Last week Google launched the trial of their new social networking platform, Google Plus, aiming to compete against social networking giant Facebook. Many have been skeptical about the new platform, mainly due to Google’s failed attempts at a social networking platform in recent years.
However Google have added an additional feature to their new platform, a video conferencing / chat facility called ‘Hangouts’. ‘Hangouts’ allow users to take part in a video conference with a maximum of 10 participants. This video conferencing feature has driven a lot of interest to Google Plus, particularly the multi call capability.
As interesting and exciting as the new platform is there are concerns over the video feature and the bandwidth demands for the multi call functionality. The system requirements for hangouts states the suggested bandwidth connection is 900kbps / 1800 kbps (up/down). Supporting mulitple, multi party calls at this connection speed could prove to be difficult for search giant. The user could also experience difficulty trying to achieve the bandwidth requirements.
If businesses are looking to take advantage of Google’s video conferencing feature they are likely to face difficulty with the bandwidth requirements.
For some time now video conferencing specialists have been able to provide high definition solutions at 900kbps or less (up/down), and this is unlikely to change in the near future.
