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SPIRIT DSP Extends Relationship with AT&T, Cisco

By Casey Houser
Contributing Writer

SPIRIT DSP (News - Alert), the developer of a voice-over-IP engine in use by many multinational corporations, recently announced that its own product has been integrated with the joint AT&T-Cisco (News - Alert) conferencing software, AT&T Conferencing with Cisco WebEx Meeting Center.

This is not the first time SPIRIT has joined with AT&T. Its VoIP engine has allowed AT&T (News - Alert) customers to use high-definition voice conferencing through its servers since 2010. The extension here with AT&T and Cisco will give those customers, and others, access to Web-based video conferencing with the option of the Collaboration Meetings Rooms Cloud Service, which allows two or more conferences to connect to one another through the cloud.

Andrew Sviridenko, the chairman of SPIRIT, noted that this combination of services is as much about SPIRIT as it is AT&T.

“We are proud to be trusted VoIP engine supplier for AT&T for 5 years now,” Sviridenko said. “SPIRIT helps AT&T win corporate conferencing market against service provides like Microsoft (News - Alert) by offering cross-platform services for business collaboration.”

SPIRIT’s new capabilities will allow its multinational clients to save on costs by making Web-based conferencing available through the cloud and accessible as a pay-as-you-go service. Specifically, the Collaboration Meeting Rooms Cloud can extend the capacity of meetings to more than 100 participants. By working within a subscription service, businesses that use the SPIRIT/AT&T/Cisco platform can pay for only the meeting time they use.

SPIRIT also announced this year the release of its latest VideoMost software development kit (SDK). Now in version 5.0, the SDK allows businesses to build mobile clients that work with the SPIRIT videoconferencing server. The kit is meant to address low-bandwidth networks such as 3G mobile and overloaded Wi-Fi.

The more than 121 million AT&T mobile wireless subscribers stand to benefit greatly from the joining of SPIRIT in this latest endeavor. Businesses that regularly hold conferences but are dissatisfied with their current connections can easily see jumps to support for more than 100 participants in a single channel, but they will only be required to pay for the bandwidth they use each month.