Tata Communications to set up 20 public telepresence rooms

Tata Communications will expand its telepresence centres by setting up additional 20 public rooms across the globe in the next few months with an investment of up to $10 million.
    
"We have 12 public rooms with partners across the globe. We are planning to increase the tally to 32 in the next few months," Director, Managed Telepresence Services, Tata Communications, Peter Quinlan told PTI over phone from Singapore.
    
He said more Indians are now using it to reduce travelling expenses and save time.
    
Public telepresence rooms are used by individuals for interactions from one point to other using a high-definition interaction conferencing facility with superior audio and video qualities.
    
Setting up a public room costs between $200,000 and $500,000 depending upon the location.
    
"Telepresence is an important tool for people to people interaction. The need for this goes up when crisis like volcanic eruption crops up," he said.
    
Quinlan said the market for telepresence has been growing by double-digits for the last few years. Tata Communications aims to surplus market growth rate in the coming months.
    
"The existing ratio of Indians calling outside India and Indians calling within India might be 50:50. However, the ratio is likely to be changed with more Indians using telepresence among themselves," he said.
    
Tata Communications is a leading company in the public room model of Telepresence and sees this product as part of its global managed services offering. It has tied up with Cisco for technology and Taj and Starwood chain of hotels for setting up the public rooms.
    
The company has 12 public rooms with its community of partners across the globe, including in Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad , London and Boston.