Cisco will begin delivering the new products to customers in December and has signed 24 partners to help install the systems.

Telecom operators AT&T and Verizon Communications in the United States will help promote TelePresence, while Telstra is also expected to join as the first operator in Asia.

Lam said the firm is also in talks with several Chinese operators, although some of them have their own video-conferencing services. "Their challenge is how to raise the quality of their services and provide their customers with what they want," said Lam. "These are the areas that we can help them."

TelePresence users will pay an estimated US$3,000 to US$5,000 a month for broadband, adding to revenue and efficient usage of operators' bandwidth.

Teliris Ltd, a New York-based videoconferencing firm, said in a statement late on Monday that the Cisco products are first-generation and are limited in their capacity to accommodate more than two locations and provide good eye contact.

HP launched a similar product, Halo, in December last year at US$500,000 for a single unit.

Pricing may also pose a challenge for Cisco; businesses will have to fork out US$299,000 for the equipment and a monthly fee of US$5,000.

But Chambers said prices would continue to fall as uptake increased.

"If we believe in Moore's Law, the price will be just one-tenth of the listed price in five years," he said.

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