HEAnet is actively involved in promoting video conferencing in the Irish and International educational community.

A core service HEAnet offers is a centrally hosted Multipoint Controller Unit (MCU) for hosting virtual meeting rooms. This is available to all of HEAnet clients and to other National Research & Education Networks (NRENs) across Europe, on request. In 2007 HEAnet ran a tender to replace it's existing MCU and purchased a Codian 4025 HD MCU, which is capable of maintaining 40 concurrent HD Video Conference participants with an additional 40 audio participants.

On a national level HEAnet ran a project in 2009 to offer High Definition Video Conferencing endpoints to client educational institutes. The project’s aim was to promotion video conferencing use in the Irish educational community and to help institutes move High Definition IP based Video Conferencing. In total we have supplied clients with 25 HD Video Conferencing end points (Polycom 7000HDXs)

To quantify the uptake of services and units provided, we have been gathering statistical data based on the usage of the MCU. The below graph indicates the number of individual connections the MCU has received over the first 6 months of 2010. 

MCU Usage 2010

Jan/2010 - 199
Feb/2010 - 1200
Mar/2010 - 1257
Apr/2010 - 987
May/2010 - 1043
Jun/2010 - 609