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With the convergence of IP based multimedia and communications, multipoint multimedia conferencing is becoming an important form of communication. There are two major problems that have plagued multimedia conferencing. The first is a form of control needed over the conference to maintain order and data integrity. The second is to optimise the bandwidth requirement as network bandwidth generally increase proportionally to the number of participants within the conference. Both the above problems place a serious limitation on the number of conference participants. The control criteria proposed within this thesis was designed to overcome both the above problems. Based on creating a virtual meeting room, the control criteria was formulated using these two fundamental principles: The need for a control mechanism to coordinate the conference. Only one site may broadcast or make changes (collaborative document conferencing) at any one time.

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Prof. Sureswaran Ramadass is the Director of the National Advanced IPv6 Centre at Universiti Sains Malaysia. He has published over 80 research papers, 7 patents and has given numerous keynote addresses, lectures and seminars. He has written chapters and provided materials for 5 books. He was awarded the National Academic Leadership award in 2009.

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