How do I know which room size category we have?

Categories follow camera distance, seating and acoustics rather than headcount alone. A huddle or focus room usually seats a handful of people close to one display, a medium meeting room seats roughly six to eleven around a table, and a boardroom seats eleven or more with a longer table and greater camera distance. The room dimensions and furniture layout decide the design more reliably than the number on the door.

Is one all-in-one video bar enough, or do we need separate components?

An all-in-one bar combining camera, microphones and speakers suits smaller rooms where everyone sits within a reasonable distance of the display. Larger and longer rooms usually need separated components — additional microphones, distributed speakers and sometimes a second camera — because a single device at the front cannot hear the far end of the table clearly or frame people well at distance.

Can the same room support Microsoft Teams and Zoom?

Many rooms are configured for one primary platform with the ability to join other services, and a BYOD connection lets a visitor run a meeting from their own laptop through the room camera, audio and display. The exact behaviour depends on the room system selected and on current platform support, so it is confirmed during design and demonstrated at handover rather than assumed.

Why does acoustics matter more than the camera?

Remote participants tolerate an average picture far better than poor audio. Hard glass walls, bare plasterboard and stone floors reflect sound and make speech harder to follow at the far end, while air-conditioning noise raises the background level the microphones must work against. Acoustic treatment, sensible microphone placement and controlled noise sources usually improve a meeting more than an upgraded camera.

What network and power provision does a meeting room need?

Rooms typically need cabled network outlets at the display, table and camera positions, with PoE where devices are powered over the network, plus power at each equipment position. Traffic for the collaboration platform should have adequate bandwidth and suitable network segmentation, which is coordinated with the client's IT team during design.

How is a room controlled day to day?

Most rooms use a table-mounted touch controller to start, join and end meetings, control volume and share content. Where the scope includes them, room booking panels, lighting and blinds can be coordinated so the required cabling, network points and control interfaces are allowed for at first fix rather than added later.

What should we prepare before requesting a room proposal?

Room dimensions, seating layout, photos or drawings, the collaboration platform you use, display preference, whether visitors need to present from their own laptops, and any room-booking or control requirement. MTT then confirms sightlines, acoustics, mounting positions, cabling and integration details on site.

Meeting room equipped with a video conferencing display, camera bar, table microphone and touch controller

Design guide · Meeting rooms

Meeting Room & Video Conferencing Design Guide for Bahrain

Hybrid meetings succeed or fail on audio clarity, camera framing and room layout. This guide from MTT — My Telecom Technology — sets out how meeting rooms are planned, equipped and handed over.

In short: a meeting room should be designed around its dimensions, seating and acoustics first, and the equipment selected afterwards. Get the camera distance, the microphone coverage and the background noise right and a modest room performs well; get them wrong and no amount of hardware rescues the experience. Platform choice, BYOD behaviour, network provision and control should all be settled before procurement, not during installation.

This guide is written for IT, facilities and workplace teams in Bahrain planning new rooms or upgrading existing ones for hybrid working. It complements the meeting room and video conferencing service page, which sets out what MTT supplies, integrates and supports.

Huddle, medium and boardroom

Room categories exist because camera distance and audio pickup change everything about the design:

Typical room categories and their design emphasis
Room type	Typical use	Design emphasis
Huddle / focus room	Small ad-hoc calls, one to a few people	Single display, short camera distance, simple all-in-one device
Medium meeting room	Scheduled team meetings around a table	Wider camera field of view, table or ceiling microphone coverage, content sharing
Boardroom	Formal meetings, longer table, external participants	Greater camera distance, distributed audio, larger or dual displays, acoustic treatment
Training or multi-purpose room	Presentations and flexible layouts	Audience and presenter coverage, flexible seating, higher audio output

Seating and sightlines

Before any equipment is chosen, check that every seated position can see the display without turning uncomfortably, and that the display is not positioned against a window that will backlight the room. The furthest seat determines readable text size on shared content; the nearest seat determines how large the display can be before it becomes uncomfortable. Where a table is longer than the room's camera can frame naturally, that is a signal to change layout or camera approach rather than accept poor framing.

