AT&T Transforms Telepresence into Anytime, Anywhere Video Collaboration

As more video applications and hardware become embedded in personal devices such as laptops and tablets, AT&T is taking the next step toward making video conferencing as easy and as seamless as making a phone call. AT&T announced today the expansion of video features and on-demand meeting capabilities that can help facilitate broader video collaboration through AT&T Telepresence Solution®.

By eliminating the need to reserve video resources in advance, AT&T Telepresence Solution customers can easily conduct meetings and instantly connect face-to-face through video with partners and colleagues regardless of whether or not they are registered on the AT&T Business Exchange. These new features include:

• Guest Access Enhancements – Users with single screen endpoints can now join scheduled meetings from a corporate VPNor the Internet by dialing into the AT&T Business Exchange.
• Virtual Meeting Rooms – Users can hold meetings without advanced reservations over a variety of networks through an expanded universe of endpoints including tablets, desktops, conference and immersive rooms. Participants can simply dial a number and enter an access code to start a meeting.

Using these features, customers can join meetings over the internet from desktop/laptop and select mobile devices using video applications like the Cisco Jabber™ Video for TelePresence; Polycom® RealPresence® Mobile; LifeSize® ClearSea™ from Logitech, and other standards based video clients using Wi-Fi hot spots, 3G, 4G and 4G/LTE wireless connections (where available).  These new features add even more flexibility for customers to meet over video, from more devices and over more connections, virtually anywhere and at anytime.

“These new AT&T Telepresence Solution enhancements help make video conferencing more useful,” said Brian Washburn, Research Director, Network Services, Current Analysis. “These features cut across different video devices, vendors, and calls types to bring ease and simplicity to the end user experience.”

With the telepresence systems market expected to grow at 25.7% per year through 2013[1], AT&T continues to pursue strategic initiatives to expand global reach, reliability, and flexibility by giving customers a wider range of vendors to choose from.  Additional enhancements include:

• Expanded video-as-a-service capabilities –AT&T is expanding its hosted call control capabilities to include a comprehensive range of Polycom® RealPresence® video solutions, from desktop to conference room to immersive theater solutions as well as a complete line of Cisco video endpoints.  This means the equipment needed to schedule, initiate, control, manage and bridge together the various endpoints is hosted in the AT&T network. This simplified approach can help customers avoid deploying and maintaining their own infrastructure equipment.
• Additional service bundles –AT&T also announces fully managed service bundle availability of a broader range of endpoints, including the popular Cisco Telepresence® TX9000 Series, becoming one of the first Cisco-certified managed services provider to support this new immersive endpoint globally.
• Greater telepresence interoperability –AT&T is the first service provider to support Polycom® HDX® desktop and  conference room solutions, and Polycom® OTX™ and RPX™ immersive theater systems implementing Telepresence Interoperability Protocol (TIP) to enable native single and multi-screen interoperability with one or three screens between telepresence endpoints from Cisco and Polycom.  This interoperability supports direct dial as well as both scheduled and reservation-less multipoint calls (virtual meeting rooms) on the AT&T Business Exchange along with presentation and data sharing.
• Expanded global availability – AT&T can now provide service in 80 countries and, with the recent addition of the Philippines and Malaysia, now offers fully managed service bundles in 40 of those countries.

“AT&T is invested in providing enhanced video services without borders,” said Alan Benway, Executive Director of AT&T Telepresence Solution, AT&T Business and Home Solutions “AT&T customers have the freedom to choose from the broadest set of endpoints and the freedom to meet at the time that best suits them while leveraging their immersive rooms, group systems, mobile devices, laptops, or desktops.”

For more information on AT&T Telepresence Solution visit http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=2820

[1] Source: “MarketScope for Telepresence and Group Video Systems”; Gartner; August 30, 2011