AT&T is pushing deeper into the exploding videoconferencing market, offering new service bundling options for telepresence, and new features and scheduling capabilities, which allow for greater connectivity and unification across disparate video conferencing systems
AT&T-- one of the founding members of the recently established standards body, the Open Visual Communications Consortium--says it's offering customers Cisco video equipment options from immersive to desktop units, including a fully-managed service bundle.
Additionally, AT&T says its service will enable intercompany direct dial for point-to-point conferencing between Cisco TelePresence endpoints on the AT&T Business Exchange without needing to schedule a meeting in advance; guest access over the Internet or traditional phone network with companies not on the AT&T Business Exchange, active presence regardless of the number of locations connected; the ability to schedule internal or external telepresence meetings from Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes calendars; and an industry-specific Value Case Tool which helps customer define use cases, build design and TCO scenarios, determine break-even points and project operational costs and business benefits.
"Within the next few years, global telepresence exchanges that let enterprises reach across their networks will increase the impact of, and demand for, videoconferencing solutions," said Brian Washburn, Current Analysis' research director of network services. "AT&T's telepresence solutions allow organizations to connect networks and unlock a vast number of new meeting relationships."
An Ovum report this week said the global telepresence market will see a CAGR of nearly 20 percent and revenue of $1.1 billion by 2016 as the market continues to expand dramatically.
AT&T said it has seen huge growth in the segment, with customer acceptance accelerating and continued growth from 1,281 meeting rooms in 2009 to more than 3,000 meeting rooms projected for 2011. It said AT&T customers held nearly 12 million minutes of meetings on immersive telepresence systems in the first three quarters of 2011.
The telco said it plans to intends to install more than 50 internal telepresence rooms in 2011, growing internal deployments to more than 190 rooms spanning across 20 countries.
