ACT Teleconferencing, Clarent Announce IP Voice Conferencing

Clarent Corporationhat it says is the first-ever full duplex IP telephony conferencing offering, ACT Teleconferencing Inc., a Denver-based provider of audio, video, data, and Internet conferencing products and services, will partner with Internet Protocol (IP) telephony vendor <%=company%> of Redwood City, CA. The new solution, called Action VOIP, is expected to utilize Clarent's IP Telephony gateway combined with ACT's audio conferencing services and equipment. Customers will be able to conduct attended, unattended, and fully automated audio conferences via IP telephony regardless of conference participant location.

The advantages of IP telephony is lower costs in many cases, compared to traditional long distance, coupled with the ability to conduct global conference while the participants share Web documents simultaneously, the company said. ACT intends to deploy Clarent products in its operations centers around the world, including those in the U.S., Canada, UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Australia, and Hong Kong. Action VOIP also plans to use the Embrace mixed-media Web-based interaction platform from OutReach Technologies (Columbia, MD) to deliver this service.

In related news, ACT recently announced it has acquired the Internet service provider (ISP) division of Mueller Telecommunications Inc. (Denver), a service provider that is anticipated to enable ACT to become an Application Service Provider (ASP) offering its clients a broad range of online conferencing, Web hosting, and Internet access services.

Edited by John Spofford