Tata, BT team up on telepresense; Verizon enhances UC portfolio

Steve Taylor and Larry Hettick offer news and analysis on the latest in IP convergence from fixed-mobile convergence, presence management, IP video and unified communications.

Tata and BT have joined forces so their customers can establish conferences with customers on the other's video exchange. With the intercompany service, any Cisco TelePresence customer of BT's Global Video Exchange or Tata Communications' Global Meeting Exchange can invite clients of the other service provider to join them in multipoint telepresence meetings. Each carrier will maintain its existing commercial relationship under terms of the agreement.

BT has over 350 active telepresence customer sites connected to Denver and London exchanges and access to more than 1,000 endpoints globally. Tata Communications has Global Meeting Exchange hubs in Mumbai, New York and London, and it operates 15 public meeting rooms with partners in North America, Asia Pacific, India, London and Johannesburg.

In other news, Verizon Business has added new IP capabilities that make the adoption of unified communications and collaboration simpler and more cost-effective than ever before. The new features include:

* VoIP IP Enterprise Routing (VIPER) -- a cloud-based VoIP feature for business-to-business voice calls that eliminates domestic or international per minute calling charges between Verizon VoIP customers in either the U.S. and Europe. Customers who dial into the host conference bridge to access the Verizon IP Audio Conferencing will not incur additional per minute charges from any VIPER-enabled location.

* Centralized multi-site designs for Verizon's European Hosted IP Centrex customers, along with a new pricing structure between countries where Verizon offers VoIP.