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Overview:
Using Speech Technology to Build Ubiquitous Applications
Voice portals will extend enterprise data and consumer information to all mobile phones, driving up minutes of use and reducing churn. That is one of the conclusions of the new 69-page report, Mobile Voice Portals: Applications, Challenges & Opportunities, by Datacomm Research Company.
"Mobile phone operators have compelling reasons to integrate voice and data applications," said Paul Pauesick, Datacomm Research's Director of Research and principal author of the report. "Mobile voice portals facilitate hands-free operation, unified messaging, and ubiquitous access to enterprise data," he concluded.
"This report explains why speech technology is an essential ingredient to mobile data's growth," said Ira Brodsky, President of Datacomm Research. "Voice-enabled applications can be accessed from not only wireless computers, but digital mobile phones, analog mobile phones, and even landline phones, bringing an end to the coverage limitations that plagued mobile data for so long," he added.
Mobile Voice Portals: Applications, Challenges & Opportunities includes sections on the key enablers, major obstacles, the buy-versus-outsource debate, and existing relationships between voice portal vendors and mobile operators. The report also includes results from Datacomm Research's proprietary tests of leading consumer voice portals. And there are brief profiles of more than 15 vendors, including Comverse Network Systems, Digital Voice Technologies, InternetSpeech, OkamLogic, Red Circle, Speaklink, ThinkEngine Networks, Verascape, and Xora.
Additional conclusions found in:
Mobile Voice Portals: Applications, Challenges & Opportunities:
- Users will never be fully satisfied with the tiny keypads and screens found on mobile handsets.Voice is the natural human interface, providing a faster and less fatiguing way of entering data.
- The experience gained developing mobile voice portal services will benefit all voice-powered Internet applications. Mobile carriers require voice portals that are highly scalable, perform well in noisy environments, and are particularly easy to navigate.
- Vendors must offer carriers outsourced voice portal services. The mobile phone industry has its hands full migrating to 3G and complying with the FCC's emergency 911 mandate. Due to carrier consolidation, a handful of voice portal vendors will win the lion's share of business.
- Use of automated speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS) technologies in mobile applications will boost unified messaging. Mobile users have neither the time nor tools for handling e-mails and faxes in their native formats. Voice technology enables content to flow easily from one media to another.
- Mobile voice portals will spur use of voice over IP (VoIP). VoIP reduces the cost of transport, enables new telephony features, and permits integration of mobile phones and the World Wide Web.
Table of Contents
1. Executive Summary
- 1.1 Key Conclusions
- 1.2 Forecast
2. Introduction
3. Factors Driving Voice Portal Growth in Mobile Phone Market
- 3.1 The Ideal Personal Communicator
- 3.2 The Most Natural Human Interface
- 3.3 Leveraging Combined Wired and Wireless Networks
- 3.4 Reducing the Cost of Operations
- 3.5 Path to Higher Margin Services
- 3.6 Moving Up the Value Chain
- 3.7 Improvements in Speech Recognition Technology
- 3.8 Voice-enabling Web Content
- 3.9 Availability of Application Development Tools
- 3.10 Needed Urgently: Hands-Free Operation
- 3.11 The Best User Interface for Tiny Devices
- 3.12 Voice over IP Technology Gets a Boost
4. Key Obstacles to Voice Portals
- 4.1 VXML: Overcoming Inertia
- 4.2 Serial Nature of Voice Communications
- 4.3 Need for Appropriate Voice Cues
- 4.4 What Did You Say?
- 4.5 The Walled Garden
- 4.6 Portability of Applications
- 4.7 Centralized Systems
- 4.8 Storage: a Necessary Ingredient
- 4.9 Need for More Reliable Voice Recognition
- 4.10 Large, Specific & Diverse Vocabularies
- 4.11 The Mobile Environment
- 4.12 Voice Portal Security
- 4.13 Seeing is Believing
- 4.14 Confusion Over Convergence
5. Datacomm Research's Portal Tests
- 5.1 Test Description and Conditions
- 5.2 Key Test Observations
6. Voice Portals for Mobile Phone Carriers: Own or Outsource?
7. Voice Portal Relationships
- 7.1 Internet Portals
- 7.1.1 AOL and Quack.com
- 7.1.2 Lycos
- 7.2 Mobile Carriers
- 7.2.1 Sprint PCS and HeyAnita
- 7.2.2 Qwest and BeVocal
- 7.2.3 AT&T Wireless and Tellme
- 7.2.4 Centennial Communications Corp. and Indicast
- 7.2.5 Other Developing Relationships
8. Speech Recognition Complements WAP, SMS, & i-Mode
9. Vendor Updates
- 9.1 Comverse Network Systems
- 9.2 Digital Voice Technologies, Inc. (Getvocal.com)
- 9.3 Glenayre Technologies Inc.
- 9.4 InternetSpeech
- 9.5 Lucent Technologies
- 9.6 MetraVox (now defunct)
- 9.7 OkamLogic
- 9.8 Openwave Systems Inc.
- 9.9 Red Circle
- 9.10 Speaklink Inc.
- 9.11 TelSurf
- 9.12 ThinkEngine Networks
- 9.13 Verascape
- 9.14 VocalPoint Technologies
- 9.15 VoiceGenie Technologies Inc.
- 9.16 Xora Inc.
Table of Figures & Tables
- Table 1 Factors Driving/Inhibiting Mobile Voice Portals
- Figure 1 Forecasted Number of Users, Mobile Voice Portals, 2001-2006
- Table 2 Speech recognition technology providers
- Table 3 Voice Portal Platform Payback Figure 2 How Speech Technology Boosts Mobile Data
- Table 4 Top Causes of more than 32,000 traffic accidents analyzed by the UNC. able 5 VXML Developer sites and tool kits
- Table 6 VXML Supporters
- Table 7 Mobile Voice Portal Target Markets: Enterprise versus Consumer
- Table 8Voice Portals Tested
- Table 9 Voice Portal Command & Control
- Table 10 Voice Portal Feature Listing
- Table 11 Voice Portal Response Time
- Table 12 HeyAnita’s Responsiveness under Noise Conditions
- Table 13 BeVocal’s Responsiveness under Noise Conditions
- Table 14 Tellme’s Responsiveness under Noise Conditions
- Table 15 Telsurf’s Responsiveness under Noise Conditions
- Table 16 Getvocal’s Responsiveness under Noise Conditions
- Table 17 Buy Versus Outsource
- Table 18 Carriers and Portals
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