What is the MediaTone™ Network?
The MediaTone™ Network is a
private global network, created with a carrier-class information-switching architecture. During an online meeting, the WebEx service in use, for example
Meeting Center, manages the session data that the MediaTone™ Network carries. The Internet provides only the "first mile / last mile" connection to a WebEx online meeting. Once the connection is made, the MediaTone™ Network manages the synchronous real-time interaction that makes up a WebEx online meeting.
The Internet is designed to be many things but it cannot offer a guaranteed path between host and presenter. Instead, public routers look for "a path" to route data. often fragmenting the data and sending different packets along different routes, then reassembling it. This is perfectly acceptable for many online uses, but not for real-time collaborative services. There are both performance issues and security issues to this "best effort" level of service.
In contrast, the WebEx MediaTone™ Network was designed specifically
for large-scale real-time web collaboration. This robust private network
gives you superior performance, enterprise-grade security,
and always-available "dial-tone" reliability
as it delivers your global multimedia web communications.
A series of secure data centers are located strategically around the world near major Internet access points. Meeting data is routed between the data centers on dedicated high-bandwidth fiber. Latency and interruptions are eliminated, even when meeting participants are scattered around the globe.
Our real-time switched network gives you the performance you need and eliminates data security issues. Meeting data does not stop anywhere between host and attendees, where traces of it might be left behind. Images and documents are compressed and encrypted prior to leaving the host computer and then sent out through the MediaTone™ Network. Nothing is stored on intermediate servers. This reduces latency, minimizes transport time, and removes the threat of data theft. In addition, this distributed architecture prevents any single point of failure and gives you seamless and transparent fail-over so your meetings have enterprise-grade reliability.
When you share a document during a meeting, the WebEx Universal Communications Format (UCF), utilized by all WebEx services, analyzes the document and intelligently compresses it before sending it to your meeting attendees. When you make a change to that document, only the affected data is sent to your meeting attendees, optimizing session response time and therefore user experience.
Voice and data synchronization is crucial to delivering real-time collaboration. You don't need to stop talking and wait for everyone's monitor to "catch up" with yours. Carry on your conversation and your updates as if you were all in the same room, talking across the table and looking at the same screen. WebEx preserves interactivity so while you explain, your participants see what you are presenting. This is essential for demonstrating software applications or showing a complex animation. Our distributed architecture is instantly scalable, letting us efficiently manage the heavy traffic during business hours around the world so your meetings will run smoothly even during peak usage times. We typically operate at 50% capacity to easily accommodate any seasonal peaks in customer usage.
If you're not sure which WebEx service best suits your
needs, our solutions overview
will help you get started. Sign up for a WebEx Test Drive or read some of our whitepapers
to see how it all works. You'll soon see why WebEx is the premier online
meeting provider.
Technology at a Glance
MediaTone™ white paper
Contact a Solution Specialist
MediaTone™ Network
