Cisco Plans to Bring TelePresence Home

Telecommuting is often described as “working in your pajamas.” If they are not too modest about how they are dressed, telecommuters could soon be videoconferencing in their pajamas, thanks to Cisco’s plans to bring its TelePresence video collaboration platform into consumers’ homes.

At this week’s 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Cisco announced it will develop a new category of video communication called home telepresence this year. Home telepresence uses a consumer's existing HDTV and broadband connection to deliver what Cisco calls a “unique natural video communication experience” from their living room.

Cisco TelePresence solutions integrate room endpoints, collaboration tools, multipoint switching, management software, intercompany connectivity, and lifecycle services, along with tight integration to a suite of other business video and collaboration technologies for end-user applications that provide a live, face-to-face user experience over the network. Cisco says TelePresence, which has been on the market for three years, has grown faster than any other technology in its history.

To ensure that early home telepresence users won’t have a shortage of people to communicate with, in addition to calling other home telepresence users they will be able to place calls to PCs using a webcam and video chat service. Cisco will enter U.S. home telepresence field trials this spring, with Verizon providing its all-fiber-optic-network as an early partner. Cisco says 32 million U.S. households will have the required broadband connection to support home telepresence this year. Pilots will take place later this year in France with France Telecom as an early partner.

With the lines between home and office increasingly blurred, home telepresence could turn into a business tool just as valuable as Cisco’s business telepresence solutions. Workers’ homes are increasingly becoming part of the business enterprise, and sophsiticated collaborative networking technologies can help make that transformation as seamless as possible.

Maybe at-home workers should change out of their PJs before engaging in videoconferencing, though.