Tata Comms launches Cisco TelePresence rooms for public use

MUMBAI, INDIA: Tata Communications announced the launch of its telepresence rooms available for public use in the United States and United Kingdom, linking to additional public rooms in Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai, India. The collaboration between Tata Communications and Cisco is the first managed telepresence service in the world to deliver public and private Cisco TelePresence rooms to companies globally. This new service will allow companies and individuals to use Cisco TelePresence for one-off meetings.

Tata Communications is working with Cisco, Taj Hotels owner, the Indian Hotels Company Limited, and the Confederation of India Industry (CII) to offer public telepresence facilities which are available for rent on an hourly basis. The first phase of public rooms was launched in India in July at the Taj Hotels in Mumbai and Bangalore, and CII offices in Bangalore and Chennai. Tata plans to make 100 rooms available globally by the end of 2009.

Cisco today also introduced a dedicated public Cisco TelePresence suites facility in Santa Clara, California.

Vinod Kumar, COO, Tata Communications, said: "With this innovative service offering, Tata Communications is not only adding value to its business and that of its customers, but revolutionising business altogether. This groundbreaking innovation enables our global customers to join a wider ecosystem of users via public access rooms allowing them to not only communicate virtually in real-time but providing a cost-effective and eco-friendly solution."

The public room offering creates a larger network of interconnected rooms and expands the telepresence market to small and mid-sized businesses. Tata Communications' managed service offers a professionally run concierge service that handles reservations, scheduling, customer support, monitoring, management, reporting and billing capabilities. These services provide organisations with the ease and speed to deploy and manage highly collaborative tools more effectively. The public room offering is also certified as a world class network solution, which further helps ensure high levels of reliability and availability.

Wim Elfrink, Chief Globalisation Officer, Cisco, said: "Public Cisco TelePresence rooms provide global organisations with a cost effective way to connect in virtual 'in person' meetings with key customers, partners and suppliers around the globe. Our objective was to collaborate with a company to launch a unique Cisco TelePresence solution that was innovative, yet reliable and cost effective for businesses whatever their size. Working with Tata Communications offers customers extensive coverage in a user-friendly managed service, and has the potential to help small to medium businesses develop more globalised business models. These public Cisco TelePresence rooms join a Cisco TelePresence ecosystem that almost 300 rooms internal to Cisco and more than 1,000 rooms installed by over 200 customers. Cisco TelePresence is now represented in over 60 countries worldwide."

Cisco TelePresence provides life-like, high definition, conferencing facilities with superior audio, video and environmental qualities allowing participants to meet their colleagues, customers and business partners across a virtual table. Cisco TelePresence use also contributes towards a company's environmental responsibility, enabling it to lower overall CO2 emissions by reducing the need for travel.

"It is our constant endeavour to provide state-of-the-art value-added services to our customers. With the telepresence facility, we will be one of the first hospitality companies worldwide to offer this kind of cutting edge technology. We are happy to announce that this facility will be available at Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces' properties in Mumbai, Bangalore, New York, Boston and London," said Raymond Bickson, managing director, Indian Hotels Corp. Ltd.

Tata Communications have plans to open additional rooms in Hyderabad, Gurgaon, and New York later this year, with a more extensive global rollout of 100 rooms planned to be deployed by 2009.