
October 2003
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sidebar Anytime, Anywhere Access To Web
Applications Using Voice
Voice Automation Provides Safe, Convenient
Connectivity
BY MARK WILLINGHAM
Simultaneously juggling a phone and the steering wheel is widely
considered unsafe, and it may soon to be illegal in many states. With more
than 50 percent of calls initiated from the car, subscribers need other
options to stay connected while in transit -- a home away from home (or
office, as the case may be) for commuters.
�Hands-free� legislation has the potentially damaging effect of
decreasing minutes-of-usage (MOU), thereby reducing a service provider�s
revenue. Applications such as those provided through voice-enhanced services
(VES) can provide for true mobility; allowing hands-free access to critical
information such as phone numbers and other information simply by using
voice commands. Without compromising safety, service providers can safeguard
their revenue streams by offering a safe, legal, and efficient way for their
subscribers to use wireless phones while on the road or at any time that
they are simply mobile.
Today�s wireless subscribers demand simple and efficient mobile access to
people and information. However, small keypads prevalent on wireless phones
present a real problem because they do not provide the mobile user with an
efficient interface for requesting and accessing this information.
Voice-automated technologies provide wireless phone subscribers with an
intuitive and easy-to-use interface for initiating calls (voice-activated
dialing) and accessing and managing Internet-based information such as news,
sports, weather, e-mail, and more by using simple voice commands. This
cutting-edge technology enables service providers to deploy compelling
services, which address the needs of both their business and consumer
subscribers and increase average revenue per user (ARPU) through premium
pricing and incremental MOU.
Voice-enhanced solutions, which are often being developed utilizing
open-standards technology such as Speech Application Language Tags (SALT),
can seamlessly integrate voice, e-mail, outbound dialing, text/SMS
messaging, voice mail, conferencing, and the Internet to provide for a rich,
compelling end-user experience.
Dynamic changes in the telecommunications market have led carriers and
service providers to establish new revenue channels that promise continued
growth and sustained profitability as well as reduced subscriber churn.
Explosive advancement in mobile phone-based technologies has enabled
consumers to adopt new, value-added services, such as VES.
While third-generation wireless (3G) services will require mass consumer
adoption of hardware and services over the next three to five years in order
to generate carrier return-on-investment (ROI), voice-enabled services,
which can be deployed on 2G, 2.5G, and 3G networks, typically deliver faster
returns. Based on industry projections, carriers may be able to realize
payback periods of 10 months or less, establishing valuable revenue streams
much more quickly than services fully reliant on 3G networks.
Maintaining, or better yet, increasing the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU),
provides a compelling incentive to launch new revenue-producing services and
expand profitability through reliance on cost-effective technologies that
utilize existing infrastructure investments. A number of market factors in
the wireless telecom industry are driving ARPU values lower, including
carrier competition, increased customer churn, and the bundling of minutes
into buckets, which seem to get less expensive on a daily basis. Within this
challenging business climate, service providers strive to provide compelling
value-added services to their consumer and business users to increase ARPU.
In addition, they strive to reduce subscriber churn by offering �sticky�
products, which help to differentiate their services.
Increasingly, carriers are looking toward VES, such as voice-activated
dialing, voice access to voice mail, stock quotes, horoscopes, or voice
access to e-mail to ensure that their subscribers stay safely and
efficiently connected while they are away from their office or home. In
addition to driving incremental MOU, these types of services can also serve
as the basis for charging premium-based subscription fees. For example,
several wireless carriers currently offer voice-activated dialing and
related VES to subscribers for $4.99 or more per month.
BENEFITS TO CARRIERS
� Increased customer satisfaction, by providing subscribers with an
efficient, safe method for accessing people and information from a mobile
phone.
� Increased minutes-of-usage, by encouraging business users and consumers to
stay connected while they are away from their home or office.
� By offering sticky applications such as voice-activated dialing, carriers
can reduce churn and even make it easier for subscribers to change phone
models without changing service providers. Contacts and phone numbers are
stored in the service provider�s network, not on the mobile phone.
� Extended compliance with state, federal, and local ordinances, by enabling
operators to comply with laws that require hands-free operation of wireless
devices while driving. This also ensures that the carrier will not lose
revenues, based on the potential decline in MOU as hands-free laws are
enacted.
BENEFITS TO THE CONSUMER SEGMENT
Voice-enabled solutions meet the needs of busy family members. Available
solutions on the market today offer something for everyone. For example, VES
make checking e-mail, finding movie times at a local theater, or getting the
weather in your favorite city as easy as speaking a few words into your
phone. Information access from a wireless phone has never been simpler.
BENEFITS TO THE ENTERPRISE SEGMENT
As the world becomes increasingly mobile, company employees are frequently
finding themselves away from their office� driving down freeways, sitting in
traffic, and bustling across parking lots to their next meeting. With VES,
carriers can now provide these mobile workers with the tools they need to
increase their efficiency. Products such as voice-activated dialing and
voice-access to Exchange help to improve workforce productivity and extend
access to mission-critical information. In business, it is all about
productivity and now, with the simplicity of voice-enabled applications,
employees can reduce the time spent on many common tasks by efficiently
utilizing their time away from the office.
CAPEX OR NOT?
