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Web conferencing equipment is the complex part of any web conference.
While the human factors can be planned and optimized, and the economic factors can be mathematically analyzed, the equipment is so much gibberish to someone just starting out.
Here are a few things to look for. First, you need to decide how much capability you need. How many people must be able to speak?
Will you need to run a remote site from the field, or will an existing conference room be available? What are the physical parameters of the room? You must also always keep an eye on the budget.
You will need speakers. How many and what size will depend on the quality of sound fidelity you require and the size of the room.
You will need a full motion camera with enough megapixels of detail to show documents clearly. You’ll need at least one microphone, preferably one that can screen out background noise and possibly one that allows the user to move about the room.
A duplex sound system might be worth the effort, allowing speakers at each end of the conference to talk at the same time without jamming each other’s signal. Add a hub to connect all of these together to the computer, and we can start at $1500 and go up to $15000.
Some kits come with a rolling cabinet to easily move around the building, and some of the high end systems can fit into a suitcase with satellite communication from anywhere in the world. Unless your business is overthrowing hostile nations, that is probably more than you want to purchase.
It is difficult to point to reasonable prices. Too many companies supplying web conferencing equipment vary their prices based on the size of the order, secondary contracts like tech support and other factors.
The best advice there is to shop around and seek bids from multiple sources until you are sure you have identified the lower price that offers you everything you need and that has room to expand to everything you want.
When looking at web conferencing equipment, you need a camera to allow you to present video, a microphone to allow you to present audio, speakers to allow you to hear audio, some sort of screen or monitor to allow you to see video and communication devices to allow all of this to connect to a computer and then the internet, or to a dedicated server.
If you do not expect two-way communications from both your site and the other end of your web conference, some of this can be left out, but this will almost certainly be a mistake in the long run.
If you are a new entry to the web conferencing field, and still need to run your own system, think about purchasing a kit since this means you will have everything you need other than a computer and broadband access.
A company with a confident IT department can purchase components and assemble them, knowing they can deal with compatibility issues.
Related article: Introduction To Teleconferencing Equipment
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