Telepresence interoperability on the rise

Claudio Castelli, senior analyst, Ovum

AUSTRALIA, UK & INDIA: This week Tata Communications and BT announced a partnership to allow customers on either of their existing telepresence exchanges to establish conferences with customers on each other’s video exchange. The agreement is another step towards overcoming the interoperability issues in HD video conferencing, but there is still a long way to go.

Interoperability remains an issue
Enterprises need to communicate and collaborate with their counterparts regardless of the video conferencing equipment they use or the carrier that they are connected to. In a diverse environment of vendors and carriers, interoperability is critical.

In the same way that customers can pick up their phones and call anyone without regard for the service provider on the other end, enterprises want to collaborate by using HD video systems in the federated unified communications (UC) world.

Vendors don't use the same protocols. Some use H.323, some use SIP, and others use modified versions of the two. Cisco and HP use proprietary protocols, requiring intermediary solutions to support interconnection and interoperability. However, vendors are increasingly working to make their systems more interoperable with third parties.

Cisco, for example, has just announced a commitment to deliver multi-screen interoperability between Cisco, Tandberg, and other third-party systems by integrating the Telepresence Interoperability Protocol (TIP) on Cisco's newly acquired Tandberg TelePresence Server. This is just a small step towards the full interoperability that is required.

Global carriers are also taking their own approach to the issue. They are providing B2B video collaboration solutions by assuring bandwidth and QoS within their own networks and bridging video traffic from the equipment of different vendors. Orange Business Services, for example, recently released its Open Videopresence service, which is globally available for MNCs across multiple types of networks and equipment.

We think the next step is delivering these services globally in a multi-carrier environment. The BT/Tata agreement and a similar one between BT and Time Warner Telecom announced recently are the first of many. We expect an increasing number of agreements like this to expand solutions across multiple networks on a global and pan-regional scale, and with increasing multi-vendor interoperability.

Several candidates to provide international video exchange
Interconnecting international HD video traffic across service providers can be a highly profitable business, but is not easy to deliver. Assuring the required end-to-end SLAs across multiple network providers and bridging different video standards may present many technical, cultural, and business challenges.

A Cisco TelePresence call across multiple carrier networks was demonstrated by AT&T, BT, and Tata in mid-2009. The fact that the first commercial release was a year later suggests that establishing the business model and commercial terms isn't a simple task. In this agreement customers will maintain their existing commercial relationship with their respective service provider at all times. This announcement doesn't include AT&T, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it joins the alliance soon.

We believe several players have ambitions to provide international video exchange services, including Cisco itself. Global telcos are well placed for this as they own the global networks and are to some extent vendor agnostic. They have relationships with regional and local service providers, and there is also demand from their MNC corporate customers.

Tata’s Global Meeting Exchange, for example, already interconnects with local carriers. While we don't expect international video exchange to be dominated by any single provider, Tata’s early market entry will give it the opportunity to attract more partners to its own alliance.