Camera framing

The camera should sit close to the display so that participants appear to be looking towards the far end when they look at the screen. Field of view has to cover the seating area from the camera's actual mounting position — a wide table in a short room needs a wider field of view than the same table in a longer room. Lighting matters as much as the lens: uneven downlighting or a bright window behind the seats will leave faces dark regardless of camera quality.

Microphone and speaker coverage

Audio design has two halves. Microphone coverage must reach every seat that will speak, which in larger rooms means additional table or ceiling microphones rather than relying on a single device at the front. Speaker coverage must deliver even level across the room without being loud at the front and inaudible at the back, and speakers should be positioned so they do not feed directly back into the microphones.

Cable routes for microphones and speakers should be agreed with the furniture and ceiling design early, because retrofitting table cabling after a room is finished is disruptive and rarely tidy — see structured cabling.

Acoustics

Glass partitions, bare walls and hard floors reflect speech and make the far end work harder to follow the conversation. Practical improvements include acoustic panels or fabric surfaces, carpet or rugs, curtains or blinds on glazing, and attention to air-conditioning noise, which raises the background level that microphones must compete with. Acoustic problems are cheaper to address during a fit-out than after handover, so they belong in the initial room assessment.

Displays

Display size is set by the distance to the furthest seat and by the type of content shown: spreadsheets and drawings need more screen than slides. Mounting height should keep the image comfortable for seated viewers, and the mount must suit the wall construction. Dual displays are useful in larger rooms where participants and shared content should be visible at the same time, provided there is wall width to place them without crowding the camera position.

Teams Rooms, Zoom Rooms and BYOD

A room is usually configured around a primary platform — commonly Microsoft Teams Rooms or Zoom Rooms — with room accounts and calendars coordinated with the client's IT team. Platform licensing and tenant administration remain with the client's chosen service.

A BYOD connection lets a visitor or an internal user run a meeting from their own laptop while still using the room camera, microphones, speakers and display. Whether a room supports one platform, a hybrid arrangement or both is confirmed during design against current platform support. MTT designs and configures the room systems it supplies, integrates and supports; compatibility is verified before the room is specified rather than promised in advance.

Network, PoE and cabling

Meeting-room devices depend on cabled network outlets at the display, table and camera positions, PoE where devices draw power over the network, and adequate switch capacity and segmentation for collaboration traffic. Cable routes should be planned with the joinery so that table connections are accessible but concealed. Where a floor is being refurbished, coordinating this with the wider network infrastructure scope avoids repeat work.

Room control and booking

Day-to-day control is normally a table-mounted touch controller for joining, sharing and volume. Room-booking panels outside the door, occupancy sensing, lighting and blinds can be integrated where those systems and their supported interfaces are part of the scope — see smart building and IoT. Simplicity is the goal: a room that needs explanation before every meeting will be avoided.

Survey checklist and proposal inputs

Room dimensions, ceiling height and table size and shape
Seating layout and the distance to the furthest seat
Photos or drawings of each room, including wall construction
Window positions, glazing and existing blinds or curtains
Lighting arrangement and any dimming control
Air-conditioning noise and vent positions
Primary collaboration platform and any secondary requirement
Whether visitors need to present from their own laptops
Display preference: single or dual, and preferred size
Existing network outlets, PoE availability and power positions
Room booking, lighting or blind integration requirements
Number of rooms in the programme and any standard to repeat

Frequently asked questions

Reviewed by the MTT Engineering Team · Published 23 September 2026

Related MTT capabilities

Meeting room & video conferencing →Audio visual systems →IP telephony & unified communications →Structured cabling →

Room performance depends on the network behind it — see the enterprise Wi-Fi and network infrastructure guide and the structured cabling specification and cost guide. For sector context see commercial buildings and offices, or get in touch.

Next step

Plan your project with MTT

Share the room dimensions, seating and platform, and MTT will review the space and prepare a room proposal.

Plan a Meeting Room →Request a Room Proposal →