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AT&T Throws Open Doors to Cisco TelePresence with Other Video Platforms | Nov 16, 2011 | Voice and Unified Communications Services | Analyst: Brian Washburn Event Summary November 14, 2011 – AT&T has enhanced its AT&T Telepresence Solution, expanding its support across the spectrum of Cisco and legacy Tandberg videoconferencing products. AT&T can support the entire service wrap: supplying, monitoring, managing and maintaining these platforms, and connecting them to the AT&T Business Exchange, for a flat monthly fee. AT&T also supports connectivity from a wide variety of other standard (immersive and non-immersive) video endpoints, both on-net and via off-net (e.g., Internet or ISDN dial) access. | Read Press Release | Quick Take Analytical Summary • Current Perspective: Positive on AT&T’s added support for third-party on-net/off-net platforms, and its extension of a complete service wrap across the spectrum of Cisco (including former Tandberg) platforms, because the company is in step with the leading edge of the industry's advances, integrating Cisco's high-end immersive video into the broader universe of video services. The telepresence industry vision is for video to become part of a larger unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) model, which would favor large telecom providers that can combine network quality with hosted collaboration and service intelligence. • Vendor Importance: High to AT&T, because the company has built up a leading presence for Cisco TelePresence Service (CTS) immersive video connected to a public exchange. AT&T's expanded support of additional Cisco and standard third-party video platforms throws open the doors for customers to bridge in additional endpoints, both internal and with their partners, even if they are not directly connected to the AT&T Business Exchange. The expanded support should open these services to a new phase of adding new video endpoints, and attracting existing video endpoints to use its exchange. • Market Impact: Moderate to competitors in telepresence and video services, because AT&T's expansion beyond CTS tracks with efforts by the industry's major competitors to unite immersive and non-immersive video systems under an appealing, easy-to-use customer experience. CTS is a subset of the immersive video business, and the population of non-immersive standard video systems is order(s) of magnitude larger than immersive video: Cross-platform support puts AT&T and others in direct competition with video services from companies like BCS Global and Glowpoint to Cable&Wireless Worldwide. CLIENTS ONLY Current Analysis Perspective Competitive Strengths and Weaknesses Response & Recommendations Buyer Actions Analytical Perspective | Client access - Full report in Voice and Unified Communications Services Top Top 9/30/2011

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AT&T Telepresence Solution® Enhancements Make Collaboration Easier

Dallas, Texas, November 14, 2011 - AT&T is taking more steps to make global communications and collaboration even easier and more pervasive with new AT&T Telepresence Solution service bundling options. These new choices give customers even more flexibility to meet “face-to-face” from a wider range of locations.

"Within the next few years, global telepresence exchanges that let enterprises reach across their networks will increase the impact of, and demand for, video conferencing solutions," said Brian Washburn, Current Analysis Research Director, Network Services. "AT&T's telepresence solutions allow organizations to connect networks and unlock a vast number of new meeting relationships."

In addition to the new service bundles, AT&T is making telepresence more accessible to businesses and organizations of all sizes with new features and scheduling capabilities that allow for greater connectivity and unification across disparate video conferencing systems.

New AT&T Telepresence Solution capabilities include:

New Service Bundles - AT&T now offers customers a wide range of Cisco video equipment options from immersive to desktop units (including former TANDBERG endpoints). The fully managed service bundle includes:

AT&T owned equipment, management, proactive monitoring, maintenance and help desk bundled into one monthly service fee.

AT&T design and implementation of telepresence and video conferencing equipment including hardware and software.

Flexibility to connect to a wide variety of endpoint equipment and network types from a broad range of manufacturers, thereby getting more out of prior investments. Connection to the AT&T Business Exchange enabling users to connect internally with employees, and externally with customers and suppliers.

Intercompany Direct Dial - Enjoy point-to-point conferencing from one Cisco TelePresence® endpoint to another on the AT&T Business Exchange without needing to schedule a meeting in advance.

Guest Access - Schedule and attend telepresence meetings with companies that are not on the AT&T Business Exchange, over the Internet or traditional telephone network, opening an even more extended world of meeting options.

ActivePresence - Enhance the meeting experience by viewing all meeting attendees during a conference, regardless of the number of locations connected. The speaking participants appear full size on the screen while others appear as part of a panel view or "filmstrip" along the bottom of the screens. Participants switch into the full screen position automatically when they speak.

Scheduling Add-In – Schedule internal or external telepresence meetings, right from your Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes calendar. This enhancement unifies scheduling and is expected to be available before the end of 2011 for hosted deployments.

Value Case Tool - To help create a “Success Plan” to deploy these new capabilities AT&T has also recently updated its industry-specific Value Case Tool which helps customer define use cases, build design and TCO scenarios, determine break-even points, and project operational costs and business benefits. Key Facts:

Industry leading companies are adopting telepresence: More than one third of the companies ranked in the Fortune 100 are connected to the AT&T Business Exchange.

The number of end-points continues to grow rapidly: Telepresence continues to see customer acceptance and continued growth from 1,281 meeting rooms in 2009 to more than 3,000 meeting rooms projected for 2011.

Millions of meeting minutes: AT&T customers held nearly 12 million minutes of meetings on immersive telepresence systems in the first three quarters of 2011.

Telepresence is going global: More than one third of the endpoints connected to the AT&T Business Exchange are outside the United States, and AT&T now supports over 75 countries with the expanded offerings.

AT&T adopts telepresence internally: AT&T intends to install more than 50 internal telepresence rooms in 2011, growing internal deployments to more than 190 rooms spanning more than 20 countries.

Since 2008, AT&T has logged more than 83,400 telepresence meeting hours.

Between January and September 2011, AT&T has realized almost $7.5 million in travel dollars saved and more than 4,400 metric tons of CO2 emissions averted.

Using AT&T’s Carbon Impact Assessment Tool, organizations can easily calculate the estimated greenhouse gas emissions and cost savings of using telepresence to replace or reduce business travel and increase productivity and collaboration.

“From large, classroom-like settings to conference rooms to desktops to home offices, AT&T Telepresence Solution is helping our customers connect through face-to-face collaboration,” said Shawn Conroy, vice president of Voice, Collaboration and Unified Communications Services, AT&T Business Solutions. “Expanding our popular service bundles to include conference room and desktop units is an important step in pursuing our vision of a pervasive telepresence experience where users can connect without borders from the device and at the time and place that’s most convenient for them.”