You know when you come to a cross roads in your life, we've all experienced it, and a decision has to be taken! Well, that's what happened to me. For years I had been traveling all over the world to remote locations with my work when I decided I had finally had enough. I seemed to be living in airports and was lucky if I was ever home for even a month each year. I loved my job and the business I was in but hated the constant traveling. I resolved to do something about it, on reflection I guess this may have been sparked by a video and conferencing article I read in a magazine in one of the airport lounges.

I can not remember who wrote the article but the gist was about the advancements in personal computer (PC) based video and conferencing which helped me understand that anybody with a broadband internet connection could communicate and video conference.

Video and voice conferencing is basically split into two camps.

• The dedicated systems with specialized equipment that costs tens and often hundreds of thousands of dollars with the ultimate goal of providing an experience called telepresence which gives the sensation that your are actually at the other location.
• The second are desktop systems some of these require hardware add-ons but most just require your standard computer with a webcam and headphones for improved audio. The later makes it possible for anyone to communicate and video conference with anyone anywhere in the world.

The opportunity for me was if I could convince even some of my customers to use video and conferencing then I could cut back on some of the traveling.

The main questions I need to answer were:

• Set up and Use - it should be simple, quick to setup and easy to use wherever I am not just my office.
• Quality - a high quality of communication must possible so the audio and video all happen at the same time. We must see and understand each others intentions, I have found this is especially important in group meetings.
• Message and file transfer - allows files or messages to be sent between all those at the video conference.
• Remote PC control - this is really useful especially when explaining or training and allows each of us to control each others PC's.
• Multi point conferencing - occasional I require a group of at least 10 people to be in the conference.
• Security and Reliability - the video conference should only between the participants and not overheard, allowing for an open and frank meeting.
• Recording - recording whilst video and conferencing is a useful feature during some meetings.
• Positive experience - was the experience good and does it enhanced our business relationship.
• Cost - my cost could be offset against the savings in travel expenses but my customers would need thier own video and voice conferencing service so it would need to be well priced and benefit there own operations.

I concentrated on using the standard computer as the pricing for a video and voice conferencing service is free or very competitively priced and this would suit my clients. I tried a number of the free services some of which are quiet good especially if it is a one to one conference but many have quality issues with the security, reliability, audio and video, and there often restrictions on multi point conferencing. Although I do use various services, by far the best and which satisfied all of my requirements is a low priced subscriber service called MeetMeNow from WebEx who is the largest operator in video conferencing field.

My customers surprised me, in fact they completely floored me, I had expected resistance but they loved video and conferencing. I now spend 11 months a year at home with the bonus of huge savings in time and travel costs, and have even expanded my customer base.

We all have different requirements, only settle for a service that satisfies your needs. I would suggest that you try them out first before you buy most of the sevices including MeetMeNow have an unlimited Free 14 day trial.