Conferencing

Pakistan is the regional hub of Information and Communications Technology, and is aspiring for constant development in the sector.

The country renders support to the various avenues of Information Technology and Communications through reduced tariffs, tax exemptions, and investment friendly policies. Despite the global economic meltdown, the ICT indicators in the country are encouraging and the growth has been positive. The industry has attracted FDI of over US$ 1.070 Billion during 2008-09 to uplift the industry and for the development of the ICT infrastructure in the country. The ICT industry is amongst the rapidly emerging sectors of Pakistan with the overall industry size at US$ 12 billion.

The government is endeavoring to establish the local industry to compete in international markets and to facilitate carious domestic projects to expand IT based commercial activities across Pakistan.

There are more than 2000 ICT companies actively operating in Pakistan engaged in  telecommunications, broadcasting & satellite, BPO, software development, banking automation, info-security, convergence, gaming, animation etc

Traditionally screen sharing has been long referred to as application sharing, to define more specifically the ability not just to show specific applications to other connected participants but the combined ability of screen sharing with remote control.screen sharing allows you to show PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, images and any other software running on your computer while remotely connected users see in real-time what you see on your screen.
So while the terms “application sharing” and “screen sharing” mean two different things they are increasingly used in interchangeable ways as many of the new tools and online services integrated them both, and companies prefer to use terminologies that make more immediate sense to the end user.
Screen-sharing generally requires abundant amounts of bandwidth and therefore it is best used when all participants are on a rather speedy internet connection.

Key advantages in using screen sharing tools to present materials to others are generally the ease of use and immediacy that this approach provides. On the other hand, screen sharing key limitations are the need for a good Internet connection to achieve effective results.

The benefits of telepresence with its high fidelity audio, crisp video, and the feeling of face-to-face meeting is being offered on desktops by Tandberg, which announced a desktop telepresence solution Thursday. Called the EX90, the touchscreen solution is targeted at home office, SMB, and general business office use.

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Telecommunications provider Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (www.ptcl.com.pk) announced on Thursday it has opened the largest data center in Karachi, Pakistan.

The data center is designed to be consistent with international standards and data center certification bodies.

The facility is protected from intrusion and failure with multi-layered security, fail-safe redundancy, diversity measures, and rapid response recovery measures, says the company.

The new data center is directly connected to PTCL’s global MPLS backbone to offer a range of hosting solutions with unparalleled network performance and features.

PTCL offers capabilities designed to deliver greater efficiencies for hosting customers through the use of technologies such as storage on demand, processing on demand, business continuity and disaster recovery, all of which are integrated with PTCL network services.

Naveed Saeed, senior executive VP at PTCL, says the data center is designed to provide business enterprises in Pakistan with a “reliable, responsive and resilient infrastructure to suit their needs”.

PTCL says it is the only unified service provider in Pakistan and is able to service all enterprise segments with a range of products including fiber optic and wireless connectivity, MPLS, VPN, managed and hosted technology solutions.

The data center will provide enterprises with an application processing environment with connectivity to the fully redundant self healing optical fiber network backbone.

Online communication and e-Learning have stunningly developed now days, where two people are far away but still can communicate and conduct their viewpoint.
In seminars and meetings we have to conduct various presentations, which seems difficult to be performed online (remotely), but now it is possible to create upload and share presentation enriched with sound.
This revolution in online presentation software has boosted the communication not only in corporate sector but also allows people for E-Learning, increasing Sales, Marketing and Human Resource Management.

ISLAMABAD, Feb 25, 2010 (Asia Pulse Data Source)

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd (PTCL) has raised the bar in providing cutting edge business solutions to its customers and corporate clients by launching Tele Presence, the first of its kind in Pakistan.

According to a Press Release issued, PTCL Tele Presence is an innovative new technology that combines rich audio with high-definition video to deliver a true in person virtual meeting experience while connecting customers, partners and co-workers in real time. The main drivers in introducing this technology is to reduce costs, improve corporate social responsibility (CSR) credentials through reduced environmental impact and improve responses to business challenges and opportunities.

