Video Conferencing on Internet/Intranet using MBONE technology which will be very useful in the field of distance education. It also intends to provide Mobile Video Conferencing System; Video and Audio Services over NICNET.
The Video Conferencing System will help in lowering the cost of customers for dealing with urgent work at distant places, as well as save time.
For any further information please contact : Multimedia Engineering & Facilities Division, National Informatics Centre, 7th floor, A-Block, CGO Complex, Lodi Road, New Delhi- 110003 Ph: 91-11-4364821, Fax: 4361475, 4362628 Voice mail: 4361075, E-mail: mmslab@alpha.nic.in URL:http://www.nic.in/vidcon
VIDEO CONFERENCING CENTRES AT NIC OFFICES: Studio based Group Video Conferencing Centres: Ahmedabad Ph: (079) 469903, (02712) 23035; E-mail: gujarat @x400.nicgw.nic.in Bangalore Ph: (080) 5537123, 2863790; E-mail : venkat@kar.nic.in Calcutta Ph: (033) 2407320, 3591950; E-mail: westbengal@x400.nicgw.nic.in Delhi Ph: (011) 4364821; Fax: (011) 4362489, 4362628; E-mail: mmslab@x400.alpha.nic.in Pune Ph: (0212) 324832; Fax: (0212) 327241; E-mail: bobde@mah.nic.in
Desktop Video Conferencing Centres: Delhi Ph: (011) 4364821; Fax: (011) 4362489, 4362628; E-mail: mmslab@x400.alpha.nic.in Mumbai Ph : (022) 2046934; Fax: (022) 2853562; E-mail: moiz.hussain@x400.nicgw.nic.in Bhopal Ph : (0755) 558299; 551447; E-mail: mpstate@x400.nicgw.nic.in Chandigarh Ph: (0172) 544349, 703341; E-mail: punjab@x400.nicgw.nic.in Hyderabad Ph: (040) 240141, 234573; Fax: (040) 240014: E-mail: ramachandra@x400.nicgw.nic.in Jaipur Ph : (0141) 373561, 380992; E-mail: rajasthan@x400.nicgw.nic.in Chennai Ph: (044) 4917850, 8262774; E-mail: nic-mdrs@x400.nicgw.nic.in Patna Ph : (0612) 220964, 239474; E-mail: bihar@x400.nicgw.nic.in Bhuvneshwar Ph: (0674) 411592; E-mail: vinayak.rao@x400.nicgw.nic.in