Status of standards for teleconferencing and multimedia communication

Video teleconferencing (VTC) is being successfully employed throughout the Department of Defense (DoD), in both strategic and tactical environments. It is also being deployed in a wide range of communication network infrastructures: mobile, circuit switched, ISDN, ATM, LAN, Internet, DCTN, and FTS2000. Fortunately commercial VTC standards are being employed in most of these applications thereby contributing to interoperability between these diverse terminals and networks. This paper reviews the status of VTC standards and some of the key applications throughout the DoD. Standards which are reviewed include H.320 (N-ISDN), H.323 (LAN and Internet), H.324 (POTS), H.324M (mobile), H.310 (B-ISDN), and T.120 (desktop collaboration).