By Telecom Lead Team: Tata Communications,
together with nine service providers, has launched the Global Meeting Alliance,
an open ecosystem of telecom providers to interconnect their respective
business video communities.
The launch represents the largest functioning global collaboration
between service providers in business video services. The Global Meeting
Alliance network will allow any service provider to connect to enterprises and
institutions on all major continents, irrespective of service provider,
following a similar business model to the airline alliance networks.
Launch members include Safaricom in Africa, Telstra in
Australia, Etisalat, Qtel and Mobily in the Middle East, Neotel in South Africa
and Sprint, Glowpoint and TELUS in North America.
Tata Communications continues to demonstrate its commitment to
facilitating an open, global ecosystem that moves business video from an
intracompany experience to a collaboration tool with worldwide reach. The
Global Meeting Alliance is central to this strategy, and today, all alliance
members are taking a major step towards making an open community for business
video a reality,” said Peter Quinlan, vice president, integrated business video
services at Tata Communications.
The newly launched Alliance will simplify operation of business
video worldwide, enabling service providers to optimize their regional networks
to interconnect with a global network and conferencing infrastructure maintained
by the Global Meeting Alliance operator.
The Global Meeting Alliance service providers have integrated their services
with the Global Meeting Alliance inter-company system which enables customers
to book and launch meetings with end-users that are not directly served by the
same service provider.
The service supports video business sessions that can include
SD, HD and Immersive devices from the Cisco, Tandberg and Polycom product
lines.
“By making B2B calls easier and by interconnecting
different carriers, the Global Meeting Alliance will drive the usage of
videoconferencing and Telepresence systems, enabling customers to see faster
and higher returns on their investments,” said Andrew W. Davis, senior partner
and co-founder of Wainhouse Research.
Customers of the Global Meeting Alliance members now have access
to an international Telepresence network of 3rd party video endpoints,
plus the largest global public Telepresence room network consisting of 40
public Telepresence suites in 20 countries.
