Tata Communications in collaboration with CII and Cisco to set up TelePresence for CII offices in India
April 29, 2008

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Tata Communications and Cisco announced a mutual collaboration to set up TelePresence rooms at four CII offices in India. An agreement was signed at CII's National Conference and Annual Session 2008, in the presence of the honorable Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, Sunil Bharti Mittal, President, CII, KV Kamath, Vice President CII, apart from other dignitaries in CII's IVth plenary session with the finance minister.

The agreement was signed by Subodh Bhargava, chairman, Tata Communications, general (retired) SS Mehta, director general, CII and Naresh Wadhwa, president and country manager, Cisco Systems (India).

CII will collaborate with Tata Communications and Cisco to set up TelePresence rooms for CII, at four of its key offices in New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and CII Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre, Hyderabad. A first of its kind initiative in India, Cisco will provide the TelePresence equipment, while Tata Communications will provide the connectivity services that will link the four CII sites. This will be a major facility for CII members which will be made available on a 'pay-per-use' basis.

The Cisco TelePresence rooms at the CII facilities will be connected to Tata Communications' planned international network of rooms in premier locations worldwide, enabling cost-effective and high-definition video conference meetings for Indian enterprises with their partners in India and overseas, seamlessly.

"Cisco TelePresence provides professionals the ability to reduce travel while attending more meetings at the same time. This demonstrates Tata Communications' ability to support mission critical applications that deliver performance reliability, scalability and flexible cost efficiency to enterprises. This facility is being provided to CII and its membership on a new public room model. We visualise it will add considerable convenience to the industry members since it provides global reach into India," said Vinod Kumar, president, Global Enterprise Solutions, Tata Communications.

TelePresence is an innovative realistic virtual meeting solution that creates unique, "in-person" experiences allowing real-time, face-to-face communication over a converged IP network. It delivers life-size images, ultra-high-definition video, spatial audio and a specially designed environment to create a "room within a room" meeting space, thereby enabling effective global business and increased productivity while allowing for significant savings in travel time and costs.

CII, Cisco and Tata Communications are  committed to a high level of environmental responsibility in all their activities. Cisco TelePresence is a technology which provides an intensely immersive experience that has the potential to help businesses reduce the carbon footprint currently generated by travelling to face-to-face meetings across the world.