Personal experience from yesterday, being a remote presenter for about
half of the session in the IRI WG meeting:
- Meetecho gave a lot of options for audio. When testing, the Java stuff
didn't work, but Skypeout from Japan into the Italian Meetecho PSTN
number worked.
- The echo was tough, mostly for me. I only had to filter out my own
voice, so I knew what was coming. There was some heavy echo for other
remote participants also, but apparently not all the time.
- The interrupt thing is *really* tough. Once there was a question,
people in the room started arguing, and I was cut off because I didn't
want to interrupt (given that I "had a mike", it would have been
possible to interrupt, though, strictly physically speaking).
- I think there is also some cultural dependency re. interrupt timing. A
pause of so many (milli)seconds may mean "you can interrupt me now if
you need" is some culture, but it means "I'm still talking" in another
culture.
- For long distances (half around the globe), the interrupt thing starts
to be a problem independent of the technology.
So I'd say: Please keep PSTN as an option; it's maybe not the best in
terms of quality, but it's very good in terms of reliability.
Regards, Martin.
On 2012/03/30 20:11, Dean Willis wrote:
From today's meeting, taking to list.
Remote participation for users connecting via the PSTN though gateways into a
VoIP conference platform raises some issues.
One of these is "registration" . There are hacks like PINs that can be made to
work.
But to me, the biggest problem is that it is just really hard to make it work,
especially for participants on the fringe of the PSTN. Echo cancellation may be
impossible to provide without exceeding the 150ms latency interaction/interrupt
threshold determined in Brian Rosen's research.
One doesn't necessarily need "broadband" to use IP. I've talked quite
successfully between participants with EDGE mobile connections. But going over a long
path of telephone network to a PSTN gateway, thence over IP to a conference platform is a
recipe for disaster.
I therefore propose that our remote participation system neither require nor support
dial-in telephone numbers. This assumption can greatly simplify the system, reduce
operating expense, and reduce the probability of systemic marginal failure where the
system "works" but not well enough to actually use.
Some argue that this would unfairly exclude people who can't get Internet
connections, but I counter that it's certainly less of an exclusion than
requiring them to physically attend the meeting, and it's far more unfair to
make an IETF meeting fail for these who are actually using the Internet to
participate in it.
--
dean
_______________________________________________
NOTE WELL: This list operates according to
http://mipassoc.org/dkim/ietf-list-rules.html.
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/vmeet
_______________________________________________
NOTE WELL: This list operates according to
http://mipassoc.org/dkim/ietf-list-rules.html.
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/vmeet
