"It's not strictly a bandwidth problem or a bandwidth challenge," Heltsley surmises. "It's a bit of a capability challenge all the way through the network, from the routers to the switches to the cabling to interface cards and the level of code they're running. It was a pretty good detailed, tedious process."

Another challenge was site and room selection for the studios.

"You have to be very, very cognizant of where you're putting these studios, not only with respect to the network path but with the physical conditions surrounding the technology -- that is, if you're very particular about the experience, which we are," Heltsley says.

P&G had to consider lighting, sound and noise levels "so that the experience was simply impeccable," she says.

Taking network capability and site selection into account, P&G has the studio turn-up process down to about 16 weeks or so per studio, Heltsley says. P&G plans to turn up 45 TelePresence studios altogether comprised of Cisco 3000 and 1000 series systems, which cost US$299,000 and $79,000, respectively.

On average, the worldwide studios are utilized more than four hours in a 10-hour day, or more than 40 per cent. By contrast, the percentage use of traditional videoconferencing by P&G was in the single digits, Heltsley says.

And the experience?

"It's like being there without leaving here," Heltsley says. "Most people, in two minutes or less, forget that they're actually using technology for the conversation."

Key attributes of telepresence are the technology's ability to present images in life-size form and to deliver high-quality spatial audio, Heltsley says. It's what separates presence from videoconferencing, where images are only two inches high and "jerky," and the audio is only of telephone conferencing quality, she says.

"People underestimate the importance of life-size," Heltsley says. "It really is the element that makes that conversation feel like it's happening right here, right now, all in the same room."

P&G has even thrown a few virtual birthday and retirement parties in its studios for employees in locations across the globe. These events would only occur locally without telepresence, she says.

Ease of use is also a big selling point internally.

"In our case, it's very much walk in, sit down and start talking," Heltsley says. "People walk in, sit down, use it and they're hooked."

But the real payback is in employee productivity and reduced travel time. Since turning up the studios in October, P&G's avoided 5,300 trips, Heltsley says -- 1,300 in June alone.