Nebraska Vocational Rehabilitation
301 Centennial Mall South
PO Box 94987
Lincoln, NB 68509

Telephone: 402-471-3667
Web: www.vocrehab.state.ne.us

Nebraska iChat

Nebraska Vocational Rehabilitation (NVR) utilizes the iChat instant messaging technology built into Mac OS X as a cost-saving tool for communication among the 19 field office locations across NE. The iChat program can use the widely used AOL instant messaging protocol, AIM, or the universally compatible Jabber instant messaging protocol for correspondence across the Internet. Additionally, the Bonjour protocol provides secure instant messaging between client machines within the same local area network.

NVR has been using instant messaging technology on the Mac OS X platform for over three years. It is estimated that the agency is saving several thousand dollars each month on phone bills as a result. iChat for Mac OS X provides for one-to-one audio conferencing or up to 10-way audio conferencing, as well as one-to-one video conferencing or up to four-way video conferencing, all using the H.264 compression standard, also known as MPEG-4 Part 10. Furthermore, electronic files can be transferred between employees, and the next release of iChat will include a white board space.

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