Communications service provider BT, in partnership with voice technologies creator Dolby Laboratories, is set to introduce BT MeetMe with Dolby Voice, an audio conferencing service, to the South African market.
This was revealed yesterday at a media briefing by BT and Dolby in Johannesburg.
According to Dolby, the voice conference service is going to transform business communications by making conference calls clearer, more natural and productive.
The service can be accessed via desktop and mobile devices - iPhone and Android and in meeting rooms using the Dolby Conference Phone which connects to the IP systems like the Cisco Unified Communications Manager.
BT MeetMe with Dolby Voice offers significant cost savings over traditional audio conferencing services, says Andrew Wilding, client director at Dolby.
Because users can join conference calls over data networks, the service helps lower transport and access fees, says Wilding.
"Anything in this market where you bring real cost benefit is going to get a serious look. There isn't any corporation right now that is not trying to reduce the cost of IT dramatically.
"In the telecoms space, much innovation has been happening with regard to audio conferencing - we really believe what we are doing is not just making a rudimentary improvement to conference calls but a complete step change."
The go-to-market strategy for the voice conference service will be a combination of an acquisition strategy and tapping into the existing BT customer base, says Oliver Fortuin, MD at BT sub-Saharan Africa.
"SA is very distinct from the rest of Africa - the cost of voice is reasonable in African terms, our approach will be slightly different from the rest of Africa where there is a massive market opportunity to impact not just the quality of voice, which is problematic, but the cost of voice."
Kevin Hardy, head of sales sub-Saharan Africa at Dolby, says with BT's portfolio and capacity, the service will have a broader reach.
According to Hardy, now is the right time to introduce these kinds of services to the SA market. Previously, there were many building blocks that needed to be in place before services like MeetMe with Dolby Voice could be unveiled in the sub-Saharan region, he adds.
"IT networks needed to be robust and available enough and from a mobile network perspective, mobile networks weren't originally architected to carry voice over the data connection. Now the market is saturated with mobile networks and the roll out of 4G networks that were designed specifically to carry voice applications is available."
The service is targeted at the enterprise and will be rolled out on a trial basis to BT customers on Thursday. BT plans to introduce the service more broadly to sub-Saharan Africa.
Share
