NEW YORK and MADRID, Oct. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — To meet the growing demand for video meetings, Telefonica Global Solutions and Verizon Enterprise Solutions have joined forces so that Verizon Immersive Video Exchange and Telefonica Global Telepresence Exchange customers can collaborate via Cisco TelePresence. Now, businesses and government agencies using either company’s video meeting system can expand their “collaboration pool,” and meet face-to-face across more video-enabled locations worldwide for greater productivity and business efficiency.
Telepresence replicates face-to-face interactions so realistically that it feels as though everyone is in the same room – even though the participants may be thousands of miles apart. Through this interprovider solution, enterprises already using Cisco TelePresence provided by either Telefonica or Verizon can hold real-time video meetings with one another in a highly secure, consistent and transparent manner.
Telepresence enables businesses to benefit from easy remote collaboration, helping to achieve quicker decision-making and issue resolution, build stronger relationships, and make more efficient use of limited resources. By expanding the telepresence community, these advantages can be extended beyond internal collaboration and decision-making to facilitate all aspects of external business communications throughout all of the company’s stakeholder relations.
Juan Carlos Lopez Vives, president of Telefonica Global Solutions, said: “We are committed to helping our customers take full advantage of the business benefits of real-time, virtual meetings through telepresence video collaboration. This agreement expands the potential of telepresence for customers of both providers, helping them with cost optimization, as well as to reduce their carbon footprint and improve productivity, while also fostering a more collaborative business culture.”
Martin Burvill, senior vice president of global operations for Verizon Enterprise Solutions, said: “Video is becoming the international language of business, helping to drive greater productivity and value across traditional network and business boundaries. Our agreement with Telefonica is yet another step toward the establishment of an open and rich video-collaboration ecosystem, which helps our customers maximize returns from their telepresence investments.
Telefonica now has telepresence interoperability agreements with Orange, Cisco, TATA, Verizon and Telecom Italia. Verizon now has telepresence interoperability agreements with BT, Cisco, Orange, Tata and Telefonica, as well as an Open Video Communications offering that links video systems that were previously incompatible.
