Although installing a two-way video link could cost between pounds 20000 and

Although installing a two-way video link could cost between pounds 20,000 and pounds 40,000, the law firm was able to rent the equipment for pounds 150 per hour. In a case where you have five witnesses, for example, the video conference would be much cheaper and less disruptive of their executive time,” Mr Langley added.Langley & Co rented the equipment from the Broadgate Business Centre. The delay allows the video image, which is harder to compress, to arrive at the same time as the sound.”The only disadvantage is that it’s relatively expensive, although you have to compare that with the cost of shipping witnesses over. In this case, to achieve the high-quality picture and sound, three ISDN lines were used simultaneously.”I was very happy with the quality of it.

There was a slight time delay, which was a little strange, but I don’t believe it prejudiced the process of taking the evidence,” said Mr Langley. The advantage of the link was that it was contemporaneous.”The company used equipment made by the American telecoms company PictureTel. Unlike a satellite link, the equipment needs only to be hooked up to dedicated ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) telephone lines. Essentially, each ISDN “line” consists of a pair of high-speed phone lines with an extra control line.To achieve the link, the analogue signals from the video camera are transformed into digital form and compressed by a device known as a codec (compression/ decompression).

In this form the signals travel down the ISDN lines, and are then decompressed and retransformed into analogue form for television by the codec at the other end. But that would have meant that she could not be cross-examined. “She was advised by her doctors not to travel to London, so we had the choice of postponing the hearing, or going ahead without her evidence, or taking it in statement form. Dale Langley, principal of the employment lawyers Langley & Co, who decided to use the tribunal’s videolink, said it had been the best of three options because Ms Murray, who was one of the main witnesses, was pregnant.”She was due to give birth a month after the hearing, and is in any case a very busy executive,” said Mr Langley. But in general it has been considered too expensive or outlandish.But growth and competition in the telecommunications market have meant that companies are finding video conferencing can be both useful and economic.

The recent War Crimes Act included provision for such links to be used, owing to the age and fragility of many of the witnesses. That tribunal, insignificant to all but those involved, was testament to the fact that this technology, once the stuff of bad science fiction, is rapidly becoming everyday.Videolinking has been used in child abuse trials to prevent the need for face-to-face confrontation (and to avoid the pitfalls of videotaped evidence) and in some high-profile court cases. As the lawyer questioned her, a technician sat by him, fiddling with the controls of a small black box to ensure good sound and picture quality.It was the first time that video conferencing had been used in a British industrial tribunal, and one of the few times it has been used here in court. Her near-perfect image gazed out from a television screen at the end of the table, next to another screen that showed the conference room as it appeared to her. Under cross-examination she became tense, relaxed, flicked through the case documents in front of her, and after two and a half hours of questioning, looked relieved to leave.
What made her cross-examination so compelling was the fact that she was more than 3,000 miles away, in Chicago. A City employee claimed sexual harassment; her boss denied it. They sat at opposite ends of the conference table, flanked by lawyers and studiously avoiding eye contact.

All eyes, meanwhile, were on the witness, Martha Wilke Murray, the company’s vice-president. series, 12 books, Future Publishing, 130- 150pp, pounds 7.99 each.The Internet Navigator, Paul Gilster, John Wiley, 590pp, pounds 24.95.The Whole Internet, Ed Kroll, O’Reilly Associates, 543pp, pounds 18.50.OTHER RELEVANT PUBLICATIONS:Internet for Dummies Quick Reference, John Levine and Margy Young, IDG Books, 164pp, pounds 7.99.The Internet – A Complete Reference, Jarley Hahn & Rick Scott, Osborne, 816pp, pounds 21.95.The UK Internet Book, Sue Schofield, Addison Wesley, 339pp, pounds 19.95.. As industrial tribunals go, it was not unusual. Titles aimed specifically at the UK are Davey Winder’s All You Need to Know About the Internet and Sue Schofield’s excellent Net guide.All You Need to Know About the Internet, Davey Winder, Future Publishing, 324pp, pounds 14.95.Using the Internet, Bill Eager, Que, 369pp, pounds 18.99.The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Internet, Peter Kent, Alpha Books, 365pp, pounds 18.95.The Internet Direct Connect Kit, Peter John Harrison, IDG Books, 283pp, pounds 28.99.How to Use the Internet (Join the Internet Revolution Today),Mark Butler, Ziff-Davis Press, 145pp, pounds 16.49.Internet Basics (Your Online Access Guide to the Electronic Superhighway), Steve Lambert and Walt Howe, Random House,495pp, pounds 23.Internet for Mac for Dummies, Charles Seiter, IDG Books, 304pp, pounds 28.99.All You Need To Know About … To their credit the authors aren’t afraid of explaining a point, and have the scope to do just that. Published in 1993, the book needs an update.How to Use the Internet, by Mark Butler, takes an illustrative approach, which works surprisingly well, although it could use more imaginative illustrations.Future Publishing’s Guide series looks at a number of Net areas in detail.