How much of a market is there for video conferencing on local networks? It depends on who you talk to. No sooner had the ink dried on our report last week about Dubliner Mentec Ltd’s video over local nets venture (CI No 1,897) than Martyn Rose, managing director of Almondsbury, Bristol-based Visual Access Ltd, called to say that his company had already developed similar technology, but was intending to keep quiet until the June launch of a system which, he claims will pull together video, local nets, ISDN and digital PABXs. Unlike Mentec and its UK distributor Cimcon Ltd, Rose is dubious about the market for pure local network-based video conferencing. The market, reckons Rose, wants local network access linked across ISDN bridges and it is this combined approach that his company has been following. The first fruits of his work are expected this June when Rose says that Visual Access will begin shipping a range of applications that rely on high speed communications. These include a real-time colour surveillance system developed in collaboration with ISDN specialist Gravatom; video executive information systems; groupware and facilities management packages, all of which can be tied together by a multipoint videoconferencing system. Coincidentally, Rose says that he is talking to Leighton Buzzard-based Aculab Ltd about using its inverted multiplexors to tie the whole system into primary rate ISDN (CI No 1,908). Visual Access is also in discussions, he reveals, with Ascom AG about interfacing to its new Ascatel ISDN-2 PABX.
