There’s a revolution brewing in the telephone industry. But it’s not the recent demise of AT&T or the failure of Worldcom. It’s a new, yet proven, technology that lets you talk with friends, family and loved ones over the Internet.

It’s called VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) or broadband phone, and it lets you use your ordinary home or office telephone to dial and talk to anyone using the Internet as your "channel" of communication. Instead of dialing through the Bell System copper wires, you make calls through your DSL or cable Internet access provider. No microphones or headsets. Just use your existing telephone to talk throughout North America and the world.

You may think you understand video conferencing pretty well until someone who isn’t at all familiar with it approaches you for a simple definition. When they ask, “What exactly is video conferencing?” you could suddenly realize you’re at a loss for words. 

The simplest definition of how video conferencing works is simply by the integration of video, audio and peripherals to enable two or more people to communicate simultaneously over some type of telecommunications lines. In other words, you are transmitting synchronized images and verbal communications between two or more locations in lieu of them being in the same room. How video conferencing works is a little bit harder to explain than answering the question, “What is video conferencing?”