tkt8763-01: Teleconference Info

["Tim Croft" <tdc4@ArmyROTC.MsState.edu>]

Hey Ya'll,

I just wanted to give ya'll a brief and somewhat weak account of what happened with the Teleconference that Dr. A invited us to last Thursday.
Mary Glenn can add some to hopefully tie my lose ends.....

Mary Glenn, myself and Dr. A along with a couple of Non-Sipers (haha) sat in on the Videoconference from Jackson.  The discussion centered around new technology that might become available to schools in Mississippi using Satellite access for the Internet.
It was a company based out of Washington D.C.  They were trying to sell the satellite access to the State Dept. for use with the schools.  Their educational program was called, I believe SAMS(Satellite Access for Schools).  Here is where it got kinda of grey, when they started to talk technicalities.
They would install a satellite dish on your building which could supply up to 250 concurrent users.  The satellite could move information from 500 kbps - 3 Megs.  Which sounds pretty good.

One on the shortfalls possibly was that incoming was by satellite and outgoing was by phone line.  They did not provide hookup from your dish to your computers, Please correct me If I'm wrong Dr. A or Mary Glenn.  Nor from your computer to their server which would means that all outgoing goes through the phone lines.

I guess the worst problem was that the ability to videoconference realtime was not possible.  You could record a lesson and save it on your space on the server for people to access when they wanted, but no realtime video. 

They did promise some upgrades by 1 Apr, but I can't remember the nature of them.

The cost was pretty high for my taste, but I am not sure if it was considered high for the State.  I believe $7,000 setup, and $350 a month.

Feel free to comment on your ideas.

thanks,

Tim Croft

******* TKT 8763 Seminar in Planning for Instructional Technology  *******
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