Videoconferencing Network Expands, Doubles Int'l. Sites

<B> Videoconferencing Network Expands, Doubles Int'l. Sites</B>

By Chris Davis

In an effort to increase the international presence of its videoconferencing network, HQ Business Centers plans to expand its network by 30 rooms, including 14 at foreign locations.

HQ Business Centers now operates 60 videoconferencing rooms, seven of which are at international locations, including London, Hamburg, Pairs and Hong Kong. By next year, it plans to expand to 90 rooms, including locations in South and Central America, Canada, Spain, Indonesia and the Philippines.

"We're on every continent,'' said Sue Kivland, HQ's videoconferencing product manager. "A lot of those using our rooms are the businesses that surround our centers, so I like to go to countries where there's a lot of business density.''

The company will spend about $15,000 to $20,000 per site on videoconferencing equipment, a figure that does not include training, telephone line installation or other equipment. The company does not have a budgeted cost for the project, she said.

HQ began offering videoconferencing service in its business centers in 1996, and business has been brisk since its inception, Kivland said.

"In bookings, we're definitely getting a return on profit,'' she said. "We hold at least three to four meetings a week across (each of) the 60 centers.'' Revenue figures for the VideoAccess system weren't available, but Kivland said HQ sees "at least a 20 percent return.''

The company charges between $150 and $200 per hour to rent the videoconferencing equipment and the room.

<B>Very Small Meetings</B>

The videoconferencing rooms have varying capacities--anywhere from 12 to 50 people--but Kivland said most meetings involve about seven attendees at "small business meetings, the kind of thing that hotels don't want to do.''

Among the biggest users of videoconferencing is the legal industry, she said. "They can do depositions and tape them, so it's a lot less expensive to get specialized legal counsel to video conference than pay for them to be on a plane."

The medical and recruitment industries also are a big customer base, Kivland said. "Doctors don't want to travel to lecture, especially when going abroad. We've had a lot of business from foreign countries where a doctor may be teaching. And recruitment, which covers just about any industry, uses videoconferencing for a lot of secondary interviews. The high-tech industry also seems real comfortable with videoconferencing, especially for training.''

Each HQ videoconferencing center has a meeting planner and technical support staff on site. HQ also can connect to videoconferencing centers that are not part of its VideoAccess network.

"We can go to any corporation or other public rooms,'' Kivland said. "We will even find you a room. The network that we have is the type where I can dial up 50 different countries where we have directories of other public rooms that we have partnerships with. We have a meetings consultant that will find a room no matter where we need to go.