By
Telecom Lead Team: AT&T and Orange Business Services announced their
inter-provider connectivity agreement for their telepresence service.
The
new service is available to all AT&T Telepresence Solution and Orange
Telepresence Community customers using Cisco TelePresenceendpoints.
Recently,
10 global operators – including Tata Communications in India, Safaricom in
Africa, Telstra in Australia, Etisalat, Qtel and Mobily in the Middle East,
Neotel in South Africa and Sprint, Glowpoint and TELUS in North America – have
launched the Global Meeting Alliance, an open ecosystem of telecom providers to
interconnect their respective business video communities.
10 Telecom service providers join
forces to interconnect business video communities
Customers
of the Global Meeting Alliance members now have access to an international
Telepresence network of 3rd party video endpoints, plus the largest global
public Telepresence room network consisting of 40 public Telepresence suites in
20 countries. The newly launched Alliance will simplify operation of business
video worldwide, enabling service providers to optimize their regional networks
to interconnect with a global network and conferencing infrastructure
maintained by the Global Meeting Alliance operator.
Facilitation
of real-time, virtual meetings between companies that
are connected to the AT&T Business Exchange or Orange Telepresence
Community; more efficient use of limited resources – people are meeting instead
of traveling; and decrease in travel costs; organization’s carbon footprint
reduction are the main benefits from the tie-up between AT&T and Orange.
This capability with Orange further
extends AT&T’s telepresence offer and brings the benefits of the AT&T
Business Exchange to even more global customers who understand the value of
connecting through face-to-face collaboration,” said Alan Benway, executive
director of AT&T Business Solutions.
The
benefits of telepresence increase with the number of companies that can
participate in virtual meetings, and our objective is to make it as border-free
as a phone call. We are pleased to be expanding our global video collaboration
with AT&T. We will continue to work with various partners to increase the
range of options for our customers, enabling them to take full advantage of the
business benefits of telepresence,” said Andrew McFadzen, head of International
Network Solutions at Orange Business Services.
