Tata Communications and BT in video exchange alliance

Tata Communications and BT Group plc (formerly British Telecommmunications plc) on Tuesday announced an agreement for video exchange connectivity services allowing customers on either of their existing video exchanges to establish conferences with customers on the other's video exchange.

The two have successfully carried out associated customer trials and the collaboration will provide each organisation with open access to a much broader network of businesses, Tata Communications said in a release.

The collaboration is a major step towards open, ubiquitous connectivity between telepresence endpoints, regardless of their parent network, the release said, adding "The service will help enable telepresence users to reach more partners, suppliers, customers and prospects at public and private end-points and will facilitate globally distributed, real time face-to-face virtual conference meetings that drive greater value to the collaborating businesses."

Using the intercompany, any Cisco TelePresence customer of BT's global video exchange or Tata Communications' global meeting exchange can invite clients of the other service provider to join them in multipoint telepresence meetings. The meetings can be hosted on either the Tata Communications or the BT Telepresence Exchange, it said. 

"Trials with current customers across both exchange networks have been strongly received", says John Landau, SVP, global head of voice, video and mobility, Tata Communications.

Customers who wish to use the inter-company service simply need to contact their respective service provider with their request. They will then be given the necessary conferencing information to share with the other meeting participants so that they too can join the meeting.