AT&T, the US telecommunications group, is to launch a hosted life-size video-conferencing or ‘telepresence’ service for its corporate customers around the world this year using Cisco System’s high definition equipment.

The company, which announced the service on Monday, is betting that the market for telepresence services will continue to grow dramatically, fuelled in part by corporate concerns about the growing cost of travel and its impact on climate change and their belief that it can speed up and improve internal and external communications.