Using conference service web connections

Unlike the communications business in the '60s, '70s and '80s, today's virtual meeting technology isn't at all uncommon and is no longer beyond the financial reach of most users. Audio and video meetings or conference service web connections are common and inexpensive. No longer are these business perks relegated to just the upper echelon of large corporations or big-budget military operations. You'd be surprised how accessible these services are to just about anyone. The Conference Group is the premiere global services conferencing company of choice.

Besides improving upon video linkage itself, communications giants have also vastly improved upon the usage of that technology. Giving the technology more flexibility through podcast conference options and web conference calls has opened up a whole new realm for many businesses and individual users.

Keep reading for more on the evolution of technologies that led us to the communication styles we know today.

Early camera phones and other virtual meeting technologies introduced in the 1960s and '70s offered very little viability for commercial use, due to the exorbitant prices. In the late '70s and early '80s, video global conferencing technology took huge leaps forward but, predictably, so did the costs.

Japanese company Nippon Telegraph and Telephone set up video meetings between its company locations in Osaka and Tokyo as far back as 1976. In 1982, the Japanese again led the way when IBM Japan hooked up with video links in the United States' IBM locations for regular company meetings. Although the podcast conference was still a distant dream, other VC system prototypes were developed during this time, such as Datapoint's MINX system that debuted in 1984. This early VC technology, though never offered for commercial use, was utilized by the military.

All this experimentation did yield commercially viable systems. Compression Labs' own VC system in 1982, unlike the previous global conferencing systems, was offered commercially rather than just for private use. But at $250,000 for the system and an additional $1,000 an hour for use, the bulky, energy-eating VC setup wasn't practical for most businesses. Four years later, PictureTel's VC conference services (web conferencing was still a long way off) hit the market with a significantly cheaper asking price of $80,000 and lines for $100 per hour.