"If people are using conferencing, it's because travel's expensive," said Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer at BT. Executives are no less safe in a place like Mumbai than in any U.S. city, and they don't perceive a greater danger, he said. "In any trip, the most dangerous part is the taxi ride to the airport," Schneier said.

Public meeting rooms like those at the Taj hotels are likely to be an interim solution, in any case, Yankee's Kerravala said. He compared conferencing from nearby hotels to making calls from a pay phone down the street. If carriers and vendors can make different meeting systems work automatically across different carriers, as Internet e-mail does, businesses will be more willing to invest in rooms of their own and the telepresence industry will boom, he said.