The PTCL Tele Presence ensures efficient end-to-end life size meeting experience by providing fully managed and scalable services over PTCLs global network. PTCL allow customers to come in and rent our Tele Presence studio on an hourly basis, without having to invest in the expensive technology, thus increase productivity through more interactions and less travel.

PTCL Tele Presence provides high quality video that enables access to anyone, anywhere around the world. Quality, simplicity, and reliability let user focus on the meeting, and communicate as naturally and effectively as if they were face to face, this increases the speed of decision making and helps in developing better relationships with colleagues, associates and customers, all of which is crucial to a companys success in todays thriving and competitive business environment.

EVP Corporate Solutions Zaman Gulzar said, PTCL offers Tele Presence conferencing studios for hire currently in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. Aside from this, these conferencing centres will be able to connect to Middle East, Europe, and North America and to any other Tele Presence suites around the world. These studios with the special conference table can seat up to six people per location and incorporates video monitors to create a virtual table of up to 30 participants. In addition to this PTCL operated conferencing studios, a Managed Service offering is also available for our high usage customers, whereby enterprises could opt for PTCL to build and equip a studio at the customers premise itself.

SEVP Commercial Naveed Saeed said, PTCL Tele Presence is a giant leap ahead in Multi-media conferencing technology. Our aim is to provide our customers with the most updated and sophisticated communication technology and also provide them with the best solutions possible which serves all their business needs by increasing productivity through more interactions and less travel.

Source — (conferencingnews.com)

Webinar is widely used in internet communication now a days. It may seem like a new term but it is just like the web conferencing where more and more facilities are being added in web based communication like screen sharing, control sharing, user management, polls and surveys, white boards etc.

Webinars tools are used to conduct live meetings, training, seminars, or presentations via the Internet. In a webinar, each participant sits at his/her own computer and is connected to other participants via the internet. This can be either a downloaded application on each attendee’s computer or a web-based application where the attendees access the meeting by clicking on a link distributed by e-mail (meeting invitation) to enter the web-seminar or webinar.

According to leading web conferencing service providers, the typical sales cycle can be cut two to three weeks with web conferencing. Providing a virtual conference room environment, web conferencing eliminates the need to travel, linking geographically disperse workgroups and telecommuters. The return on investment for web conferencing can be measured not only in dollars and cents, but also in personnel efficiency, knowledge distribution and increased sales opportunities.

The ability to virtually link workgroups and project teams enables real-time collaboration, a task that once required lengthy email threads or face-to-face meetings.

Web conferencing enables businesses to:

1. Reduce operating costs
2. Minimize unnecessary travel
3. Close sales and negotiate contracts faster
4. Enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of communication
5. Deliver clear, concise and consistent training
6. Encourage real-time collaboration between distant and local co-workers
7. Engage in greater levels of communication with clients and business partners

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Distance Education is the main source of provision of educational facilities to every one i.e. rural masses, disadvantaged groups, people of remote areas and poor communities. It provides upgradtion of educational facilities to in-service population. Distance Education serves the dropouts to enhance the literacy rate. It provides equal opportunities to both sexes for their educational and professional development. Distance Education has become effective with the technological development in the world. Through technological development, Distance Education serves the global communities to minimize the gender disparities. The modern two way technologies have brought about a revolution in the system of Distance Education. This mode of education has become face-to- face teaching learning with the use of two way interactive technologies

In Pakistan, Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) is imparting Distance Education of International level. It is a mega University, having the semester enrollment 1.5 Million and 36 Regional Centers in Pakistan. AIOU also offers its educational programmes in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Sultanate of Oman and Bahrain.  AIOU is utilizing modern technologies to provide educational facilities to all around the globe. AIOU is utilizing television, satellite, internet, video conferencing and audio conferencing effectively to impart quality education. Recent innovations in the field of technology are making system of distance Education more effective and efficient.

A teleconference or teleseminar is the live exchange and mass articulation of information among several persons and machines remote from one another but linked by a telecommunications system. Terms such as audio conferencing, telephone conferencing and phone conferencing are also sometimes used to refer to teleconferencing.

The telecommunications system may support the teleconference by providing one or more of the following audio, video, and/or data services by one or more means, such as telephone, computer, telegraph, teletype, radio, and television.[1]