Just over a year and a half into its foray into telepresence (aka videoconferencing) technology, Wachovia has gotten a return on its investment and is using it frequently for executive travel, particularly for merger-related meetings, according to Richard Mattox, senior vice president and senior director of technology, architecture and business services at Wachovia.

The firm has set up five telepresence studios — conference rooms tricked out with Cisco equipment such as cameras, microphones and a large flat-screen, wall-mounted monitor — two in Charlotte and one each in Richmond, St. Louis and San Antonio. Each cost slightly less than $300,000 to set up, but the audio and video quality, which I observed first-hand in an interview via telepresence last night, is excellent.

"There's a perception you can get caught into that you're sitting across the room from somebody," Mattox says. [This was my experience last night, except that, because the camera is not mounted directly in front of the speaker, the person I was speaking to via telepresence, Jim Cooke, internet business solutions director, IBSG at Cisco, who was in San Jose, did not seem to be looking at me while we were talking, but at a spot a few inches to my left.]

Just by having executives use telepresence instead of traveling to certain meetings, Wachovia is saving $70,000 per month in travel expenses. The firm is starting to use telepresence for staff meetings across locations, particularly since the firm's latest studio is a CTS 3200 model, a larger room that seats up to 18 people in front of three 65-inch high-definition plasma displays.

Asked if Cisco will be offering a low-cost version of its telepresence studio for financial institutions that don't have an extra $1.5 million in their 2009 budgets, Jim Greene, Cisco's vice president, global financial services practice, says, "Do we have a Best Buy version of this? Not yet. But we do see a need for a lower cost solution."

Cooke notes that AT&T offers Cisco TelePresence as a managed service. Greene says that KLM Airlines, which has seen a depression in its business, is converting some of its airport waiting rooms into TelePresence studios. So companies that are cutting back on executive travel will be able to conduct virtual meetings at local airports.