The Hindu : Video conferencing facility soon at Internet outlets

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 02, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Video conferencing facility soon at Internet outlets

By Our Staff Reporter

Video conferencing in progress at an Internet outlet. — Photo: K. Pichumani

CHENNAI. DEC. 1. Broadband Internet, video conferencing and chat, still in their early days in the country, will soon be available at Internet outlets. This was evident from the proceedings of an interactive session held today to showcase latest developments in Internet and telecommunications technology.

Winners of a promotional contest in Chennai sat face-to-face with the music director trio, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, in Mumbai. Eavesdropping into their conversation were winners sitting in Bangalore, Jaipur and Hyderabad.

While Abhishek, Shyam and Ravi put their questions across to the music directors, outside another winner, sitting in an outlet on Anna Salai, was chatting one-on-one with lyricist, Javed Akthar, and a third winner was getting up-close with Karan Johar.

"Video chat and conferencing options will enable the common man to cut down on travel and communication costs. Not just inter-city but also intra-city," said Raja Vaidyanathan, Chief Operating Officer (Tamil Nadu), Reliance Infocomm, which organised the interaction.

The technology, to be available in all 11 outlets of Reliance in the city in a month, would redefine personal relationships, a company representative said. "When the clarity is good, they need not physically meet. `Boy-meets-girl' is happening in a big way. We have had enquiries from a lot of matrimonial web sites. Here, the boy and his whole family and the girl could meet each other over video conferencing without really travelling all the way," said Dexter C. Bob, Circle Head of Tamil Nadu.

The outlets also offered a `Buddies' service that enabled all users in the company outlets to video-chat with each other and make friends online. Though the pricing for video conferencing had not been fixed yet, video chat was now available at Rs. 60 a hour.

Virtual offices

The company also planned to provide virtual offices to corporates on the move.

"Anyone who has come to the city and needs an office for a day or two, will be given a cubicle and allowed to operate for an affordable fee," an official said.

About 27 outlets in 12 cities in Tamil Nadu, currently operating as Reliance India Mobile dealers, would be fully functional to offer broadband Internet, video chat and conferencing facilities in a few weeks.

Nationwide, the company hoped to connect 250 outlets in 100 cities by the end of the month, said the official.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Southern States