plications). Likewise, the audio portion may include discussions between meeting participants, but may include any form of digitized audio that is relevant to the discourse. Video and audio generally share the same communication path, but may also follow separate paths. Rather than anticipate every video communication possibility, we offer this concise definition: interactive multimedia communication. Video communications bring together multiple persons or multiple groups into single multi-site meetings. They link two people through dissimilar computers, videophones (wired or unwired), or other communications-enabled devices. Video Video Communications: The Whole Picture communications occur as point-to-point and multipoint events. Point-to-point videoconferences link participants in two sites; multipoint arrangements link more than two sites. The device that links three or more locations in a single conference is a multipoint control unit (MCU). Initially, video communication consisted solely as group-system point-to-point or multipoint conferencing. However, the Internet and inexpensive (or free) software changed enabled personal conferencing. Early Internet-based video communication was little more than a novelty. However, business quality video communication was possible over the robust local area networks (LAN) that linked workstations to file- and application-servers; they also permitted connections to robust corporate wide area networks (WAN). With the networking infrastructure in place, video communication began transforming classic notions of teamwork and workplace. By merging interactive voice, video, and data onto a single network organizations foster rich collaboration. At first, this collaboration could happen only within an organization or between organizations that standardized on hardware, software, and network architecture. However, widely-accepted standards and the Internet have overcome this limitation to make video communication nearly as easy as making a conventional telephone call. Standards