CU-SeeMe Home

Book

1. Introduction

2. Usage

3. Internet

4. Hardware

5. Software

6. User's Guide

7. Reflectors

8. History

9. Other

10. Future

A. Trouble- shooting

B. Operator's Guide

C. Glossary

D. Bibliography

10

What the Future Holds in Store

Prediction is difficult, especially when it concerns the future.

CU-SeeMe has enjoyed an explosive growth since it's humble beginnings several years ago. Those involved have all learned something of value. Computer scientists have learned how people interact in an audiovisual conferencing environment. Systems and network administrators have learned the real computing and network requirements of videoconferencing. (We've learned how fragile the Internet is, and how it must expand to if the masses are to use videoconferencing.) Artists have learned the pitfalls and pleasures of bringing far-flung performers to an audience. Businesses have learned the value of face-to-face meetings. People have learned how wonderful it is to reach out and connect with others, across the state or around the world. (David Watson, a CU-SeeMe presence from Australia, and his wife recently visited me in San Francisco during their high-technology tour of the USA. Only through the magic of CU-SeeMe could David and I have made and nourished a friendship, although email helped cement our warm feelings.)

???Author: Fifth sentence: When you say "We've learned how fragile the Internet is..." Who is we? Everyone? Systems and network admins? -dean

Where do we go from here? I believe there are two paths we'll simultaneously walk: the technological and the cultural.

The Technological Path

The technology underlying videoconferencing will continue to evolve at an explosive pace, much as it has since the beginning of the computer age. Such speedy change makes long-term prognostication excruitiatingly difficult, but short-term changes are compelling, and worth visiting.

???Author: I would think the readers might have some benchmark-like "big" questions, such as "When will videoconferencing be of the same quality as television?" or "Will videoconferencing eliminate the need for the telephone?" or questions like that. -dean

Networking

CU-SeeMe, as well as other videoconferencing tools, depends upon a network infrastructure to connect the conferencees. The real-world use of CU-SeeMe, perhaps more than any other technology, clearly shows the deficiencies in our current setup and hints at where growth need be. (Many thanks to Per G. Bilse, Senior Network Engineer of EUnet Communications Services, for spurring to life many spirited discussions about network issues.)

Network Bandwidth

There are several aspects to bandwidth usage. One is using what's there to encourage investment in growth. The other is creating network gridlock by using a networking technology not well-designed for videoconferencing.

***Begin Sidebar***

Tim Dorcey, in email to the CU-SeeMe Discussion List, discussed the tension between new technology and the existing bandwidth limitations of the Internet:

...we were not interested in producing a "demo." Nor was it our main objective to be "friendly to the Internet." We were interested in producing a videoconferencing tool that would be useful for some number of people today (not necessarily Everyone On The Internet). There are lots of places on the Internet where bandwidth is plentiful. For example, we have a 100 mbps campus backbone at Cornell; would it make sense to cripple CU-SeeMe in that context simply because it doesn't work well in every context? Why should those who have made the investment in bandwidth (e.g., regional nets, corporate nets, etc.) be restricted to services that are limited to the lowest common denominator? That doesn't sound like a good recipe for encouraging investment in bandwidth.

...the only way we are going to see increases in bandwidth capacity is if we use what's there. This is a bit of a simplification, but the folks that own the fiber plant just want to get their $100,000/month. If they think we'll use 1 mbit, they'll charge $100,000/mbit....if they think we'll use 100 mbit, they'll charge $1000/mbit. In the era of fiber optics, most of the expenses have little to do with how much data is actually moved. Of course, there are some arcane government policies, and entrenched monopolies to contend with, so it's not going to be an easy transition. But, obviously, prices aren't going to come down until we demonstrate that what is lost in price can be made up for in volume.

???Author: I am assuming you have written permission from Dorcey to reporduce this. Please send us a copy of his signed permission form. -dean

***End Sidebar***

The capacity of the Internet will have to increase just to keep up with the masses who are joining online services in droves. It'll have to increase to provide audio to the masses (as the RealAudio technology is doing today). It'll have to increase to allow for the greater bandwidth needs of color videoconferencing, more simultaneous users, and new interaction patters that we've not yet seen.

