Picture worth 1,000 airfares

By Tom Belden
Inquirer Staff Writer

Only a few years ago, employees from Cigna Corp.'s headquarters in Philadelphia who needed to spend a few hours face-to-face with colleagues at the company's offices in Bloomfield, Conn., usually made an airline reservation, paid $600 for a ticket, and spent a full day traveling and meeting.

These days, when Cigna people need to look one another in the eye, they often do it via a video hookup in conference rooms, called TeleSuites, in each location. But this isn't a typical TV-size screen, with slow and jerky images of people. Instead, the experience of looking at the wall-size screens is so startlingly lifelike that people in both rooms instinctively reach toward them and pretend to shake hands.

When they're in the TeleSuite, "people forget there's technology involved," Nancy Hevener, a manager in Cigna's communications services division, said.

How and when to use videoconferencing, which was first introduced in the late 1980s, suddenly became a much hotter topic after Sept. 11.

Companies large and small have stepped up their use of the technology to replace routine meetings that once required travel, and some video-service providers saw business double last fall, according to observers in both the travel and conference businesses.

"Two things happened," said Andy Nilssen, senior analyst and partner with Wainhouse Research in Brookline, Mass., publisher of a communications technology newsletter. "Obviously some people don't want to fly. It's become a hassle, although that's gotten somewhat better lately. Also, the economic crunch has forced people to watch travel costs and be more productive, especially if you've had layoffs in your company."

Companies can install basic videoconferencing equipment for about $8,000 to $15,000 per room, Nilssen said.

At Cigna, videoconference facilities have been in place for a decade. Well before the terrorist attacks, the company was looking for ways to reduce the number of trips employees made between their two major offices, at Two Liberty Place in Philadelphia and in the Hartford suburb of Bloomfield.

After researching the latest innovations in videoconferencing, Cigna chose one of the pricier options on the market, spending about $200,000 for each of its two TeleSuite rooms, including construction and equipment costs. TeleSuite Corp., based in Englewood, Ohio, started the five-month construction project in August 2000.

Each suite is a room about 20-by-40 feet, with 18 seats at three curved tables, arranged like an amphitheater. The seats face a curved video screen on one wall, where viewers see the duplicate conference room, with everyone appearing life-size. The two rooms are linked from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays by a high-speed T-1 phone line that provides no delay in video and audio transmissions.

Video cameras and microphones, so unobtrusive they're almost invisible, are embedded in the ceiling and walls. Activity in the room is constantly monitored from a control center at TeleSuite headquarters in Ohio.

Cigna officials said the lifelike quality available in the TeleSuites was one of its greatest advantages. In the company's other videoconference facilities, 30-inch TV monitors are used, but the sound and pictures often are of poor quality, they said.

Linda Dykas, Cigna's corporate travel manager whose department brought the TeleSuite technology to the company's attention, said the rooms were especially popular for once-a-month staff meetings.

"This is for Cigna business," said Dykas, who talked about the technology from the Bloomfield facility with a group of people gathered in Philadelphia. "If you're seeing customers, it couldn't necessarily be used. But there are a lot of staff meetings that are two or three hours, or half a day. This helps people be home a little bit more."

One aspect of Cigna meetings that hasn't changed is planning them as far in advance as possible. The TeleSuites have become so popular, each department needs to reserve time for regularly scheduled meetings up to a year in advance, Dykas said.

Surveys of business travelers and corporate travel managers indicate that use of video and telephone conferences has grown so much in the last few years, it's one of the factors contributing to the major airlines' current financial woes.

Some corporate travel agencies, including Philadelphia's Rosenbluth International, are even encouraging clients to explore the use of videoconferencing as an alternative to making trips. At Rosenbluth's Center City headquarters, clients can see a demonstration of the TeleSuite technology and hear about the ways it can reduce travel costs. The travel agency provides the space for TeleSuite.

Ron DiLeo, Rosenbluth's senior vice president-North America, said, for instance, that Cigna employees who call to make an airline reservation for a Philadelphia-Hartford trip now are routinely told, at the direction of Cigna, if the conference rooms are available, and they are given a choice of whether they still want to make the trip.

"The conversion rate is pretty high," DiLeo said. "At Cigna, they can't get enough of this stuff." (non text portions omitted)

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