An alternative to LAN is simply a big timesharing system with terminals for all users. give 2 advantages of a client server system using LAN?

A method of and system for conferencing a plurality of clients over a local or wide area network using multicasting where the conferencing function is distributed between a server and the clients. The invention takes advantage of certain capabilities of existing client equipment and multicasting capabilities of the server to distribute the conference function between the server and the clients in a conference call over a LAN/WAN in a way that reduces network congestion and protocol complexity. The system of the present invention for providing conferencing over a local or wide area network, includes: a plurality of clients connected to the network for transmitting signals to and receiving signals from the network; and a server connected to the network for receiving a plurality of signals transmitted from the plurality of clients, mixing the received signals to create a single multicast signal, and transmitting the multicast signal to each of the clients. Each of the plurality of received signals is made up of data packets of a defined length. The server includes: a jitter buffer for synchronizing the data packets received from the plurality of clients; an adjustable gain/loss controller for applying adjustable gain/loss to the synchronized data packets--according to speech activity and average level at each client signal; a mixer for mixing the data packets of the plurality of signals to create the single multicast signal for transmission to each of the clients. An individual client receiving the multicast signal transmitted from the server includes an echo controller for estimating and removing, from the multicast signal, a signal component corresponding to a signal transmitted from that client. With the rapid development of the internet in recent years in conjunction with the TCP/IP transmission protocol and the latest version of the hypertext (HTML) facilities, new possibilities have come into existence for the use of the network for remote control of experiments in research labs and other practical systems. Using graphical software languages client-server systems can be easily designed. Client-server systems have some general advantages when compared with remote-access systems (RAS) or proprietary (single-solution) systems. The disadvantage of http-based client-systems is the need for a minimum stable transmission rate of 7 kbyte/second. Router, hub and switcher technologies reduce the effective transmission rate of high speed Internet connections. In recent years gateway systems for remote control have become available for most measurement and instrumentation bus systems and this effectively allows direct access via LAN/Internet with a minimum of transfer data-rates needed for control BHUSHAN PURANIK