The trial interconnection agreement will see Telstra’s worldwide network of Cisco TelePresence customers connect to Tata Communications’ Global Meeting Exchange, which offers private and public telepresence services across 31 cities worldwide.
The agreement is designed to help meet the growing global demand for telepresence; a high-definition video conferencing service that aims to provide a virtual simulation of meeting rooms. “Telepresence is an increasingly popular way to conduct global business meetings because of the time, cost and environmental efficiencies it delivers,” said Philip Jones, executive director of Telstra Innovation, Products and Marketing.
“The productivity benefits of video conferencing can be felt throughout the business by improved communications between customers, partners and colleagues,” he added.
Telstra customers wishing to organise a telepresence meeting will be provided with instructions on how to reach their conference on Tata’s Global Meeting Exchange platform, with further assistance available via a local Telstra service desk number provided in each region.
“The agreement with Telstra further demonstrates our commitment to drive telepresence as a tool for true global collaboration where customers can connect with each other regardless of service provider or network,” said Peter Quinlan, VP of integrated business video services at Tata Communications.
Telepresence has the potential to offer the business world huge savings in travel time and cost by offering a far more environmentally sustainable form of conducting business meetings. Technical complexity and cost has historically stunted widespread adoption of the technology, but this appears to be beginning to change.
According to the research firm Infonetics, revenue from enterprise video conferencing and telepresence systems is predicted to double to $5 billion by 2015 (click here), with revenue from the market growing 18% in 2010 to $2.2 billion.
Evidence of collaboration between carriers to supply networks capable of supporting the service is also growing, highlighted by this latest development between Telstra and Tata, as well as a similar collaboration between AT&T and BT earlier this year (click here).
