MUMBAI - Indian telephony and internet services provider Tata Communications Tuesday announced its partnership with Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide to roll out its video-conferencing facility in the hotel giant’s properties.

Under the agreement, Tata will increase its network of public Cisco Telepresence rooms by opening 10 new facilities in Starwood’s hotels by the year-end, the company said in a regulatory statement.

Cisco telepresence provides life-like, high definition, conferencing facilities allowing participants to meet their colleagues, customers and business partners across a virtual table.

The facility offers users, who do not have telepresence rooms in their companies, access to this cutting-edge technology at an affordable per hour rental rate.

The first telepresence suites are planned for Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers, Sheraton on the Park in Sydney, Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, The Westin Los Angeles Airport and W Chicago-City Centre, the statement said.

Starwood also plans to expand the offering to hotels in key international cities like Brussels, Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo.

“Using managed telepresence services is ‘better than being there’ and helps companies hold more productive meetings without incurring travel and time costs,” said John Landau, senior vice-president (global managed services), Tata Communications.

Tata Communications has several operational public telepresence rooms in India - Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi and Gurgaon and abroad - London and Boston.

It recently announced an agreement to manage a public room in Manila for Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co (PLDT).

Later this year, Tata plans to launch its global meeting exchange service that will support business-to-business sessions between telepresence rooms (public or private), regardless of the network service provider, the company said.