From: ccampbel@dsd.es.com (Colin Campbell)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Voice Response Technology
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp., Salt Lake City, UT
Reply-To: ccampbel@dsd.es.com (Colin Campbell)

In article <telecom11.1018.2@eecs.nwu.edu> I wrote:

> I am looking for smaller scale hardware that would enable me to write
> a voice response application similar to phone registration systems
> used by universities or account query systems used by banks and credit
> card companies.

Here is a summary of the responses I received:

 Date: Mon, 16 Dec 91 10:16:04 EST
 From: David Wood <dpw@SEI.CMU.EDU>


The Autovox call processing system includes a full "application
generation" programming language along with integration with Paradox
databases.  It is PC-based.  This might be what you are looking for.

Contact:

    Liberty Communications
    (412)221-8810

Ask for Steve.

I believe that their toll-free number is 800-876-7656.


Dave Wood


 Date: Mon, 16 Dec 91 11:42:53 EST
 From: Mark Kern <mek4_ltd@uhura.cc.rochester.edu>


   I just finished up a proposal for a VRU (Voice Response Unit) to be
installed at our University.  I can tell you right now that this is a
pretty specialized market, and that the companies marketing these
systems design the hardware and software themselves.  The key to the
whole system is the VRU which can be either PC bassed or proprietary.
This unit is responisible for maintaining any number of telephone
lines tied to a single pilot number which the user can dial into.  The
VRU also includes on the average, about one hour of voice recording time
in RAM.  The VRU uses this memory to store all the voice prompts
needed during the interaction with the user and is also responsible
for running the program that performs this interaction.  

   The VRU can also handle the student records themselves, updating the
host Mainframe during off-hours, or the VRU can just send the packets
to the Mainframe on a real-time basis.  The former method is better,
since you don't tie up the Mainframe, but can also add to your costs
in that you need large storage capacity on the VRU itself.  It is also
very important that the VRU be able to recover from a system failure
by itself, with little or no operator intervention.  If the power
should go out, once power is back, the unit should be able to restore
itself in under five minutes.

   The average cost of a VRU, including software, is about $40,000 for the
base unit.  Some companies that you might want to contact are :

	Perception Technology (617)821-0320
	Syntellect 	      (602)789-2800

   Our school's telecommunications division has already implemented a
test system using a PC based VRU, but the PC proved to be too limiting
to handle the tasks needed to register 4800 students.  Hope this helps.


Mark Edward Kern   NET : mek4_ltd@uhura.cc.rochester.edu  GEnie : M.KERN1


 Date: Mon, 16 Dec 91 12:43:53 -0500
 From: rv01@gte.com (Robert Virzi)


I know of at least three systems that would allow you to build small
voice response systems.  Two are IBM-based and the other mac-based.

For the IBM machines their are two boards, the Watson board and the
Dialogic d-40 board.  The Watson boards (sorry, don't know the
manufacturer) come in multi- and single-line varieties.  I guess this
is a critical point, as the other two boards are only single-line, to
the best of my knowledg.

I have used the Dialogic stuff and been unipressed.  It seems a little
flakier than need be, and you have to write your own C code to support
the application.

I am working with someone using the Watso board, and he is reasonably
happy with it.  Same story as the dialogic, however, in that you have
to write your own application code from scratch.  This isn't all that
easy, especially if you aren't familiar with telephony applications.

For the mac, their is a system called TFlex or teleflex, which has a
very nice visual programming language.  This makes building
applications very easy, even if one is not familiar with telephone
applications.  It has a lot of built in routines, and the whole system
can be programmed using visual icons.  I believe it is only
single-line, however.  TFlex can be flakey in terms of getting it
running.  Once running, though, it seems reasonably robust.

Those are the choices I know about.  Good luck!


Bob Virzi


 Date: Mon, 16 Dec 91 20:38:27 CST
 From: "Andrew Luebker" <aahvdl@eye.psych.umn.edu>

You might want to look into computing-devices for the disabled.  I
think there are some voice-control PC products for people with
physical handicaps.

 
 Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1991 23:50:04 -0600
 From: Tron <cyf37941@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu>

MindTech is working on a product that will do this. It has three
parts, the ring detector which connects to the phone outlet and it
detects rings and picks it up, the voice play back and a simple voice
digitizer (11 kHz MACE compression).

