RailTel, Cisco to offer video conferencing service

NEW DELHI: RailTel, the telecom arm of railways, has partnered with global networking giant Cisco to offer video conferencing platform to government agencies and public sector units.

"Government is on an austerity drive and is looking at minimising expenses and has put travel restrictions at many places. Also there is a big focus on driving productivity, which is where we think video collaboration can play a major role," RailTel Corporation of India Director Network Planning and Marketing A Seshagiri Rao told PTI.

Through the seven-year partnership, RailTel will offer end-to-end video-as-a-service to government agencies and public sector units under a revenue sharing model with Cisco.

The service will see installation of required camera, codec and network connectivity. It will offer central infrastructure including multi-point bridge, streaming, recording facility and 24x7 help desk facility.

Also, clients will not have to make any initial investment, helping them save on huge capex for setting up video conferencing.

"The video-as-a-service market is estimated to be about USD 150 million and a major chunk is comprised by the public sector," Cisco India and SAARC Head Collaboration Sales Sandeep Mehra said.

The partnership has already seen initial deployments within RailTel, Central Warehousing Corporation and Patna High Court apart from Indian Railways at about 60 locations.