17th January 2011: Telepresence is the top-of-the-range solution in visual communications; demand was strong throughout 2010 when connecting Video Exchanges of different carriers made connecting to other businesses feasible

17 January 2011. There were two significant developments in 2010 in the Telepresence industry in 2010. First, working interoperability between Telepresence systems of different vendors was achieved. Second, Telepresence systems on the networks of different telecom providers were connected when these telecom providers linked their Video Exchanges.

In 2008 and 2009, Telpresence was used mainly for video meeting within a company or an organisation. They were mostly conducted using that company’s network ot that provided by a single Telecom provider. Thanks to developments in 2010, deployments of Telepresence are no longer an island. Telepresence is used to video meet with business customers and business suppliers. Telepresence is now used extensively for B2B video meetings.

The following carriers took  some initial steps to link their Video Exchanges in 2010: AT&T, BCS Global Networks, BT, Global Crossing, Glowpoint, Orange Business Services, Tata Communications, Telefonica and Telmex. But there is still a lot of work to be done to create a complete set of links as already exists for HD videoconferencing.

More people realised how convenient it was to meet by Telepresence or HD video conferencing when dust from an erupting volcanoe in Iceland grounded most airline flights within Europe and to and from European airports in April 2010,  Once again the the technology proved that video meetings can be a strong competitor for airline travel.  

The number of Telepresence rooms installed at companies and organisations worldwide has grown from an estimated 2,000 at end 2008 and about 3,500 at end 2009 to between 5,000 and 6,000 at end 2010. Most of these rooms are for private use. The number of Telepresence rooms installed in hotels and other buildings for public rent-by-the hour use was much less than 100 rooms at the end of 2010.
 
A third major development in 2010 was that some leading travel agents included a reservation platform to arrange a Telepresence meeting on their web portals where flights and hotels can be booked. First to do so was Sabre Travel network on their Get There web site with help from Cisco. Others followed including the U.S. Government’s GSA web site and Adelman Travel with conference service provider IVCi.

When John Chambers described a day using Telepresence to replace overseas visits, one London journalist wrote: “The Cisco CEO has the world at his finger tips.” In 2010, the management of many more companies decided to use Telepresence to have the world at their finger tips. In May 2010, AT&T said they had installed 100 managed Telepresence rooms. Cases where the investment in Telepresence was shown to be paid back in 12 months added financial jusitification to win over finance directors.

By October 2010, Cisco could claim that eight customers had installed or ordered more than 50 Telepresence units. Here are the largest Telepresence networks that we described as user application stories in 2010: Accenture (50 TP systems), Autodesk (18), Bank of America (200), Bosch Siemens HausGerate (120), British American Tobacco (10), GE Energy (n.a), Marriott Hotels (25), PepsiCo (n.a.), Philips Electronics (24), Proctor and Gamble (70), Regus rented offices (15 with 50 planned), Starwood Hotels (n.a.), Tata Communications (32 with 100 planned), U.S. GSA (15 planned). Smaller Telpepresence deployment described in 2010 were:  Mahindra and Mahindra, India’s leading vehicle manufacturer (3 with 8 planned), Peugeot (5), and National Grid (4)

When defining Telepresence experts refer not so much to the technology (which is the same as for 720p/1080p HD videoconferencing) but to the experience which must be “immersive, life size, and like communicating in the same room”. Although Telepresence is best appreciated on large screens (42 to 65 inches) in a dedicated room, 2010 saw much more attention given to single large  screen Telepresence systems and to systems with a smaller screen designed for the desktop, including one with a curved screen to provide a panoramic view (Teliris). Teliris also launched 3D Telepresence for 1, 2 or 3 screens.

Every vendor of videoconferencing systems has felt they had to develop their own Telepresence offering; some even began to rename existing single or two-screen 1080p High-Definition videoconferencing systems as Telepresence, thereby leaving the potential customer a little confused.

The year 2010 saw local suppliers of Telepresence systems in China and India expand their sales and dominate the local market. In July 2010, 200 Huawei Telepresence systems were being used around the world, including about 100 in China. In India, Business Octane has launched Telepresence systems at affordable prices in an amzing range of configurations. The company has five demonstration centres in the largest cities. The number of units sold is not available.

Home Telepresence was promised by Cisco at the Consumer Electronics show in January 2010. The Cisco umi Home Telepresence system was launched in October at $600 (without TV screen) and a monthly connection charge of $25. Fraunhofer IIS, a European source of excellent audio and multimedia technologies, presented a PC-based telepresence@home system at IFA 2010 in Berlin     in August. Logitech launched its Revue for Google TV set top box with 720p videoconferencing in October. As these are not intended for business use, they are excluded from our annual review.

Telepresence can only be installed if the network connection offers sufficient bandwidth. 1080p video by itself requires a minimum of 1.0 Mbps per screen in each direction and Cisco Telepresence can use up to 6Mbps per screen requiring up to 15 Mps in total. Bandwidth requirements remained a potential obstacle for some customers in 2010, but eventually this will disappear in part because vendors will find news "to manage more data with less bandwidth".

In June, Marthin de Beer, senior VP in charge of TelePresence at Cisco, said: “Traffic is literally exploding on networks. Networks of the past were built around data and were optimized for Web traffic. In just two or three years from now, when 90 percent of traffic is video, those networks will have to look fundamentally different.” And all the evidence suggests they will.