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Spencer Callaghan, Nortel

Business travel can be a painful experience at the best of times. Packing, getting to the airport, going through security and unexpected flight delays can extend the wait before boarding, resulting in lost productivity for employees.

Traveling to meet potential clients and to close deals will always be a part of business. But what if there was a way to get the face-to-face contact needed without the snoring from the guy in the next seat?

Today's  telepresence  and high-definition (HD) video conferencing can replace the hassle of travel while creating the feel of actually being in the same room as participants at other locations. By incorporating life-size, HD video with high-quality sound, telepresence can make any meeting, anywhere in the world as simple as walking into the conference room next door.

Eliminating the inefficiencies of business travel is only one advantage of telepresence. Large companies can also save millions of dollars a year in travel costs while helping to reduce impact on the environment.

According to the  David Suzuki Foundation *, air travel presently accounts for four to nine percent of the total climate change impact of human activity. Air travel has a disproportionately high impact on the environment relative to the size of the industry, which has seen an 83 percent increase in carbon dioxide emissions since 1990.

A company that spends as much as US$23 million a year on travel, for example, could lose approximately 385,000 hours of productivity and generate more than 14,000 tons of carbon dioxide at a cost of more than US$43 million. By using telepresence in lieu of travel, this company could save as much as US$6.9 million and reduce its carbon footprint by more than 4,200 tons.

Money and the environment don't typically go hand-in-hand. But with telepresence, these two opposites can come together through efficiencies that benefit both the planet and the bottom line in ways more traditional video conferencing technologies can't.

For years, video conferencing has been touted as the solution to excessive business travel, but technology limitations have restricted widespread adoption. For example, using only one camera to capture 10 people sitting around a table fails to re-create the advantages of 'being there' to assess face-to-face a customer's reaction to a proposal. Video conferencing has also been plagued by poor picture and sound quality that can distract and frustrate participants.

"Video conferencing has been around forever, both on the desktop and using room-sized systems," says Dean Fernandes, general manager, Application Services, Nortel. "But it has been a very difficult tool to use because the conference controls were too complex for non-technical participants to manage and the video quality wasn't great."

"Powered by the increased bandwidth of today's networks, new in-room telepresence technologies make the stuttering, grainy video of conferenced meetings a thing of the past," says Fernandes. "By re-creating the immediacy of face-to-face meetings with participants thousands of miles apart, telepresence becomes an enabler of business results."

Where traditional video conferencing has stumbled, telepresence succeeds by making the meeting experience as close to a face-to-face encounter as possible. Eye-level, seamless HD displays show colleagues vividly in as much lifelike detail as if they were sitting right across the table. Embedded microphones and StereoSurround audio make sure everyone can follow the discussion loud and clear. And presentations can be easily shared through direct VGA connectivity, allowing the presenter to broadcast data to display screens on both sides of the conference anywhere in the world.

The advantage of Nortel's Services-Powered Telepresence Solution is in the implementation. Nortel can provide everything from installation to network integration to day-to-day operation and maintenance, allowing businesses to focus on business. Nortel's telepresence solution allows those in attendance to focus on the business at hand, not the technology that connects them.

"When you walk into the room, Nortel has already launched the call for you and we do proactive monitoring so everything is ready to go as soon as you are. We're managing your call so you can focus on managing your business," says Fernandes.

Nortel brings together a full suite of Multimedia  Telepresence Services  with video conferencing systems from industry leaders  Polycom * and  TANDBERG * to provide comprehensive Services-Powered Telepresence Solutions as part of the Nortel  unified communications  portfolio. Using Nortel's unmatched global infrastructure of eight  Multimedia Network Operations Centers  (MNOCs), these solutions are available to national and multi-national companies virtually anywhere in the world.

Nortel's Services-Powered Telepresence Solutions combine high-definition video and voice with real-time data collaboration to deliver face-to-face, multi-location meetings with amazing clarity and simplicity. Customers can experience this first-hand by visiting Nortel telepresence suites in Frankfurt, Toronto, Ottawa, London, Beijing, New York, Dallas and Raleigh.

Known around the world for the excellence of the professional services provided by its member firms,  Deloitte's global organization  has chosen Nortel as a global managed services provider for telepresence, video conferencing and associated multimedia services. Under a managed services agreement with Nortel, Deloitte's global organization and as many as 130 Deloitte member firm locations around the world will be able to obtain telepresence and open standards-based video conferencing services.

With oil prices fueling skyrocketing airfares and an increasing global outcry for environmental responsibility, organizations like Deloitte are seeking viable business alternatives to travel. Managed telepresence is one such alternative.

Another advantage of Nortel's Services-Powered Telepresence Solutions is their adherence to open standards, which ensures compatibility with open standards-based video conferencing systems from other vendors.

"It is more a service than a technology for Nortel because we want to be vendor agnostic. We can wrap our services around any vendor's technology," says Fernandes. "This means any company can take advantage of Nortel's unified communications expertise by incorporating existing video conferencing infrastructure with a full-service telepresence solution."

Even if a company already has a video conferencing system, Nortel can integrate a full telepresence solution into its existing infrastructure to provide even greater return on investment. ( See the Telepresence ROI calculator .) While having a near face-to-face conversation with your colleagues in Tokyo using a complete telepresence solution, the same conversation can be broadcast all across your network to employees using traditional video conferencing, desktop video or even webcasting.

"Our services really allow it to feel like you are walking into a conference room with your colleagues from Tokyo at the table with you, not like you're staring into a picture frame with people so small you can hardly tell who they are," says Fernandes.

"In a world where air travel is becoming increasingly costly, unproductive and destructive to the environment, telepresence is an efficient way to get the face-to-face contact needed with clients and colleagues that can drive business results rather than be a drain on resources," says Fernandes.

With a Nortel Services-Powered Telepresence Solution, global customer meetings can be face-to-face with participants still making it home in time for supper thanks to a simple, efficient and effective business tool that helps the both environment and the bottom line.