AT&T, BT strike telepresence connection pact

AT&T (NYSE: T) and BT (NYSE: BT) are both big believers in telepresence, but the two service providers believe that providing a seamless experience for their business customers will take a collective effort.

To enhance their business customer's telepresence experience, the two service providers have established an inter-provider exchange-to-exchange telepresence meeting capability that they say will allow business customers to schedule telepresence meetings and connect to their telepresence endpoints.   

Initially leveraging Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) TelePresence endpoints, AT&T and BT customers will be able to meet "face to face." Customers got to test drive the exchange-to-exchange telepresence meeting capability last summer between AT&T and BT telepresence locations.

Although the pact is new, AT&T and BT are set on maintaining consistency of their existing telepresence offerings.

AT&T telepresence customers will be able to schedule business-to-business meeting involving a BT endpoint using the AT&T Telepresence Solution scheduling portal in the same way they schedule business-to-business meetings today, while BT's telepresence customers will be able to do the same on BT's scheduling portal. In addition, AT&T and BT customers will interface with their service providers as a single point of contact for meeting support, assistance, and billing.

While more multinational corporations (MNC) are embracing telepresence, the fact that two large carriers are willing to work together could attract other MNCs that might have been on the fence about adopting a telepresence solution that could serve their geographically disparate sites.

For more:
- see the release

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