If teens remain `talkaholics’ and have fun doing it, Voyant Technologies wants to provide the fuel.
With an instant voice-messaging solution in a next-generation environment, the company thinks it is ready to bring new spice to voice communications when it launches the product by the middle of this year.
The solution enables users to communicate with direct IP traffic into the system without the use of a gateway, said Dick Schulte, Voyant’s chief operating officer.
It is, says Shulte, an on-demand, instant multipoint conferencing.
The instant voice-messaging product leverages a protocol called Session Initiation Protocol, which signals multimedia services between intelligent endpoints using Internet Protocol and enables end users to launch voice conferences without prior subscription.
The SIP defines a URL format just as an email URL, but the message does not travel to the called party, according to Voyant. Rather, it sails to a proxy server, which carries the message to the called party. The called party has an option to accept or reject the call and the response goes to the caller through the same process in reverse order.
Shulte says current voice networks are careening out of capacity, so VoIP could be the focus of the future not only in augmenting network capacity but also in generating new services.
Voyant thinks that about half of the present voice traffic will travel over new networks in the next half decade and cites research by International Data Corp. that expects VoIP services to attract $19 billion in revenue by 2004.
“We believe instant voice conferencing will be a big thing in the future,” glowed Shulte.
He said Voyant is already talking with Nextel Communications Inc., Vodafone Group plc and AT&T Wireless Services Inc. to operate their systems.
Voyant, which is an infrastructure provider for voice conferencing systems and applications, is just launching into wireless and has been involved with public switch and telephone networks since its inception two years ago. It became a startup after it was spun off from Global Crossing.
Shulte says the company delivers services for WorldCom Inc., AT&T, Bell Atlantic Corp., SBC Communications Inc., BellSouth Corp., NTT DoCoMo, Telia and KPN.
