Vivox Embeds Real-Time Voice Communications in Virtual Worlds and Online Games
Internap Network Services, a global provider of end-to-end Internet business solutions, announced today its Performance IP network and data center colocation services are enabling Vivox, a provider of voice services for online games and virtual worlds, to deliver live high-quality voice chat within multiplayer online games and virtual worlds, including Linden Lab’s 3D online world Second Life and games from Sony Online Entertainment.
Until now, game and virtual community developers needed to build communications software and network infrastructure in order to offer voice as part of their application service, an expensive and time consuming task. Today, Vivox, an Internap customer for over two years, offers a turnkey solution and managed service that is bringing voice chat to nine million subscribers in over 180 countries. Vivox supports some of the industry’s largest game and virtual world communities and has proven itself in large, live online events – in one case connecting 6,000 people using voice chat within a game to a live community address during SOE’s 2008 Fan Faire.
“Real-time interactive communication is redefining multiplayer online games and virtual worlds with speed-to-market and voice quality as the critical success factors,” said Jim Toga, co-founder and vice president of engineering. “With Vivox and Internap, developers can easily integrate voice, messaging and new presence-based services into their games and virtual communities with 100 percent reliability, massive scalability and a team of seasoned professionals at hand through development, production and post launch support.”
Internap’s Performance IP is an excellent fit for voice applications, massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) and virtual communities as it is engineered for low latency, minimal jitter and global reach. The managed network service is based on Internap’s global platform of Private Network Access Points (P-NAPs) that interconnect multiple Internet backbones and MIRO (Managed Internet Route Optimizer) patented route optimization technology that monitors network performance and selects the best path for data to travel. Performance IP is bundled with Internap’s data center colocation in 44 sites around the world offering a seamless networked infrastructure for applications backed by a 100 percent performance service level agreement (SLA).
“Vivox has developed an innovative managed network service that enables developers to add voice communications to virtual world and online gaming experiences with the highest quality, turnkey simplicity and professional support,” said Tim Sullivan, chief technology officer at Internap. “Internap’s Performance IP and data center colocation are an excellent network and technology infrastructure backbone for the Vivox service and their future business growth.”