Published by Mike Kisch under Travel

Have you ever participated in a videoconference and thought it was a poor substitute for the real thing? Weird time delays. Fuzzy images. Herky-jerky motion. And for all that poor quality, it was complicated and took forever to set up.

This is about to change. You can scratch the term videoconference; we now have something much better. It’s called TelePresence.

If the name sounds a little futuristic, you’re right, because while it’s already a reality in the business world, telepresence is still at the “coming soon” stage for consumers. But listen up, as it may happen sooner than you think.

Before we go any further, I should disclose that, in addition to writing for Green By Design, I work for Cisco Systems on consumer technology products. While this is not intended to be a Cisco promotion, I reference the company’s technology so as to highlight ways in which we can reduce our environmental impact.

While one focus of the green movement is to reduce the carbon emissions of cars, buses and planes, I’m more interested in the parallel solutions that use technology to reduce our need for travel in the first place. Whether you drive a gas-guzzling SUV or a fuel-sipping hybrid, they both emit greenhouse gases. And while one car is clearly worse than the other, the fundamental reality still applies to both types. So let’s cast a wider net: let’s work on transformative solutions that have the potential to reduce the number of cars on the road and the number of miles driven and flown.

Of course, finding a legitimate substitute to conventional travel is critical to the long-term solution—one that allows us to engage comfortably in face-to-face interactions with business associates, friends, and family. Until recently it was just not possible to replicate this in-person experience by electronic means. Teleconferencing, with all its flaws, was the closest we could get.

In the past two years, however, the increased availability of affordable broadband communications, combined with increasingly higher upstream/downstream bandwidth, is making it possible to simulate face-to-face interactions through the use of high-definition, real-time video.

One such technology that I believe shows great promise in reducing the environmental impact of travel is a new breed called TelePresence. While it may sound like it’s straight from The Jetsons or Star Trek, TelePresence is very real. Large companies already are using it to reduce travel costs, improve employee productivity, and lower their environmental footprint.

TelePresence simulates an in-person experience even when the two parties are half a world apart. The basic set-up for business users comprises an array of three 65” high-definition monitors that can accommodate up to 18 people per room, located in as many as nine separate sites. Combined with synchronized surround sound and a real-time network, participants feel as though they are in the same room as the people at the other end of the internet pipe.

For most people, the first five minutes feel a little like an out-of-body experience. But this resolves after while, and you and your partners forget that you’re not actually face-to-face. Because the screens are so large and the images so vibrant, the frame melts away.

As the world’s largest user of TelePresence, Cisco has reduced company travel by 20%, and the technology is employed ten times as much as traditional video conferencing ever was. The Cisco meeting rooms set up for TelePresence are booked 65-70% of the time, up from 5% in the days when the rooms were programmed for conventional video conferencing, a more complicated and lower-quality procedure.

This is all part of Cisco’s larger goal to reduce overall carbon emissions by 25% in the next four years. Over the course of a typical day, I meet via TelePresence with colleagues, customers, and vendors across the globe and feel as effective in my interaction as though I were in the same room with them. Last December, my family participated in Cisco’s annual Home for the Holidays program, which now facilitates employees’ connecting with family members using TelePresence. My one-year-old daughter Ava read a book with her grandparents who were 3,000 miles away, and it felt so natural, down to the last goo-goo, gaa-gaa.

Of course, the current limitation of TelePresence is that it’s accessible only to corporate customers who can afford the equipment and who have dedicated bandwidth to insure a high-quality experience. While there is a less expensive single-screen option available that provides a similar experience for a smaller group of people, it’s still out of reach for the typical family budget.

However, that will change rapidly while the technology speeds up and costs come down according to Moore’s Law, making TelePresence a reality for consumers. Within the next several years I predict that consumers will be able to have in-person chats with geographically distant friends and family; access experts in the fields of law, medicine, and finance; and engage in distance learning—all from the comfort of their own living room couches.

Pretty soon, TelePresence will be for more than George and Jane Jetson.