You can program this thing to function as a voice mail system.

I don't know if MindTech has released it yet.
You can try to call them at 708 655-2105 or fax them at 708 655-2104.

Be prepared, they might give you a bunch of we don't know what you are
talking about, if they do so just tell them Chuan told you about it.


Hope this helps.

Chuan


Date: 17 Dec 91 08:21:39 EST (Tue)
From: dave@westmark.westmark.com (Dave Levenson)


Check out Diaglogic Corp, Parsippany, NJ.

They offer a family of voice-response hardware for the AT-buss, with
drivers for both UNIX and MS-DOS.  They probably have everything you
need to build the voice-response system you want.  We use their
hardware as the basis of a voice-response banking application we
market in the NYC area.


Dave Levenson		Internet: dave@westmark.com
Westmark, Inc.		UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave
Warren, NJ, USA		Voice: 908 647 0900  Fax: 908 647 6857


 Date: Tue, 17 Dec 91 09:51 EST
 From: gerry@dialogic.com (Gerry Lachac)


See my .signature.  We make all this equipment, Voice Store And
Forward, Voice Recognition, Fax, etc.  All cards for PC compatibles
and Microchannel.

Keep in mind that we make hardware, and supply development kits
consisting of libraries, device drivers, and sample code.  We sell to
VARs who make things like voice mail systems, and application
generators.  If you don't want to do things from scratch, you may want
to talk to one of our VARs.  (As a matter of fact that list that was
posted today from the magazine contained a number of our VARs)


gerry

%  EMAIL:    gerry@dialogic.com
%  USMAIL:   Dialogic Corp.
%            300 Littleton Rd Parsippany, NJ
%  PHONE:   (201)334-1268 ext 193


 From: george@brooks.ICS.UCI.EDU (George Herson)
 Date: 16 Dec 91 14:05:57 GMT


Vendors of call processing equipment are listed in a trade periodical
{Networking Management}, 11/91, p52, "When hello isn't enough."  The
only one of the vendors I've contacted so far is Intervoice, which
designs its hardware for PS/2s.  I don't know which computers the
others support; the article doesn't say.

The numbers refer to those to circle on the magazine's "reply card."
I assume that you don't need the card, you can just send your list of
numbers to Networking Management, 1421 S. Sheridan, P.O.Box 21728,
Tulsa OK 74121-9977 for more info, before 2/29/92.

AT&T  Bridgewater, N.J. #265
Applied Voice Technology, Kirklan, Wash. #266
Aristacom International Inc.  Alameda, Calif. #267
Aspect Telecommunications  San Jose, Calif. #268
Brite Voice Systems  Wichita, Kan. #269
Centigram Corp.  San Jose, Calif.  #270
C-T Link  Boston, Mass. #271
DEC  Littleton, Mass. #272
Digital Sound Corp.  Carpinteria, Calif. #273
Dytel Corp.  Schaumburg, Ill. #274
Hewlett-Packard Co.  Cupertino, Calif. #275
IBM Corp.  White Plains, NY #276
InterVoice  Dallas, Texas #277
Microlog  Germantown, Md #278
Northern Telecom  Santa Clara, Calif. #279
Octel Communications  Milpitas, CA #280
Perception Technology  Canton, Masss. #281
AB Preseco  Solna, Sweden #282
Rockwell International  Downers Grove, Ill. #283
Rolm Corp.  Santa Clara, CA #284
Simpact Associates  San Diego, CA #285
Syntellect Inc.  Phoenix, AZ #286
Teknekron Infoswitch  Fort Worth, TX #287
Unifi Communications  Billerica, Mass #288
Willow Telecommuting Systems Inc.  Richmond Hill, Ont., Canada #289
Viking Electronics Inc  Hudson, Wis. #290
Voicetek Corp. Chelmsford, Mass #291
VMX Inc.  San Jose, Calif. #292


George Herson    george@brooks.ics.uci.edu
voice: (714)856-2174    fax: (714)857-0424

                        -----

Colin Campbell              Internet: ccampbel@dsd.es.com
Evans & Sutherland          UUCP: !uunet!dsd.es.com!ccampbel
Salt Lake City, UT 84108    (801) 582-5847