15 February 2010. Demand for Managed Conferencing Services grew strongly in 2009 with managed Telepresence services a fast-growing segment; some of the interoperability issue of Telepresence were solved

Although the use of Telepresence systems grew rapidly in 2009, the majority of video-enabled endpoints are still High-Definiton (HD) and Standard-Definition (SD) videoconferencing endpoints. A typical user of Telepresence will have ten times as many VC endpoints as Telepresence endpoints. More than half the VC endpoints are likely to be High-Definition VC endpoints. So one of the challenges providers faced in 2009 was to enable companies to use a mixture of these endpoints in a video meeting.

Comprehensive certification programmes  for Managed Service Providers for their Telepresence offering were introduced by Cisco and TANDBERG in 2008 and by Polycom in 2009. Qualification under one,two or all three of these programmes is a valuable attribute of an experienced and qualified Managed Conferencing Services provider.

Inter-company Telepresence can require the interconnection of networks of different carriers. This issue was solved by many carriers in 2009. In September 2009, Cisco announced it had enabled eight of the world’s top telecom service providers spanning five continents to deliver inter-company Cisco TelePresence services, extending the availability of the technology to more than 150 countries and thousands of cities. The following service providers  have announced commercial inter-company Cisco TelePresence services - AT&T, BT, Orange, NTT, Tata Communications, Telephonica, Telstra, and Telmex.

Some progress was made in 2009 on interioperating betweeen systems of different vendors. For example using BT One Source service, TANDBERG Telepresence T3 users and Polycom TPX/RPX users can now collaborate regardless of the platform or network. This is only possible with the TANDBERG Telepresence Server infrastructure interoperability feature. BT says TANDBERG is the only company to offer a Telepresence solution that maintains the multi-screen, High-Definition experience when calling out to a third-party telepresence system. So there is much more to achieve in 2010 on this front.

Independent research firm and consultancy, Human Productivity Lab and Brockmann & Company, the customer insight firm, have just published the first comprehensive review of inter-company telepresence and video conferencing exchanges: “The Inter-Company Telepresence and Video Conferencing Exchange Review”.

The report surveys the top exchange providers and managed service providers that are providing both wholesale and retail exchange services including: AT&T Business Exchange, BCS Global's Global Video Exchange, BT Conferencing's Global Video Exchange, Cisco, Easynet Managed Virtual Meeting, Glowpoint's Telepresence interExchange Network (TEN), IPV Gateways, MASERGY, Telemerge, Teliris B2B On-Demand Gateway, Verizon Business' Immersive Video Exchange (VIVE).

Why do companies and organisations outsource to them rather than run their own internal service on their own private network (Virtual Private Network - VPN)? The reasons appear to be that Managed Conferencing Services Providers offer customers:

(1) the growing requirements of bandwidth for video without burdening their own network;
(2) their service facilitates inter-company calls without the hassle of setting them up oneself;
(3) they offer a reliable service that means that 99.9% of video calls work perfectly;
(4) senior management wants automated set up without the need to master new technology;
(5) their service handles calls with a mix of Telepresence and Videoconferencing endpoints;
(6) their service offers 24/7 support to any site throughout the world;
(7) their service can be “always-on” and makes video calls as easy to use as the phone;
(8) their service encourages intensive use of TP and VC investments and gives a better ROI;
(9) their service eliminates the need for purchasing one or more MCUs and managing them;
(10) their service offers a concierge service to overcome the inexperience of first time callers.

To pre-select the Best Managed Conferencing Services Providers on the basis of their improved offering of managed services in 2009, we compiled two lists.

Our first list is of Managed Conferencing Service Providers who have their own telecom network with a global reach and are experienced in providing voice and data services as well as video services to multinational companies. We have gone for a wide geographical spread of providers rather than a complete and full list.

Our second list is of 10 Managed Conferencing Service Providers that are niche players who specialise in providing Telepresence and Videooconferencing services to multinationals and other customers; most of them purchase capacity from telecom carriers. Some businesses believe they get a more personalised service from such smaller, niche players.

Also Cisco, HP Halo and Teliris run their own Telepresence network which can be offered as a service to customers who purchase their Telepresence equipment.

The 15 Managed Conferencing Service Providers with a Global Telecom Network are:

1. A T & T (United States) - AT&T Business Exchange
2. BT (UK) - BT Global Video Exchange
3. Cable and Wireless Worldwide (UK) - Managed IP Services
4. Global Crossing (United States) -
5. KPN  (The Netherlands) - Talk and Vision conferencing services
6. Masergy (United States) -
7. NTT (Japan) -
8. Orange Business Services (France)
9. Tata Communications (India)
10. Telefonica (Spain)
11. Telstra (Australia)
12. Telemerge (Canada)
13. Telmex (Mexico)
14. Verizon Business (United States) - Verizon Business' Immersive Video Exchange (VIVE)
15. Virtela (United States) - Secure Video Extranet Service

The 10 Specialist Managed Conferencing Service Providers - Niche players - are:

1. Aethra,net (Italy) - Meetin Video services
2. BCS Global (Canada) - Global Video Exchange
3. City IS - Global managed Services
4. Easynet (UK) - Managed Virtual Meeting
5 Glowpoint (United States) - Telepresence interExchange Network (TEN)
6. Intercall (United States) - Intercall Videocnferencing
7. IVCi (United States) -  IntelliNet Managed Services
8. mvision (UK) - Managed Conferencing Services
9. Talk and Vision (Netherlands) - MAVIS Managed Services
10. VideoCall (UK) - MyPresence managed videoconferencing services

Our lists of 25 companies can only be a rough guide as in 2009 and again in 2010 there will be a wide choice of  providers for managed Telepresence and videoconferencing services.

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