Ken Rehor's presentation at eComm 2008

Alphabet Soup: Sorting out Emerging Telephony and Speech Standards Ken Rehor Co-founder, VoiceXML Forum Founder, Harken Systems, LLC

Voice Web Telephony Architecture

Benefits of Open Interfaces, Protocols, Languages

Status and Deployment

Components of a Voice Solution

Break out of the monolithic systems trap

Modernize existing proprietary applications without starting from scratch

Develop new apps, and incrementally add features in a modular fashion

Advantages

Faster development

Less expensive to develop and maintain

Path towards modern, open standards architecture

Voice / Web Application Architecture Phone user HTTP HTTP App server

Application logic

Content and data

Transaction processing

Database interface

VoiceXML platform TDM or VoIP

Grammars

Audio / SSML

Scripts

Images

Media

Scripts

HTTP Any phone Internet or Intranet Web user <html> .wav <grxml> <vxml>

Voice App Architecture and Standards Scripts HTTP HTTPS HTTP HTTPS VoiceXML Browser Telephony Control Interface: SIP, etc. Dialog Control Interface: SIP, MSCP, etc. Dialog Control Interface VoiceXML Application CCXML VXML Phone Network Caller CCXML Call Control Application Media Control Interface SOAP GRXML Scripts Audio T1 / E1 ISDN SS7 SIP RFC 2833 RTP M R C P GRXML SSML GRXML G.711, WAV, .au, mp3, etc. SIP Netann MSCML MOML / MSML MSCP DMSP MGCP etc. Telephony Control Interface VoiceXML 2.0 VoiceXML 2.1 ECMAScript 262 MRCP v1 MRCP v2 SSML VoIP Gateway Conference/ Media Server CCXML Browser MRCP Client Audio DTMF Media Mixer / Server TTS Server SIV Server ASR Server

Why Standards?

Grow an industry

Interoperation

Lower cost of goods

Innovation and evolution

Disrupt proprietary markets

Ecosystems develop around every open interface

Everyone benefits through joint work: reduces design effort

Promote technology to the next level

Sell more due to larger market

Open Interfaces Enable Innovation

Migration: Proprietary, hardware-based solutions to Proprietary software-based solutions to Open Software

New Business Models

e.g. Voice Service Provider: Separate application from Telephony/Speech resources

Separation of concerns

Evolve components without starting from scratch

Concentrate on innovation rather than duplication

Move up the value chain

Leverage open, known technology

Web protocols, servers, networks, development tools, expertise

Distributed Client-Server Architecture

Enables new business models and efficient resource utilization

Standard/Common high-level language

Designed for voice dialogs and telephony

Phone number mapped to URL

Phone number associated with URL of voice application

Voice Web Fundamental Concepts

Visual vs. Voice markup

Web app UI

HTML – Structure

Layout

Input declaration

Transitions

Images

Audio

Video

Text

Scripts

Voice Web app UI

VoiceXML – Structure

Dialog flow

Input declaration

Transitions

Audio

Video, Images

Text (for TTS)

Scripts

Protocols

Web applications

HTTP, HTTPS

SIP

RTP

SOAP

WSDL

…

Voice Web applications

HTTP, HTTPS

SIP

RTP

SOAP

WSDL

…

The Telecom Trilogy

User Interaction

Voice user interface

Multimodal user interface

Switching

Connecting endpoints

Moving connections

Signaling

Media processing

ASR, SIV, TTS, Record / Play

Conferencing, Mixing, Echo cancellation

Endpointing, Coding / Format conversion

Ecosystem at Every Interface Proprietary dialog XML <xml> VoiceXML, GRXML, SSML, Scripts, etc. MRCP client MRCP server VSP: Telephony, Speech, apps

Application Developers

VUI designers

Voice platforms

Tools

Service Providers

Application Servers

Audio Engine ASR Engine <grxml> TTS Engine <ssml> VoiceXML browser <vxml> Application Server Code Generator GUI Tool / SDE .wav

Industry Standards – Global Adoption

VoiceXML Forum

Nearly 100 member organizations worldwide

Platform Certification

Speaker Biometrics

Collaborating with W3C, ANSI, ISO

W3C Speech Interface Framework

VoiceXML 2.0/2.1, SRGS 1.0, SSML 1.0, CCXML 1.0

SISR 1.0, PLS 1.0

Coming: VoiceXML 3.0, SSML 1.1

IETF

Media Resource Control Protocol (MRCPv2)

SIP / VoiceXML media server spec (MEDIACTRL)

VoiceXML

SRGS

SSML

Semantic Interpretation

Call Control

Pronunciation Lexicon

SCXML

For more information, see: W3C Voice Browser Working Group http://www.w3.org/Voice/

W3C VoiceXML 2.0

W3C Recommendation March 2004

Widely implemented

Approximately 4 dozen platforms

Many service providers worldwide

Many tools, countless applications

VoiceXML Forum Platform Certification Program

24 certified platforms, more coming

W3C VoiceXML 2.1

W3C Recommendation April 2007

Most platform vendors support it

Certification Program and Test suite in progress

W3C VoiceXML 3.0

Spec in early stages of development

Call Control W3C CCXML 1.0

W3C Working Draft Jan 2007

Implementations increasing

Pronunciation Lexicon W3C PLS 1.0

Used to describe phonetic information for use in speech recognition and synthesis

2 nd Last Call Working Draft Oct 2006

Input grammars SRGS 1.0

W3C Recommendation March 2004

Widely implemented

Output formatting SSML 1.0, 1.1

SSML 1.0 - W3C Recommendation March 2004

Widely implemented, yet minor real support (most TTS engines ignore the SSML instructions)

SSML 1.1 – W3C Working Draft June 2007

Adds support for Asian, Eastern European, and Middle Eastern languages

Semantic Interpretation for Speech Recognition SISR 1.0

W3C Recommendation April 2007

Implementations increasing

Required for new Platform Certification

What's Next?

VoiceXML 3.0

Video

Multimodal integration

Speaker Biometrics

Cleaner Modularity

SCXML 1.0

State Chart Markup Language

Separate logic from presentation

W3C Working Draft Feb 2007

Several implementations available

Commercial, educational, open source

Web / Voice ++

Standards enable easy integration with other technologies

Re-use web technologies

Multiple modalities / channels: Voice +

SMS

Web

Chat

Mobile

Voice Control / Search

"Integration" / "Mashups" / "SOA"

Modular architecture

Open interfaces

Common languages, protocols

Combine data, services, modalities

Easy adoption of new technologies and features

Video

Multimodal

Biometrics

Telephony

Mashups, SOA, Multi-Channel/Modal POTS PSTN or VoIP Mobile web VXML Browser Voice UI App Mobile IP IP Presentation logic Business logic Mobile UI App Web UI App PC

http://www.kenrehor.com http://www.voicexml.org http://www.w3.org/voice For more information:

3 rd Party Call Control: CCXML and SIP Media HTTP HTTP PSTN Caller Telephony Control Interface Dialog Control Interface Telephony Web Application Voice Web Application CCXML VXML Telephony Interface CCXML Server VoiceXML Server Media Server

Voice Web Application Architecture VoiceXML browser PSTN or IP network database audio <record> audio .wav MRCP Server Voice Web Application Server MRCP Client ASR Engine <grxml> <vxml> TTS Engine <ssml>

VSOA Interfaces