Ever heard of telepresence? We wouldn’t blame you if you haven’t, seeing that it is a technology that is rarely seen or heard of in these parts of the world. Telepresence, as the name implies, is very much similar to that of teleconferencing, but is a bit more complex than that. Telepresence allows virtual meetings to be conducted using life-size, high-definition video and spatial discrete audio. This enables face-to-face interactions that is capable of creating an immersive experience, giving users the feeling of sitting in the same room with participants from different locations.
VADS Berhad and Cisco has recently signed a collaboration agreement to offer managed telepresence services to both private and public sectors in Malaysia and the surrounding region. It was signed by Ghazali Omar, Chief Executive Officer of VADS and Zulkapli Mustafa, Vice President of ICT Services at VADS. Witnessing the exchange of documents were Cisco executives, Irving Tan, Cisco General Manager for Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei, Anne Abraham, Managing Director of Cisco in Malaysia and Jeff White, Vice President for the Service Provider business in Asia Pacific.
The VADS Managed TelePresence Service will utilise Telekom Malaysia’s nationwide and global high-speed IP network and customer base while deploying current and state-of-the-art Cisco TelePresence technology. The service will be offered on a contract basis of three and five years respectively. This includes bandwidth, managed end-to-end high-quality service with simplified provisioning, scheduling, 24-7 helpdesk, technical support and various types of endpoints as a bundled package.
“Video is changing the way people collaborate, and we are proud to work with VADS to drive business transformation in Malaysia – particularly with the high-speed broadband network available. The ability to offer managed telepresence as a service and the Cisco TelePresence Exchange System will raise the competitiveness of Malaysia as a regional hub and as a business center while providing opportunities for organisations to embrace new technologies towards becoming a connected nation,” said Anne Abraham, managing director of Cisco in Malaysia.
VADS also announced that it will build a telepresence exchange infrastructure. The core infrastructure will reside in a VADS data center which will run in a highly secure and resilient network and be available for both local and global markets.
The VADS Collaborative Hub will offer carrier-class collaboration services, namely, Managed Telepresence, Managed Unified Communications and Managed Digital Media services. The partnership solidifies Cisco’s position as the leading provider of telepresence and collaboration solutions worldwide. As of May 2011, there are 1,035 telepresence rooms deployed in 264 major cities across 67 countries globally.
