Videoconferencing is a power communications medium whereby sites thousands of miles apart can meet as clearly as if they were in the same room. In Russia, where the time and cost of frequent travel can limit many joint efforts, videoconferencing makes possible regular and affordable face-to-face communications. Videoconferencing is also being used in an increasing number of distance education and training projects.
From videoconferencing sites worldwide, US-Moscow videoconferencing is as easy as a telephone call. Sites dial up to Brown and are patched directly through satellite to our Moscow studio located at the Institute for Space Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences. If you do not yet have videoconferencing facilities, arrangements can be made from one of hundreds of public videoconferencing rooms found throughout the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia.
Currently "on-air" six hours a week, the cost for US-Russian Teleconferencing is $550 per hour, inclusive. We soon hope to move to a full-time segment, however, which will reduce costs for all users. To this end, we are seeking to identify groups interested in sharing this bandwidth on a regular basis. If we move to a full-time segment, Brown's link might also be used for Internet and other full-time data communications.
For more information, contact the US-Russian Teleconferencing Program at Brown; (401) 863-7304, or via Internet: Sarah_Lum@Brown.edu.