AT&T serves up Unified Communications Federation for business customers

AT&T (NYSE: T) has introduced a new Unified Communications (UC) service called UC Federation that it says will allow suppliers, partners and customers to communicate across various networks.

One of the problems the service is hoping to solve is aligning all of the disparate UC systems that made seamless collaboration an issue. The service provider claims that UC Federation can enable internal and external teams to collaborate freely across supported UC platforms. 

Developed in AT&T Labs, AT&T UC Federation supports a wide range of UC platforms, including Microsoft Lync and Cisco Jabber. A business will be able to gain a number of benefits: connect to supported UC platforms of partners, suppliers and vendors; control which organizations can communicate at the company, group or user level; and allow communication methods (like instant messaging) and block others (such as online presence).

"UC Federation from AT&T provides tools to help overcome this challenge by removing the hassle and allowing business teams to connect easily and over a highly securely platform," said Vishy Gopalakrishnan, AVP Big Data and Advanced Solutions, AT&T Business Solutions, in a release.

Already, the service has been deployed and trialed by voice vendor Sonus, which is in the process of a full service rollout.

Later this year, AT&T plans to extend UC Federation beyond instant messaging and presence to include calendar integration and video and voice capabilities.

AT&T said that it may support additional UC platforms in the future. The service provider is currently offering a free 90-day trial for UC Federation for up to 25 users.

For more:
- see the release

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