By Telecomlead Team: Polycom, a provider of
standards-based unified communications (UC), and Ericsson, have joined hands to
announce an HD visual communication solution that enables operators to offer
affordable, interoperable HD Video-as-a-Service (VaaS) and unified
communication services to businesses of all sizes.
The solution, being demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress
2012, will be marketed globally by both firms, with Ericsson serving as prime
system integrator for all of the infrastructure components.
The new HD visual communication solution leverages
Ericsson’s comprehensive video-enabled IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) offering,
including HD-capable infrastructure, as well as Polycom RealPresence video and
voice endpoints and the RealPresence Platform- the most comprehensive software
infrastructure for universal video collaboration.
With our leading market presence in IMS and mobile
networks we provide a smooth path to enable the networks for HD visual and
audio communication,” said Magnus Furustam, vice president and head of Core and
IMS at Ericsson. We believe our solution to be very attractive to business users
and an industry first with a very compelling value proposition to
operators.”
The Ericsson IMS system uses the same IMS core for the
Visual Communication solution as for Voice over LTE (VoLTE), Rich Communication
Suite (RCS) and fixed network modernization. The new Ericsson Media Resource
System will provide secure, high-quality HD video and full-band stereo audio
conferencing to operators around the globe.
The end-to-end cloud based offering will also
incorporate Ericsson’s solution for unified communication, the Ericsson
Business Communication Suite, ensuring that operators will be able to penetrate
new markets, increase revenue per subscriber, and effectively compete. For
affordable monthly rates, SMBs and enterprises will have access to secure, QoS-enabled
HD video and conferencing services delivered to any environment, including
smart phones and tablets for those on the go, at home or at work with laptop,
desktop and room systems, conference rooms and immersive theaters.
“Today’s announcement is another step toward our
vision to make video collaboration ubiquitous. Following on the January
announcement of our cloud strategy, Polycom is excited to collaborate with an
IMS leader like Ericsson to deliver standards-based, interoperable solutions
that will enable service providers to offer compelling and cost-effective
Video-as-a-Service solutions to their customers,” said Gary Testa, vice
president, Global Cloud & Service Provider Solutions, Polycom.
Customer trials of the joint solution will commence
mid-2012, with general availability at the end of 2012. Both companies are
participating in an HD video conferencing demonstration with leading operators
and equipment vendors at MWC.
Among other announcements at the Mobile World Congress,
Ericsson
unveiled its Evolved Packet Gateway (EPG) application that boasts higher capacity
than any other mobile packet gateway on the market.
editor@telecomlead.com
Please see the complete coverage of Mobile
World Congress here