The technology CU-SeeMe uses to send information was never designed for such uses. EUNet, the European Internet backbone provider, summed up the ways that this technology (called UDP) stresses the networks:

???Author: Why is it called UDP? What does it stand for? -dean

***Begin Sidebar***

???Author, Please provide a name to attribute this quote; if it's from some docs--any published form--please get permission to reproduce it here. -fran

[Videoconferencing] applications, due to their unique requirements for a constant and [large] traffic stream, do not use the normal management layers of the Internet Protocol, i.e. TCP, and therefore have a very detrimental effect on other traffic - they are able to totally "hog" links, no matter how large the link size. This has a very disruptive effect on the network performance as seen by other users, and can upset networks at any or many links worldwide between the two or more communicating application end-users.

[The use of UDP to transmit high-volume real-time videoconferencing] violates the fundamental design of the Internet, which is largely based on TCP (advanced, highly adaptive, robust, flow control) for high volume, and UDP (simple, crude, unreliable, no flow control) for single, occasional datagrams.

Applications that need high volume, real-time traffic currently have no option other than to use UDP. [The] result can be, and usually is, devastating for TCP-based traffic. When a TCP connection detects packet loss, it immediately backs off. In the presence of high volume UDP traffic, the ensuing packet loss will cause TCP connections to slow down to a crawl. ...When TCP traffic is high on a link, all connections "back-off" thus sharing equally the available bandwidth. UDP however, does not back-off in this controlled manner, but will take all available bandwidth.

***End Sidebar***

???Author: I think you need a sentence or two here that grounds this sidebar by your explination of what it means...does EUNet want to ban UDP apps? Are there steps to rectify this conflict? I would suggest that you do the same with Dick Cogger's sidebar that follows. I'd like to see more of your writing to give your opinion of what is being stated in the sidebars. -dean

The CU-SeeMe's Development Team has been involved in making CU-SeeMe a friendlier technology right from the beginning.

***Begin Sidebar***

Dick Cogger explained what network communication software changes are desired:

???Author, I'm trying to anticipate the look of these quote-filled sidebars and work the set-up text before the quote, but still in the sidebar. I need permission for all these, and also citations for previously published material. As the author, you are responsible for the accurate representation and permission of quoted material; please see to all the details. -fran

Tim and I spent some time talking about this. Probably the real issue is that the [programmer's interface] to TCP doesn't give any info about what's happening on the connection (network level virtual circuit). With real-time stuff, the sender needs to delay capturing a frame until bandwidth exists to send it end-to-end with minimal delay. This paradigm requires that the send-routines (or better, the bandwidth manager) call the data-creation routines (frame grabber) when bandwidth is available. The typical TCP implementation works the other way: a data source sends until blocked and then waits. Whatever happens on the network is invisible to the app otherwise - any delay is only reflected when the send buffers are full (of what will soon be old data).

A TCP that didn't do retransmission, had a [programmer's interface] that provided callbacks when new data could be accepted and let the application control packet boundaries, etc., could be a good idea for some of the stuff we do in conferencing.

***End Sidebar***

Network Cost

Arthur C. Clarke, futurist extraordinaire, predicted in his book 2001: A Space Odyssey that all telephone calls would become local calls by the turn of the millenieum. It's already true on the Internet. Ironically, just as the telephone companies are moving to fulfill Clarke's prediction, the main Internet network providers are working towards metered usage, charging customers per bit sent over the networks (and perhaps for the distance the bit travels as well).

Dick Cogger, in a discussion about these issues, said "...traffic-sensitive and distance-sensitve pricing are obsolete. We now have the technology to cover the globe with enough photonic pathways to carry everything anyone will have to send. Keeping track will cost more than giving it away. The size of the access pipe is the reasonable metric on which to price."

Dick later asked "what do you think the lower limit [to the per-bit price] is when non-telephony folks get into stringing fiber?" The entre of cable television companies into the networking fray, what with their plans of two-way high-bandwidth connections to each set-top box, sets the stage for a frenzied price war. Hopefully the end-user will win with cheap, robust network connectivity to every place you want to call.

Video and Audio Technology

Network issues aside (most of us believe that the network will grow to meet the demand), CU-SeeMe has in part spurred the growth of other video and audio technology and made the creation and sale of communications software a viable venture.

