Nine major telcos, including Telstra, have joined forces to form the Global Meeting Alliance, dedicated to facilitating video communications between customers on their respective networks.

American Express Business Travel has launched a telepresence advisory service designed to help its customers avail themselves of publicly accessible Cisco TelePresence facilities around the world.

With the profit margins for selling travel becoming leaner and leaner, travel-related organisations are seeking alternate, more profitable revenue streams.

Tata Communications is now providing  international capacity to and from Australia via Pipe Networks' newly-opened PPC-1 cable system which interconnects with Tata's global submarine cable network in Guam.

gotalk says it has launched a national campaign to promote its new mobile service to the estimated 5.5 million people in Australia who were born or have at least one parent born overseas – a sector it claims has been neglected by the major mobile carriers.  

An Australian company – ContentKeeper Technologies - has beaten the Indians on their home patch, winning a major deal with Indian services giant, Tata Communications.

One area of telecoms that does not seem to have been hit by the world's financial troubles is the global networking industry, with AT&T the latest global player to announce plans for major investment in its network during 2009.