Last Updated 15 years ago by Kenya Engineer
Serena hotels in partnership with Safaricom, Cisco and Tata communication yesterday officiated the opening of a Cisco’s telepresence solution installed in a meeting room in Serena Nairobi and Serena Kampala hotels.
Witnessing the launch were officials from Cisco in London, Tata Communications in Paris, Serena Hotel in Kampala, Safaricom Head Office as well as Serena Hotel in Nairobi.
Telepresence is the latest of video conferencing solutions that requires high bandwidth, running over a private network, and is combined with 3 or more large HD screens to create an immersive experience. This can be reinforced by identical furniture and room set ups.
The partnership brings together Cisco, Tata communications and Safaricom all offering different services to enable the efficient running of a telepresence facility.
Cisco is known for the deployment and management of networks, building of security systems, data centres and virtualization services. “Telepresence is all about new business models. The Cisco telepresence solution offers a live, face-to-face experience that enables users in various offices and cities around the world to communicated in a way that feels like participants are across the table, no matter how big the distance,” says Cisco’s Vice President Emerging Central, speaking from Amsterdam via a HD screen. Telepresence is Cisco’s fastest growing product category because of the simplicity of use and the value it gives to its users.
High definition screens in Serena Nairobi
Tata communication offers a large global network telecomm experience and a leading global public room service. With Tata, customers around the world have access to 32 public rooms globally – including Kenya and Serena.
Safaricom offers a fast, high bandwidth network connectivity for the service. Speaking via a HD screen, Safaricom’s CEO Bobby Collymore said that most SME’s and corporates looking to reduce their operation expenditures and increase profitability need to adopt the telepresence technology. Safaricom has an upperhand in offering this facility in Kenya as the only telecomm operating a 3G network and Wimax platform in the country. Bob Collymore added that Kenya is going to see more interactive multimedia solutions once Safaricom’s 4G network is rolled out.
Mr Abdul Malik, Finance Director for Serena East Africa said that Serena is looking forward to hosting business executives within the region while allowing them leisure time as they conduct their meetings in their hotels. “Business from regional market is expected to increase as guests from smaller cities travel to Nairobi to communicate with their counterparts in other continents using the facilities. This will make Serena Nairobi and Kampala as the venue of choice,” says Mr Malik.
The Permanent Secretary for Information and communication Kenya, Dr Bitange Ndemo, was also in attendance. Speaking via HD screen, Dr Ndemo stated that the teleconference service will enable the government move a step closer to bridging the digital divide in the country.
The current telepresence live rooms in Kenya are located in Serena Hotel and at the Safaricom Headquaters. These rooms are available for hire by any interested party. The price for hiring the teleconference facility is US$ 400 per hour (approximately Kes 32,000) for East Africans and US$ 500 – 700 (approximately Kes 40,000 – 60,000 ) for Middle East and the rest of Africa.
Source CIO East Africa
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