While carriers see the benefit in deploying voice-enhanced solutions, some
of them are hesitant or simply unable to spend additional dollars on their
network infrastructure in order to deploy a solution. In these situations,
carriers are turning to VES companies who, in addition to providing the
voice applications and technologies, can provide voice hosting services. By
initially outsourcing the complete voice solution, carriers achieve many key
benefits, including:
� Low-cost trial environment;
� Increased speed to market;
� Ability to seamlessly move from a trial to a comprehensive, nationwide
solution;
� Little to no upfront CapEx; and
� Ability to migrate the solution in-network on a timeline that fits the
carriers� specific needs.
The challenge for carriers today is to identify products and services that
allow them to deliver cutting-edge features to their subscriber base without
requiring large infrastructure expenditures.
With a fully managed hosting solution, service providers can preserve
investments in their legacy and next-generation network equipment, while
still being able to deploy carrier-optimized enhanced-communication
applications.
ROI
Several leading wireless operators in the United States have already
deployed subscription-based voice-enhanced services. Their offerings cover a
range of applications including voice-activated dialing and voice
Web-browsing. A simple return-on-investment (ROI) scenario illustrates how
operators deploying voice services can achieve a payback period of 12 months
or less.
The general consensus is that most subscribers are willing to pay monthly
subscription fees for services such as voice-activated dialing (VAD),
voice-access to e-mail, voice-access to voice mail, and voice browsing for
Internet content. In addition to increased MOU, carriers that are currently
deploying VES are charging subscribers monthly premium subscription fees
ranging from $3-$15 per month (depending on the class of service). Assuming
a conservative two percent subscriber penetration rate in the first year,
break-even for voice services can be achieved in approximately nine-12
months. After the breakeven point, gross margins on the solution can
increase to well over 50 percent.
LOUD AND CLEAR
Given the need for carriers to deploy new applications that drive
minutes-of-usage and reduce subscriber churn and at the same time, do not
require large capital expenditures, voice-enhanced services are proving to
deliver value at every level. In addition, VES drives real value to mobile
subscribers by ensuring that they remain safe and connected regardless of
where they are or what they are doing.
Mark Willingham is the vice president of Marketing at
HeyAnita, Inc., a leading provider of
enhanced-communication software products and solutions to the global
telecommunications industry.
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Anytime, Anywhere Access
to Web Applications Using Voice
BY DALE HARTZELL
Investment in the Internet and intranets has yielded an amazing array of
applications that deliver content and services to simplify or improve our
lives as consumers and workers. The delivery of such applications, however,
is currently limited to data devices. Voice or multimodal (Voice+Data)
access to these applications from the more than 1.5 billion wireless phones
and one billion wireline phones moves Web applications into a new realm of
true anytime, anywhere access. The challenge is to cost-effectively extend
these applications with a voice-enabled presentation mode, or Voice User
Interface (VUI).
Well-designed VUIs enhance a company�s customer relationships by extending
its branding and commitment to high-quality service. They additionally
complement other customer touch points -- including Web, call center, and
advertising -- to increase user satisfaction/loyalty and generate additional
revenue opportunities. Poorly designed VUIs, however, can quickly strain a
user�s patience.
Many of the current platform solutions offered for speech require a complete
rewriting of the application, business logic, and data integration because
they are patterned after standalone IVR systems -- unnecessarily driving up
development, integration, and maintenance costs. A new breed of solutions
for adding speech seeks to overcome these deficiencies by extending speech
capabilities using the applications and data integration already implemented
for the Web. The two current options for doing this are to dynamically
generate the voice presentation through screen scraping of the visual
display or to add speech controls into Web applications. The superior
solution for enterprises and service providers utilizes the latter option,
adding Voice eXtended Markup Language (VoiceXML) or Speech Application
Language Tags (SALT) to a Web application for the VUI.
Screen scraping solutions have emerged from the presentation servers built
to shape visual Web and WAP application presentations for devices with
different screen sizes and abilities. Several of these presentation servers
now offer speech-based presentation by �reformatting� a Web application to
dynamically generate VoiceXML. This method generally produces inferior
customer experiences. Since user interaction with voice is significantly
different than through a visual interface, mapping the Web interface
provides a �rote� user interaction, which may be unnatural or poorly suited
for voice. Additionally, such solutions rely heavily on Text-to-Speech
(TTS), which has improved significantly in recent years (it can be tuned to
sound more natural) however the �out-of-the-box� TTS used in these solutions
has a mechanical, artificial feel. Lastly, these solutions do nothing to
extend a company�s branding or image through audio prompts (such as AOL�s
�You�ve got mail�) or the voice of a celebrity spokesperson.
Creating the VUI from VoiceXML or SALT that reuses the underlying business
logic and data integration inherent in the Web applications achieves both
the cost benefits derived from reuse as well as the business benefits
generated from creating a good VUI. While it doesn�t guarantee a good VUI,
it offers the application developer the opportunity to create one. Tools are
available or are emerging that incorporate VUI development into leading Web
application development tools including BEA�s WebLogic Workshop, IBM�s
Websphere Studio, Microsoft�s .NET SDK, and Macromedia�s Dreamweaver. With
the tools enabling millions of Web developers in place, the doors are ready
to fly open for the long awaited next generation of speech applications.
Dale Hartzell is vice president of marketing at
SandCherry, Inc. SandCherry provides
innovative software solutions, designed to simplify the deployment and
management of speech-enabled, multimodal, and multimedia enhanced
communications services. [ Return
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