5th RTD Framework Programme

Success stories - IST

IST (Information Society Technologies)

Project details

Project reference:	IST-2001-34546
Acronym:	PUBLICVOICEXML
Title:	VOICEXML Trial for an Open Source Reference Implementation
Subject Index:	Information Processing, Information Systems; Innovation, Technology Transfer
Objectives:	Objective: Public VoiceXML is about fine-tuning our VoiceXML implementation within a trial together with a radio station and making it available as an open source reference implementation. VoiceXML is a standardisation effort for telephony applications, that are connected to the Internet. IEEE has published through the W3C the specifications and is now issuing certificates. The IEEE VoiceXML forum has more than 500 industry members, including major Telcos and ISPs, but still only a few proprietary VoiceXML implementations are available. Being a member of that forum, and with support from the European Commission, we would be offering the first complete open source implementation and gain a lot of attraction in the voice application industry. We have already developed a VoiceXML subset - browser for a telephony based micro-payment service (www.payline900.com). Within the project Public VoiceXML, we would first fine-tune the toolkit together with a community radio station. When we have fulfilled their requirements and the toolkit has been stress-tested, we will go through the certification process and then publish the toolkit open source using our source forge - based development platform www.groupsource.net. The project will demonstrate open source usage of a toolkit, foster its dissemination and help to build a sustainable business model. Making business seems to be straight forward with the target group for making support contracts already organized in a forum. Expected effects to be measured are about the affiliation of listeners of the radio station, the influence of making the toolkit open source on the dissemination process or possible revenue streams gained from offering consulting and customisation services. The consortium committed to perform the Public VoiceXML trial is well balanced between a radio station producing local content 24 hours/7days as trial site and two software labs with expertise in voice related applications and embedding them into XML platforms. The co-ordinator has expertise in managing international development and demonstration projects and is successful in exploiting R&D results commercially. Objectives: The project's objective is to provide a European showcase for making a state-of-the-art software tool open source, after having passed stress testing and a conformance test and building business relations to the international telephony industry. In particular, our goals are to- stress test our VoiceXML tool in the production process of a radio station by the following 5 steps: 1. provide the radio station with a telephony gateway to their Internet services 2. upgrade the radio station's content management system using XML 3. fine-tune our VoiceXML toolkit according to the needs of their users 4. allow radio listeners to hear a personalised radio program via VoiceXML using the (mobile) phone 5. allow radio users to use interactive features when dialling in to a radio show using VoiceXML: - pass the conformance test of the IEEE VoiceXML forum; - select the proper open source license model; - bundle the open source toolkit Public VoiceXML and put it on a shared workspace (www.groupsource.net) for further development; - make PublicVoiceXML known to the telephony application community, e.g. via the VoiceXML forum. Work description: VoiceXML is the new lingua franca for (mobile) phone users, who want to access data which is only accessible via Internet, and perform interactions. Applications that can be built with VoiceXML include car-sharing reservation, payment and banking services, hotel booking, traffic jam info, voice discussion forums or a news and feature service delivered on demand by a local radio station. With the proposed trial Public VoiceXML two European software labs will be put into the spotlight of the telephony industry when offering their VoiceXML toolkit open source. What do we have, where do we start from? A VoiceXML browser has been developed for a micro-payment service by one of the software partners, which also owns all IPRs. The browser is capable of many features as specified by the IEEE driven VoiceXML Forum, but not yet all of them. First, we will add more functionality and fine-tune our VoiceXML browser according to the needs of a community radio station. We will have an online questionnaire to be filled out by potential users. The results will influence the set-up of the service and how it is embedded in the radio station's portal. This radio station already makes usage of interactive telephony services for different purposes, however those services are not yet connected to the Internet. After successful set-up, the radio station will give us the opportunity to stress-test the application. Next, we do a conformance test with the VoiceXML forum, in order to check if our VoiceXML browser is compliant to their 1.0 specifications, as published by IEEE to the W3C.Having reached that important milestone, and after choosing the proper open source license model, Public VoiceXML will be published on a shared workspace at www.groupsource.net. An important part of the trial is to measure usage parameters together with the trial site, such as number of lines required, audio quality, computing resources required for on-the-fly conversion of audio files, listening behaviour, access modes. A separate workpackage on dissemination of results and exploitation will support the consortium for its decision making process on the business model to follow when offering consulting and customisation services. Milestones: Milestones are reached with corresponding deliverables in the workpackages. Expected results are: - A VoiceXML compliant phone browser tested in production environment; - Better knowledge of the market demand for VoiceXML services; - A radio-on-demand service for mobile users, offering current and past content, as a working prototype and backward compatibility track for future UMTS services; - Interactive phone-in applications, offered to the listener community of a radio station; - Feedback from real users. An additional business case when deploying support, customisation and consulting services.
Start date:	2002.03.01
End date:	2003.08.31
Duration:	18 months
Project status:	Execution
Project cost:	1.04 million euro
Project funding:	584514.00 euro
Programme type:	5th FWP (Fifth Framework Programme)
Subprogramme area:	Technologies and Engineering for Software, Systems and Services - Free software development: towards critical mass
Contract type:	ACM (Preparatory, accompanying and support measures)
Project URL:	http://www.publicvoicexml.org
Prime contractor:	Public Voice Lab - Labor zur Foerderung Von Alltagskommunikation Durch Neue Medien
Organisation type:	Other
Country:	AUSTRIA
Region:	OSTÖSTERREICH, WIEN
City:	Wien
Post Code:	1040
Address:	Operngasse 24
Contact person:	ALTON-SCHEIDL, Roland
Telephone:	+43-1-5852280
Fax:	+43-1-5852280/99
E-mail:	ras@pvl.at
Contractor:	Magyar Tudomanyos Akademia Szamitastechnikai es Automatizalasi Kutato Intezet, Department of Distributed Systems
Organisation type:	Research
Country:	HUNGARY
Region:	Region not yet available (HUNGARY)
City:	Budapest
Post Code:	1111
Address:	Kende U. 13-17
Contact person:	KOVACS, Laszlo (Dr)
Telephone:	+36-1-2095286
Fax:	+36-1-2095288
E-mail:	laszlo.kovacs@sztaki.hu
Contractor:	Verein zur Foerderung und Unterstuetzung Freier Lokaler Nichtkommerzieller Radioprojekte (Freies Radio Wien)
Organisation type:	Other
Country:	AUSTRIA
Region:	OSTÖSTERREICH, WIEN
City:	Wien
Post Code:	1090
Address:	Schubertgasse 10
Contact person:	THURNER, Thomas
Telephone:	+43-19-252123
Fax:	+43-11-909994
E-mail:	thomas.thumer@contentcast.at
Contractor:	World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (Uk), Amarc Europe
Organisation type:	Other
Country:	UNITED KINGDOM
Region:	YORKSHIRE AND HUMBERSIDE, SOUTH YORKSHIRE
City:	Sheffield
Post Code:	S1 2BX
Address:	15 Paternoster Row
Contact person:	STEINERT, Fiona
Telephone:	+44-114-2210592
Fax:	+44-114-2798976
E-mail:	fionas@amarc.org

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Source: European Communities, CORDIS