Cisco Installs 500th Telepresence Room

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April 30th, 2008 by Video Conferencing Expert

Today, networking giant Cisco proudly announced the installation of its 500th telepresence room. The Cisco telepresence room is essentially a room dedicated to video conference meetings, however it’s unlike any videoconference you’ve ever been in.

The room has a semi-circle table for your local members to sit at, and three high definition screens that simulate the other half, completing a virtual round table. The directional cameras and microphones allow you to directly address an individual on the remote end of a telepresence room. People that have tried this technology claim that it is very much like meeting in person.

The technology isn’t cheap. The six person telepresence installation will cost you $300,000, and you need two of them to complete the circle. The Halo system from rival HP can cost up to $350,000 and Polycom’s RealPresence can cost $200,000. There is also the cost of the bandwidth — you will need a dedicated 10-15Mbps connection between telepresence rooms, which could cost between $8000 to $10,000 a month per site.

Currently the prohibitive costs limit telepresence to wealthier companies that currently have a large travel budget. As installation and bandwidth costs continue to decrease, web conferencing via telepresence could all but eliminate the need for future business travel.