A business meeting in Research Triangle Park often creates an empty conference room.

The presenter could be lecturing from the office, from home or even a vacation getaway. The location is immaterial as long as the speaker is connected to a computer with a microphone and mini-cam. The audience could be watching from their desks, living rooms or the airport. They're set as long as they have a laptop or hand-held wireless computer.

They're linked during an online video conference, studying technical manuals or editing promotional brochures and asking questions.

It's already happening at Nortel Networks and other Triangle companies and spreading through distance-learning programs at universities. Eventually it will trickle down to the rest of us as e-mail did, experts predict.

"In order to communicate with employees in the past, it was either rent a satellite uplink or record X-number of videos and distribute them to employees worldwide," said David Stephenson, multimedia project manager at SAS, a software company in Cary. "Now they can watch it at their desk, whenever it's convenient for them."

It's another way that companies use technology to cut costs, improve productivity and standardize training.

At Nortel Networks, a telecom gear and software company with a large operation in RTP, the internal communication system was designed primarily for employees, customers and equipment resellers. But it is also a demonstration project for visiting executives and government officials.

The technology has eliminated the need for 278 satellite linkups for transcontinental meetings and training sessions, said Hugh McCullen, Nortel's director of information services. Nortel can use its 289 meeting rooms for other things. Business travel also is greatly reduced. The main issue now is coordinating time zones for virtual meetings.

In the past four years, Nortel has stored 8,000 hours of digital material -- including product updates, executives' speeches, training sessions and marketing promos -- in its archives, accessible as a Web site and as easy as launching a Google search.

Nortel coordinates the virtual aspects of its business through nine studios, two based at RTP, where digital material is coded and posted online. In RTP, a desk with dual microphones is used as a set to tape interviews for television.

The first studios were set up in 2001 in RTP, Ottawa and Miami. Other studios are in Boston, Beijing, Dallas, London and Toronto. The second RTP studio opened nine months ago to handle increased demand. RTP is one of the Canadian company's major locations, employing 2,600 people.

SAS still uses its corporate studio in Cary to record segments for marketing purposes, but the company no longer provides that service to others. SAS uses the facility full time as webcasting becomes more important for marketing and communications.

Nortel is sharing this technology with Shaw University to enhance the interactive video component of Shaw's distance learning program at its eight campuses across the state. Among the improvements, Nortel will give Shaw students access to recorded lectures online and let them watch on a wireless device.

"It's like a virtual classroom -- totally dynamic," said Martel Perry, Shaw's executive vice president. "We don't have a bunch of video servers sitting around where you can do on-demand classes."