). Standards surrounding how the audio and video would be compressed, how the endpoints would communicate with each other, and how the video streams would travel over the network eventually evolved, but systems were not fully interoperable at the start. However, as technology in communications emerged, standards were eventually implemented.
             Although there are multiple standards relating to videoconferencing, the two "umbrella" standards include H.320 and H.323. H.320 is the ITU standard for videoconferencing over ISDN and fractional T1 lines. This is the earlier of the two standards and currently the most commonly used (2). The newcomer is H.323. It is creating quite a buzz in the market as it is the ITU standard for videoconferencing over IP, or the Internet (3). More and more videoconferencing vendors are concentrating their products on this standard because of a growing demand by the business community. Businesses want to be able to use their already established networks to conduct their videoconferencing on. Why? Because there is an overall notion that it is "free".
             H.320 systems require a dedicated, leased network that is usually paid for separately, like a long distance phone bill. Most businesses want to cut this cost and be able to use their current IP networks. However, there are hurdles that have to be jumped to successfully achieve this. The major complication is that video is a bandwidth "hog". If the IP network to be used is not relatively free of congestion, the video calls will either be unsuccessful or of very poor quality. There are many solutions to this problem, however most of them are costly, which takes away from the whole idea of H.323 as being "free".
             Another incentive for moving to IP networks is the recent appreciation of desktop videoconferencing. This enables individuals to hold meeting and communicate right from the computers at th...