The Cloud Communications Alliance (CCA), a group of key players in the industry, was formed recently by eight established players in hosted-IP voice and data communications.

This initiative is expected to push development and adoption of the first national high definition enterprise voice and data network in the Internet "cloud". Business customers will have more adaptable and controllable voice and unified communications solutions as a result and eventually it will boost business and personal productivity while lessening expenses.

The formation of the Cloud Communications Alliance was announced by its founding companies which include Broadcore (News - Alert), Alteva, Consolidated Technologies, SimpleSignal, Callis Communications, ISN Telcom, Telesphere and Stage 2 Networks at the Cloud Computing Expo held in New York City this week. The founding companies have over $100 million combined annual profit and jointly serve over 110,000 businesses in the United States of America.

Clark Petersen, the chairman of the Cloud Communications Alliance and the chief executive officer of Telesphere (News - Alert), said that as businesses become comfortable with the idea of cloud computing, they are now starting to recognize the redundancy, powerful convergence features and cost savings collected by means of enterprise voice and data communications that can also exist in the "cloud."

According to Bill Bumbernick, a member of the Cloud Communications Alliance and the chief executive officer of Alteva (News - Alert), the CCA is not just about voice-over-IP, hosted PBX or unified communications. They're presenting a completely new way to build, deploy and scale enterprise communications systems that offer HD voice services together with a platform of advanced features and applications that enable businesses work in ways they've never imagined.

All the founding companies of the Cloud Communication Alliance use a software platform supplied by Broadsoft to give consumers and businesses a variety of hosted or cloud-based IP multimedia communications.