A shaky connection may be fine for hobbyists and techies, but could be embarrassing in a business meeting. Technology changes quickly. If you buy equipment, make sure it is not going to become obsolete in the near future. Otherwise you could wind up only talking to yourself. The amount of data that can travel over an Internet connection.
More bandwidth means that higher quality and faster speeds are possible.
A piece of equipment that connects multiple videoconferencing venues together so they can talk to one another. A piece of software that compresses pictures and sound for transmission over phone lines or Internet connections. The process of squeezing down pictures and sound to conserve bandwidth. This is a necessary evil, since compressed media is a degraded form of the original. Standard broadcast TV sends 30 frames per second, but videoconferencing often transmits far fewer, depending on one's equipment.