Bandwidth Utilization

Driven by the perceived intrusiveness of live video in converged networks and by the demand for hundreds of simultaneous end users participating in the same session over various types of network topologies and connections, Arel places a high priority on network efficiency and performance.

Arel's ICP including video will require less bandwidth overall in most cases than a session hosted externally on the web that has audio only. See the business case analysis on bandwidth savings using ICP

There are several factors that take part in Arel's bandwidth management:

• IP multicast support - Arel IDEAL sessions can utilize an IP multicast enabled network, for dramatic reductions in network bandwidth used during a live session.

• Bandwidth ranges - Audio: 4-18 Kbps, Video: 20-100 Kbps or higher, application sharing: 2-16 Kbps, Chat and messages: 2-5 Kbps.

• Distributed server architecture - Arel's servers can be installed in a distributed environment. The distributed servers are working in a synchronized harmony, transferring between them only one set of data or streams required by all clients and additional servers connected to the remote server.

• Content pre-caching - A mechanism exists for automatic pre-caching of Conference or training session content from the web server to the clients' local disk in advance. When the session starts, the already locally stored content provides best performance while not consuming bandwidth needed for optimal real-time audio, video and data interaction.

• Content distribution - Arel offers a content distribution mechanism that distributes recorded and live content to remote servers using multicast and unicast. Distribution of content during off-network-peak hours is triggered by the publishing of course content or Conference agenda or manually. Content distribution creates a dramatic savings of bandwidth requirements on the intranet, and enables the use of rich media content without unnecessary delays created by real-time network limitation.

• Multicast over non-multicast networks using multiple NICs - While the most efficient way to locally distribute live streams to multiple participants is by using multicast (thus putting it on the network only once - as compared to per participant), this is impossible in many LANs or buildings as the network segments are not connected in a multicast-enabled way. This is either because old routers are used or because they are not configured to pass through multicast data. An Arel server has the capability to multicast on multiple local network segments simultaneously by having multiple Network Interface Cards (NICs), each finding out the requirement of the streams by participants on the multicast-enabled segment they are on.

• Easy configuration of stream bandwidths per session - Administrators or presenters can set the speeds of the different streams they send, per stream, including audio, video, application sharing, content download etc. This allows for setting bandwidth so that it is adjusted to the audience of the session for optimal experience and at the same time to set it so that it does not jeopardize the performance of other applications using the same network.

• Quality of Service mechanism for context-based best experience - With Arel's self-developed audio and video conferencing, application sharing, content download and messaging, control over the actually used bandwidth of each component is possible to maximize quality of the entire session at every point in time.

• Silence detection - a mechanism for lowering the effective bandwidth by detecting silence periods and minimize data sending during such periods.

• Highly compressed application sharing - Arel's application sharing engine compresses the application commands to the screen memory and sends them to the application sever for distribution, ensuring high compression rate and optimal bandwidth utilization.

• Dialup connection support - All of the product's functionality is supported over a single network connection starting as low as 28.8 kbps. Depending on bandwidth availability users may also enjoy video (starting at a 56.6 Kbps connection). When bandwidth does not allow for video to be seen, a still photo of the presenter or chairperson, taken from the database is displayed in the video area.

• Managing the number of concurrent users - a mechanism in the Application Server prevents the system from exceeding the pre-defined number of concurrent users per session or per server.