While Dolby usually leaps to mind as a provider of high-end theater audio and a great way to listen to a movie soundtrack, bringing Dolby into an office setting might seem like overkill. But Dolby's incredible sound engineering background has yielded new fruit in office settings as well, and the British Telecom MeetMe app will get a major new boost with Dolby technology.

More specifically, Dolby is set to provide the media server, which will be software-based, for the MeetMe service. This will lead to Dolby taking all the audio streams going into the service and intermingling same, allowing for some exciting new features. As explained by Dolby's communications business group vice president and general manager Andrew Border, the new service will allow for things like volume matching for listeners as well as noise filtration, helping to make calls better and clearer in the process. It also allows for a more immersive experience, providing a sense of balance among speakers as well as directional movement.

Border went on to explain how, when it comes to conference calling, attention seems to most readily go to the loudest speakers, while the more quiet types can barely be heard, and are thus more ignored. Border had reportedly seen this happen a time or two, as he was previously director of product management for unified communications (UC) at Cisco (News - Alert). So with Dolby, Border and the rest set out to deliver an experience that would make more voices heard. While most Dolby systems involve playback solutions that aren't occurring in real time, as opposed to communications happening in real time, the basic concepts share some similarities. Thus Dolby could build on its experiences to deliver a solution that keeps latency to a minimum. There's always a certain amount of delay in conversation—even just the simple pauses of a speaker gathering thoughts is a delay—but Dolby's new system keeps that delay to a minimum.

The apps involved allow for single-click joining, and allow for meetings that can carry on even if video fails or is otherwise unavailable, a point that could be useful particularly in places where data-based services might not work quite so well, like in India. Reports suggest that there will be support even for dial-in operations, and those users working from “narrow-band” connections won't “pull down the experience for other users,” according to Border.

This is good news for Dolby and British Telecom, because it's going to allow the duo to better compete in the IP phones market, a market that's got plenty of competitors. Indeed, not long ago, Yealink recently launched its new Technical Support Platform for its line of material, giving users several new options in terms of troubleshooting and optimizing releases. Yealink (News - Alert) also rolled out its Video Collaboration Solution in the Chinese market, making it one that's likely to eventually compete with releases in India, which Dolby and British Telecom also seemed ready to target. Any competitor going into the field is going to have to reckon with Yealink, and that's no small task given what Yealink already has to offer.

Still, this is clearly a competitive market, and whether its Yealink, British Telecom or a host of others, customers looking to use new tools in IP phones and conferencing systems will have plenty of options on hand.