The Bonch-Bruevich Saint Petersburg State University of Telecommunications (SPbSUT) and the Association of Internet of Things Market Participants have published the results of an independent study into the quality of video conferencing services available in the Russian market. First place among domestic platforms was awarded to DION developed by Innotech, a leading provider of innovative solutions for fintech and business digitalisation.
Experts evaluated both Russian and Western systems such as DION, TrueConf, Webinar meetings, Zoom, Cisco WebEx, and Microsoft Teams. The results showed that DION ranks first among domestic services for aggregated parameters, and third among all study participants. DION ensured high-quality communications even when the Internet connection was unstable. Users noted a positive experience while working with the platform: it was easy to find it in mobile application stores, install it, and log in.
The Russian market is experiencing a rapid increase in the popularity of video conferencing services, as well as a trend of searching for import-independent solutions. The researchers aimed to identify the best platforms in terms of user experience, and to develop a practical methodology for assessing video conferencing solutions, since today, there is no universal system to test them.
Over the course of the study, SPbSUT studied and tested the parameters of audio and video traffic and assessed reliability, stability, and fault-tolerance. To create test cases, the “domain testing” technique was used, allowing the simultaneous evaluation and verification of multiple variables. When comparing performance between services, the team used the Hurst parameter for data streams from different video conferencing platforms. Researchers developed their own methodology by studying the properties of video stream traffic.
“VTB Bank became one of the first users of DION: we have been holding on-line meetings with this service for over a year. This platform has opened up many opportunities for us to provide corporate security, and allowed us to take a step closer towards technology sovereignty. VTB is always ready to take part in testing innovative technologies together with our technology partners. The first such case was Pilot Project of Post-Quantum Channel Encryption for VCS successfully presented at the Ural Forum on Cybersecurity,” states Sergey Bezbogov, VTB Senior Vice President.
“In the current conditions, we, as the largest media holding in the country, must have reliable and convenient domestic IT solutions at our disposal. We have tested several Russian VCS platforms in the search for a suitable video conferencing service. It was important to us that the system be simple and clear to use, and that it possessed a stable connection. Our choice was DION – the quality and functionality of this service meets all of our requirements. We hope that our partnership with Innotech, the DION developer, will be long-lasting and fruitful,” says Alexey Kazakov, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Russia24 TV channel.
“We are grateful to our colleagues for their research, and we are proud of the fact that our video conferencing service has been highly rated by the community. Under the tightest possible deadlines, we managed to develop a popular product that is successful at solving customer problems and is a serious competitor to its leading Western analogues. Today, DION is used by the largest Russian companies. The Innotech team continues to develop and scale DION: we have already started piloting post-quantum encryption technologies, providing protection of the communications between the client and server,” comments Dmitry Kharitonov, CEO of Innotech.
The full text of the study can be found here.
Innotech presented DION for the first time at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2022. DION is a video conferencing service with hybrid cloud infrastructure. Today, its users include leading banks, television, and IT companies. The platform ensures data security and confidentiality. Only Russian technologies were used in the development of DION. Therefore, this solution is import-independent. One of DION’s important advantages is its unlimited geography — the solution guarantees stable connection from anywhere in the world. Up to 1000 participants can simultaneously attend a video-conferencing meeting. Over 50,000 people use the service on a weekly basis.