a Data, but it is better known by its ITU-T Recommendation number, T.120. T.120 is an umbrella standard or applications template. Among other things, it specifies how multipoint audiographics conferences can be set up and managed, and how binary file transfers should occur. At the same time that the ITU's H.324 standard for videoconferencing over POTS was completed, yet another personal conferencing standard was completed. The H.323 standard set to define how videoconferencing systems communicate over local An Introduction to Video Communications area networks (LANs) to integrate real-time voice, data, and video into networked devices such as PCs, workstations, and video-enabled telephones. Complementary standards include H.321, a standard for videoconferencing over fast-packet Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks, H.322, a standard for videoconferencing over LANs that can guarantee the low latency (minimal time delays) required for moving frames of video in rapid succession. Clearly, the ITU, always the most prescient of organizations, envisioned desktop video communication as a very strong market. The standards that support the H.321, H.322, H.323, and H.324 umbrellas show a great deal of commonality. This commonality has led, and will continue to lead, to interoperability between systems that connect to diverse networks, including LANs, the Internet, telephone lines, and super-fast ATM-based networks. THE MARKET FOR VIDEO COMMUNICATION The developed world's omnipresent Internet fascination has both swelled the market for and changed the face of video communication. Internet-based video communication makes possible application sharing and whiteboarding, and store- and-forward video communications and combinations thereof. The time when videoconferencing was a series of technologies that were looking for applications, and when these applications were disconnected, has passed. In his speech, "The Future of Collaboration on the Net," Dr. Norm Gaut (at the time, chair of PictureTel Corporation) stated that thr