Because CU-SeeMe has become almost commonplace, small companies such as Electric Magic (NetPhone) and large ones such as Apple Computer (QuickTime Conferencing) have brought telecommunications to market. Some of the technological advances include color videoconferencing, a multitude of audio encoding schemes for slower computers, and in the case of Philip Zimmermann, Will Price, and Chris Hall, encrypted audioconferencing via PGPfone.

??Author, Because I haven't been able to read these chapters in sequential order, to date, have the gentlemen in the last sentence, preceding paragraph, been identified? It might help to add more to jog the memory of the reader, anyway. Thanks. -fran

The growth of videoconferencing has spurred new hardware as well. Connectix is bringing a QuickCam for Intel-based computers to market, and is speaking about a color QuickCam as well. The price of 28.8 kbps modems keeps dropping, as does ISDN hardware. Computer manufacturers are releasing all-in-one audio-visual computers (Apple for the last several years, Intel-based manufacturers started this year), and it may be only a few more years until on-board digital cameras are de rigeur.

The Cultural Path

Even more sweeping than the upcoming technological changes are the cultural and psychological changes that we users of the net are undergoing.

The availability of inexpensive digital videocameras, combined with inexpensive Internet connections for the end user (here in San Francisco we can get unmetered 28.8 kbps Internet access for $9 (US) per month), have shrunk the world even more. Time zones, rather than distance or expense, are now foremost on our minds. For several years I've maintained several acquaintances (and several new friendships) soley by CU-SeeMe. The fact that one video-pal lives eighteen time-zones away is the major impediment to our conversations ("is my morning his yesterday afternoon?").

Figure 10.1

???Author, Hmmm, I'm not clued-in to what this figure should be (the map of the world? This is something I can't resolve (unless I start cutting figures that have no reference or caption). -fran

While it may be premature to claim that CU-SeeMe heralds the demise of the telephone system, it's certainly having an impact. AT&T is once again hawking its videophone technology, and cable companies are betting they can perform an end run around the entrenched Internet infrastructure. It's difficult to imagine the results of an all-out price war once there are competing high-bandwidth fiber optic networks across the USA. We'll find out in a few years; several cities are already wired by cable companies as part of a pilot project.

???Author, How does the current multi-wave broadcasting issues tie in to this discussion, if at all? How would alotting air space favor certain technologies? -fran

Businesses will most likely comprise the next great wave of consumers of CU-SeeMe and other videoconferencing technology. Internet access is becomming ubiquitous in the business world, and the advantages of face-to-face conferencing are too great to be ignored when careers and pet projects are on the line. Networking consultants will see a great rise in demand for the ability to install CU-SeeMe into a business setting and to train the workforce in its use; the number of such requests that I get increases with every passing month.

???Author, What are those numbers? Please quantify the requests you receive, and who it is that does the requesting. -fran

Considerations of the cultural changes brought on by videoconferencing would be woefully incomplete without mention of one of our strongest drives: sex. Just as earlier technologies have been embraced by sexually-oriented marketplaces (the exploding growth of phone sex over the years, sexually explicit digital images becomming the largest component of USENET newsgroups) videoconferencing has spawned an ever-increasing number of video-sex services.

People and couples are increasingly advertising for sexually explicit point-to-point CU-SeeMe conferences; the Internet Relay Chat CU-SeeMe channel exists soley for scheduling such meetings between consenting groups. (The nature of videoconferencing stops under-age, would-be participants from impersonating adults.) To answer the now-famous New Yorker cartoon: soon it will be possible to tell that you're a dog on the Internet.

Sexually explicit digital movies are beginning to show up on the USENET alt.binaries newsgroups. The image at right is taken from first such offering brought to my attention. Offerings on USENET are free; teasers of for-cost video have already come, and several full-blown (pun unintended) live video-sex services have sprung (pun unintended) into being.

???Author, FYI, we cut the figure of the "shower cam" shot, although I'd love to have it to include in my publication of "Epitomes of the Objectification of Women" book, under the section, "Of course it's OK to include the faceless, flawless frontal--it's a woman, right." -fh

Last Words

The future of CU-SeeMe (and videoconferencing in general) will be much less tawdry. In the few years that CU-SeeMe has been available, we've seen inspiring organized educational uses and ad-hoc cultural exchanges of desktop video surfers worldwide. As more and more people are connected to the Internet, and as inexpensive video hardware becomes available for Windows, I suspect we'll see more of the best (and worst) of humanity. It'll be an adventure.

CU there.