These days placing a call from a cellular phone in public is looking like a pretty old-fashioned way to get in touch. Technology is growing telecom into a multi-armed communication wizard, combining more and more ways to send messages and media between business collaborators and friends.

Stephen Brough, global director of business development and sales at Tata Communications, a company headquartered in India and Singapore, told John Furrier, cohost of the theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, and Peter Santeusanio, partner and CTO of BCStrategies, that creative combinations are springing up everywhere.

“Video is constantly growing,” according to Brough, and the way it is integrated with voice and other technologies is helping companies communicate like never before. He added that virtual reality and augmented reality are coming up in the telecom world, and their uses in business communication are getting a lot of interest from developers and entrepreneurs.

Brough has worked in telecom for 20 years with a strong mobile focus. He said the switch to cloud offers undeniable benefits but also challenges, especially for anyone with a unified communications service.

The two (and three and four and five) become one

Brough said that the cloud-enabled RCS, or Rich Communication Suite, is a communication animal that seeks to combine as many features as possible — presence, video, content, IM, etc. He added that companies can look forward with excitement to seeing how these communication tools can help them solve problems and cut down on unnecessary spending and hours on the clock.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Enterprise Connect 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE