Neotel, a Tata Communications company, will be providing
connectivity for the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban from 28 November to 9
December.
Neotel will provide WiFi access for the
conference as well as, together with partners Cisco and Dimension Data, power Telepresence
rooms available for public use throughout the event, with connectivity via the
Tata Communications global network.
The Telepresence rooms at the event will
provide 20,000 delegates access to a collaboration tool that makes a
significant impact on climate change via a reduced carbon footprint. Meetings
held using Telepresence have a positive impact on the environment as a result
of the reduced need to physically travel across continents.
Operating a Telepresence room for one year
has the same carbon footprint as a one-way transatlantic flight, and uses the
same amount of energy as the ton of jet fuel that a jumbo jet burns between
boarding and take off.
“Neotel is the only service provider in
South Africa that can provide domestic and international connectivity with the
exceptional high performance bandwidth capacity required for such technologies
to be leveraged at such an event. In partnership with leading technology
companies Tata Communications, Dimension Data and CISCO, COP 17 will now be
able to seamlessly connect to and collaborate with the rest of the world in
real time and with high definition video and special audio effects,” said Sunil
Joshi, managing director and CEO of Neotel.
The Telepresence rooms at COP17 will be
connected, via Neotel, into Tata Communications’ Global Meeting Exchange, one
of the broadest and widest-reaching Telepresence networks available today. The
rooms will also be a gateway to Tata Communications’ public room Telepresence
network which spans 36 rooms across five continents including the first public
Telepresence room on its network in Africa, at Neotel’s headquarters in Midrand.
This network reach makes Telepresence a truly global business collaboration
tool.
“Environmental sustainability and
responsible business practices are key values within our own business strategy
and operations. COP17 plays an extremely important role in raising the
awareness of this ethos on the world’s stage and we are delighted to be able to
provide game-changing innovation, such as Telepresence, directly for its
delegates to experience,” said Vinod Kumar, MD & CEO, Tata Communications.
Many of Tata Communications’ public
Telepresence room partners are supporting the COP17 event and climate change
initiative by waiving rental charges when their rooms are used for a meeting
with a COP17 delegate. These partner rooms include Starwood (global), PLDT
(Philippines), Compass (Hong Kong), Rendezvous (Singapore), TPEX (Amsterdam),
Euratechnologies (France) and Confederation of Indian Industries (India).
In addition, Magyar Telekom, Desca and TSTT in Trinidad and Tobago have also
agreed to open their private rooms.
By Telecomlead.com Team
editor@telecomlead.com
