TelePresence Takes You Anywhere in Seconds

May 22, 2007
Cisco Systems' new virtual meeting solution delivers disappearing technology and global meetings that are so real, you feel you are in the same room.

Meetings, meetings, meetings, who needs more meetings? Combined with travel time, any larger regional entity like state police, larger cities, FEMA and others lose thousands of personnel hours annually to drive time and meeting preparation.

If you've tried teleconferencing, Microsoft NetMeeting, instant messaging, and conference calls, then you'll understand that all of the solutions share a common problem: you have to think about the technology. Going all the way back to wax tablets and hot styli, we always had to use something to communicate, and that something distracted from the message. The technology only delivered one mode: text, or voice, or voice with text, or "herky-jerky video" combined with out of sync audio. You weren't there. You weren't one with the person you were meeting with, and errors abound in that world. You read into conversations, assume things other than those written in a blog or chat room, and can't see the body language in a grainy video meeting. My favorite miscommunications story involved a 36-year-old secretary whose handsome bachelor turned out to be a barely post-pubescent 13-year-old boy. Talk about misunderstanding!

I recently visited a Cisco Systems Customer Briefing Center and saw the new TelePresence solution first hand. With a phone call, the instructor dialed Tokyo, Sydney, Washington D.C., Hamburg, and the list went on. In each case three 60-inch screens lit up and connected to a 12-person conference room.

The meeting rooms at each end of the transaction matched. The oval meeting table disappears into the screens and picks up in the screen view of the destination side of the meeting. Three cameras installed in a precision fashion make the destination site feel like the conference room is only divided by a window. The sound quality and three microphones deliver a three-channel stereo experience. The person you are meeting with can walk across the room and the sound travels with them in real time. You get lost in it.

It becomes impossible to remain aware of the technology. The meeting flows like it would in person. Conference materials can be delivered real time on screens both locally and at the destination site.

I first saw the system featured on the TV show 24 (a clip is available at Cisco System's web site). For once, the hype is as good as the real product. It's irresistible to contemplate being able to participate in a real time, multi-jurisdictional interview of a serial burglar, isn't it? How about being able to discuss with the state crime lab several hundred miles away, in real time, findings from a crime scene?

But there is a problem. The technology is currently very inaccessible because of price and bandwidth issues. At $100,000 for a single screen version and $400,000 per site for a three-screen meeting room, a two-location setup starts to chase the $1,000,000 total. Recurring bandwidth costs can also be cost-prohibitive, as well requiring heavy monthly toll charges and dedicated high bandwidth network connections. The value proposition is certainly there for global or national companies that need to accelerate internal processes while saving thousands on travel.

The value is also there for national security or disaster response, but currently isn't there for the typical small town PD With any luck, states will build out a few of these and allow local law enforcement to use them to consult with state and national experts.

When will we get it on the local level? Here's what I think. As a kid, I remember the first Hamilton digital wristwatch. It sold for $14,000. Not many years later, you could get a better one for free in a box of cereal. Personal computers went the same falling price route, as did memory sticks and hard drive storage price per megabyte, gigabyte, and today, terabyte.

What is the future of TelePresence? Simply put, this is incredible technology. Truly invisible, disappearing to the mind as you use it. Leaders seeing this thing have to have it. Senator John McCain, in an Interview with the San Jose Mercury News, stressed the national imperative of universal, widely available broadband. That's a first step.

Combining TelePresence with cheap broadband makes American creativity and brainpower available worldwide. All technology now has a new high mark to achieve, playing catch up with Cisco, and what I believe is the first truly transparent solution that lets people cross the planet in real time, without technology in the way. People are at their best in relationships. When technology gets in the way, it degrades a relationship, and sets up worries associated with misperception and misunderstanding. So, If you'd like to donate a dollar to my Cisco TelePresence room, I'll only be $999,999.00 away from being able to meet with you in Sydney every day. Otherwise we've both got some waiting to do, or I'd better be buying a plane ticket.

Sponsored Recommendations

Build Your Real-Time Crime Center

March 19, 2024
A checklist for success

Whitepaper: A New Paradigm in Digital Investigations

July 28, 2023
Modernize your agency’s approach to get ahead of the digital evidence challenge

A New Paradigm in Digital Investigations

June 6, 2023
Modernize your agency’s approach to get ahead of the digital evidence challenge.

Listen to Real-Time Emergency 911 Calls in the Field

Feb. 8, 2023
Discover advanced technology that allows officers in the field to listen to emergency calls from their vehicles in real time and immediately identify the precise location of the...

Voice your opinion!

To join the conversation, and become an exclusive member of Officer, create an account today!