Tata extends public telepresence footprint to Japan

31st January 2011
Tata extends public telepresence footprint to Japan

Tata Communications has brought public pay-as-you-use virtual meeting technology to Japan this week, consolidating its position as one of the most preferred and widely networked providers of the high definition video communications and conferencing technologies known as telepresence. Located in Central Tokyo, the public Telepresence room launched by Westin – part of the international hotel chain -- will link to the wider Tata Communications Telepresence network via the Tata Communications Global Meeting Exchange. The Westin Tokyo is the first hotel in Japan to introduce on-demand, public telepresence in Japan.
Harnessing Cisco’s telepresence technology and its own Tata Global Network which includes one of largest submarine cable networks, a Tier-1 IP network, with connectivity to more than 200 countries across 400 points of presence, Tata Communications currently has the largest global network of public Telepresence rooms across five continents covering the USA, Canada, the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, India, The Philippines, Singapore and Australia.
Telepresence provides life-like, high-definition, conferencing facilities with superior audio and video, allowing participants to meet their colleagues, customers and business partners across a virtual table. Participants in Telepresence meetings will feel that they are in the same room together regardless of where they are individually located in the world. This creates the potential to improve business interaction through better and more frequent meetings and results in stronger customer relationships and accelerated sales cycles, delivering improved project management and tighter integration of remote offices. The Tata Exchange enables meetings to take place between any private or public room on its network; as well as rooms on the networks of Tata Communications' Intercarrier-Exchange partners, BT and Telefonica, and the National Lambda Rail network, which links leading U.S.A. universities.

" We currently offer the widest reach for Global business-to-business meetings and range of connections, making Telepresence a truly global collaboration tool," says Peter Quinlan, Vice President, Telepresence Managed Services, Tata Communications.

The new Telepresence suite is part of a year-long partnership between Starwood Hotels and Tata Communications which covers custom-built Telepresence rooms in a number of the group's global properties.

Starwood unveiled its first in-hotel Telepresence meeting suites in early 2010 at The Sheraton Toronto, W. Chicago City Center and the Sheraton on the Park Sydney. These launches were then followed by the Sheraton Kuwait Hotel & Towers, The Sheraton New York Hotels & Towers, The Westin Los Angeles Airport, The Westin Georgetown-DC, Le Meridien Etoile Paris, Le Meridien Brussels, Le Meridien Munich, The Le Meridien Parkhotel Frankfurt, The Westin San Francis and The Sheraton Dallas Hotel.

"The partnership with Tata Communications is testimony to the innovations that Starwood Hotels & Resorts is pursuing for our global guests' needs." says Andreas Trauttmansdorff General Manager, The Westin Tokyo.

"We are seeing an increasing demand to incorporate technology, virtual meetings and social media into our hotel's meeting offerings. We are thrilled to now have a Telepresence room. Our hotel's current meeting and conference facilities have been highly awarded over the years and this new addition will undoubtedly continue to position us as the corporate hotel of choice."

The public room facility offers users who do not have Telepresence rooms within their company, access to this cutting-edge technology at an affordable hourly rate.

In mid-2008, Tata Communications was the first company to offer telepresence public rooms that could be hired on an hourly basis

In June 2010, Tata Communications and Rendezvous Hospitality Group (RHG)  jointly opened Singapore’s first public telepresence room.

In December 2010, Middle East Telecom leader Etisalat launched UAE's first Public TelePresence room in collaboration with Tata Communications and Cisco.

Pl see for a  few days only, our video on this page  describing the Tata telepresence solution.

www.tatatelepresence.com

Telepresence tech overview  from Cisco: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns669/networking_solutions_solution_segment_home.html

Feb 1 2011