Telekom Malaysia firm taps AT&T to offer managed TelePresence in 80 countries

Telecom Lead Asia: VADS (VADS), a part of Telekom Malaysia (TM), has selected AT&T to offer managed TelePresence in 80 countries worldwide.

VADS managed TelePresence customers will benefit as they can interact with other companies across multiple locations worldwide minimizing travel cost and time.

The AT&T Business Exchange supports telepresence in more than 130 companies.

Several global operators are aiming for bigger market share in Telepresence market. Recently, Telefonica Global Solutions and Verizon Enterprise Solutions have formed partnership that allows Verizon Immersive Video Exchange and Telefonica Global Telepresence Exchange customers to collaborate via Cisco TelePresence.

Infonetics forecasts the overall enterprise videoconferencing and telepresence equipment market to grow to $4.7 billion worldwide by 2016.

AT&T initiatives are giving result. Carl Zeiss Group is adopting AT&T Telepresence Solution to improve global collaboration between employees, suppliers and subsidiaries around the world, across three continents.  The German company operates globally and is known for making optical products such as camera lenses, binoculars, eyeglasses, lenses and microscopes.

Last year, VADS collaborated with Cisco to build the first Telepresence Exchange (VADS-TPX) in Malaysia in line with the Government’s National Key Economic Areas (NKEAs) – Communications Content and Infrastructure. VADS-TPX core infrastructure resides in VADS Data Centre and runs on a highly secure and resilient network.

Despite challenging market conditions, Cisco leads the video conferencing market in Q2. Cisco’s telepresence and video conferencing revenue declined 17 percent in second quarter of 2012 sequentially and market share fell 5 points.

“Telepresence transforms the way business meetings are conducted around the world, reducing costs and improving productivity. It allows for more frequent meetings anytime, anywhere and with anyone you do business,” said John Slamecka, vice president of Global Wholesale and Access Management at AT&T.

VADS offers managed TelePresence service in three different ways — Private Room, Public Room and Event Based. The service is inclusive of managed service with simplified provisioning, scheduling, a 24/7 helpdesk, technical support and various types of endpoints as a bundled package.

“We are basically changing the way people communicate. People are moving from voice and text communication to fully interactive video communication. There are many video communication services in the market but they do not fulfil the business needs which include a fully immersive experience, reliability and security. With VADS TPX, we have enabled our customers to conduct business meetings with their counterparts in the region without them having to leave their respective offices,” said Ahmad Azhar Yahya, CEO of VADS.

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