Cisco talks up intercompany Telepresence

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 10 September 2009 08:28

IT Industry - Strategy

Cisco says there are now eight major carriers offering intercompany telepresence services enabling their combined total of 350 Telepresence customers in 150 countries to set up high definition videoconferences with each other, and that intercompany Telepresence traffic is growing at 35 percent per month.

According to Cisco, AT&T, BT, Orange, NTT, Tata Communications, Telefónica, Telstra, and most recently Telmex, have announced commercial intercompany Cisco TelePresence services. "[These] eight global carriers...cover more than 150 countries in five continents [and] approximately nine million corporate employees have intercompany corporate access to be able to connect across different corporate networks... more than a quarter of the Fortune 100 businesses [have used intercompany Cisco Telepresence]."

Cisco has also expanded the Telepresence product range with a new single-screen, single-camera endpoint for up to two people in a multipurpose conference room. The Cisco TelePresence System 1100 uses the same industrial design as the Cisco TelePresence System 1300 Series, "providing a slim, attractive footprint that enables organisations to roll out the benefits of the Cisco TelePresence in-person experience to any conference room," according to Cisco. Cisco says it can be deployed in branch offices or other areas where deployment over a T-1/E-1 or broadband Internet connection is suitable.

In total Cisco claims to have more than 350 customers for Telepresence and 2,500 systems deployed worldwide, in addition to more than 600 TelePresence rooms on its own internal network.