Mr. Gary Gray, Australian Special Minister of State, announced an upgrade of the National TelePresence System (NTS) 31 October 2011. The NTS is a secure video conference network used by federal government officials to replace travel. Apart from reducing travel costs (handy in the recent QANTAS airline shutdown), the system also reduces greenhouse gas emissions from travel.The NTS was used for organizing the recent CHOGM meeting in Perth. It was claimed to have saved $12M and 2,330 tonnes of carbon emissions.
The NTS is also used for video conferences with state government officials for organizing routine meetings and during emergencies, such as floods. The system uses Telstra Next IPTM network and Cisco hardware and has been in operation since October 2009. The system cost $13.8 M over four years, with state government contributing $4.6M. There have been 1031 meetings totaling 1660 hours held.
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