Industry watchers agree that adoption of telepresence technology will cause a ripple effect because as a company's top executives become comfortable with the technology, they will want to extend it deeper into the organization. They won't want to spend $250,000 for every room, however, so they will turn to HD videoconferencing and even desktop conferencing for their employees.

BT has seen that happen already. While so far only BT's largest customers have been interested in telepresence, some of those companies are beginning to consider deploying Cisco's single-screen product at smaller locations, Farr said. “That's pushing the units shipped from the tens to the hundreds,” he said, “and it is a good indicator that organizations are understanding the capabilities that telepresence gives them.”

Cisco has developed certification programs that its resellers and service provider partners must complete before they can resell the company's gear. The Cisco TelePresence Connection Certification is a rigorous testing procedure designed to ensure that a service provider meets certain standards for MPLS virtual private network architecture, service level agreements and management systems. Another service provider certification program will be added for network operators who want to offer a telepresence exchange service for business-to-business applications, De Beer says.

Analysts, vendors and service providers alike agree that allowing for business-to-business applications is crucial to the success of telepresence. HP and Teliris use their networks as a selling point for companies looking to interconnect with customers or suppliers. And that isn't lost on Cisco.

Cisco has been working with AT&T and BT on telepresence trials. “Some of our big customers like Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart are starting to make calls between locations in a trial mode,” De Beer says. “The plan is to have a commercial intercompany telepresence service available by June that our enterprise customers can purchase from AT&T and BT.”

Network operators aren't the only service providers who stand to gain if telepresence takes off. A group of MSPs focused on video communications also wants to carve out a piece of the telepresence pie for themselves.

Nortel Global Services is making a big push into managed telepresence services in the hopes that it might help turn things around for the struggling Nortel parent company, which recently posted a wider-than-expected loss and announced layoffs. Nortel Global Services resells Polycom and Tandberg telepresence systems today and manages them from a global network of eight video network operations centers (VNOCs).

Nortel is not building its own dedicated network like HP and Teliris, rather it will partner with network operators worldwide and focus on delivering concierge and management services, said Dietmar Wendt, president of Nortel Global Services. For example, Nortel is working on a deal now to private label a managed telepresence service with a network operator in Asia, he said.

Other MSPs to watch in the telepresence space include iFormata, Wire One Communications and York Telecom. Wire One and York Telecom are both videoconferencing MSPs that are moving upstream to tackle telepresence management, while iFormata has a long history in telepresence.

Founded by father-and-son team David and Scott Allen, who also founded TeleSuite, iFormata has VNOCs co-located in telco hotels in Ohio, Virginia and Norway with one under construction in India. Because of its history, iFormata has a strong partnership with Polycom, but the company also is working with Cisco to become certified to provide its products, said Scott Allen, CEO of iFormata. The company recently began offering intercompany connectivity among its customers, and Allen sees a lot of potential for business-to-business applications going forward. “I expect that service to be quite successful a year from now,” he said.

Only time will tell whether telepresence technology can fulfill the decades-old promise of videoconferencing. But with heavyweights such as Cisco and HP putting money and marketing prowess behind the technology and large global corporations aggressively looking for ways to reduce their travel budgets and carbon footprints, it appears that video's stars might finally be aligned.

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