Aculab, one of the leading CTI manufacturers in the world, too joined “Voice in Cloud” a year back and recently it has come out with new version too. I had a chance to speak to Faye McClenahan, Head of Strategic Marketing, Aculab about AculabCloud and how it is different from its peers!

AculabCloud: Complete Telephony Application in Cloud

While normal Cloud IVR providers tend to provide ‘voice to web applications’, AculabCloud promises to allow users to develop and deploy complete Telephony Applications rapidly using high level languages! Presently it supports Python and Microsoft .NET Technologies like C# etc. A complete telephony applications on cloud seems to be first of its kind from a CTI manufacturers.

Cloud Telephony does not require any explanation now a days as Cloud seems t be the buzz word in any branch of computing world! The Cloud Telephony by Aculab has some uniqueness as follows :-

1. It comes from Computer Telephony background of more than 30 years
Most of the Cloud Telephony providers till now were either have background of web services or IVR Rad tool providers. AculabCloud is by Aculab who has more than 30 years experience in manufacturing CTI boards and more than 20 years in HMP ( Host Media Processing) Software development. So, one can expect the its system to be more robust, reliable and faster.

2. It aims to telephony solutions, not merely voice extension

While many Cloud Telephony providers aims to provide a Voice Extension ( or voice interactivity) to any computer application, AcuabCloud aims to provide developers to build a complete Telephony Applications and pay as per its usage! According to me, this is a big difference from other Cloud Telephony Solutions.

3. Data Security

One of the major considerations while opting for cloud telephony is data security and protection. AculabCloud has architectures in such a way where sensitive data can be kept at users premise.

AculabCloud has now more than 200 registered developers globally and has many telephony applications developed which has made more than 2millions call.

It has two servers in Europe and USA and has tied up with many Telecom Service providers across countries to provide DID numbers locally.

For more about AculabCloud, one may visit to AculabCloud page here.

In the beginning of the year 2011, I had predicted about some IVR technologies as well as IVR applications which are likely to see high usage, on looking back, except speaker recognition, I can feel reasonably satisfied about the result of the predictions.

Among others, hosted IVR and bulk voice calling has almost gone mainstream now even in India. IVVR has been making steady progress with top VAS ( value added service) players in India creating application and content for it. Though 3G penetration has not made any spectacular progress!

As for usage of IVR in payment gateways, it is definitely getting wider acceptance as well as becoming more and more trusted method of charging one’s credit card!

I have not found any substantial acceptance of speech recognition in IVR applications in India, though in other countries speech recognition has become quite common.

Speaker Recognition is another technology which has failed to make much of a buzz in year 2011. But I am still hopeful of this technology.

So, for 2012, here are my predictions:-

1. RAD tools – IVR Toolkit
Rapid application development tools are gaining popularity as well as acceptance among many developers. Almost all serious IVR companies now a days have their own RAD tool for designing IVR call flow.

2. Web enabled IVR

Year 2012 should see many improvements on Web Enabled IVR designing tool. Hosted IVR provider would design and develop easy to use web based IVR call flow designer.

3. IVVR

I think, this year IVVR should find many deployments as well as usage. Hopefully, India would be able to provide low cost 3G connections which may propel consumption of video contents.

4. Wider acceptance of Open source IVR

I think, open source IVR would gain more popularity this year. With increasing acceptance of hosted IVR, the competition would be more intense and open source IVR would be advantageous.

These are all I can think of right now. Please share your predictions too!

Recently I have traveled North and Eastern part India and met many people who are either using IVR systems or are dealing with call centres. While interacting with them, one thing I realised that, people are now warming up to the concept of hosted IVR in India. Most interesting part is, even bigger companies are now a days receptive to the idea of hosted IVR, which few years ago was a complete no, no.

I think, there are two major factors which have helped people warming up to the hosted IVR services :-

1. Reliable Internet connectivity
2. Cost Benefit : Pay as per usage model

1. Reliable Internet Connectivity
In the last few years, quality of internet connectivity has gone up manifold and downtime is no longer frequent unlike few years ago in India. Reliable and dedicated internet connectivity was also costly and not available easily, specially outskirts of cities, where industries tend to exist!

This kind of internet connectivity has helped integration information available at the premises of an organization with of IVR system hosted some where else using internet connectivity. One can say, “IVR in cloud” is now possible, works reliably thanks to good internet connectivity.

2. Cost Benefit : Pay as per usage model
I think, I would give credit to hosted IVR providers in India, who have been able to convince IVR users about the cost benefit of using hosted IVR over on-premise IVR. It is not only about initial investment in hardware and software, but also keeping updated with latest CTI hardware and IVR tools.
Most of the people I have interacted with, have had clear idea about how hosted IVR can reduce initial investment an reduce time to live with IVR. Many of them were also happy with accessing IVR logs online by just visiting a website and logging in.

Apart from above two major factors, I think many business houses become focused on their core competence while outsourcing business processes to professionals. Many people were more comfortable with one time capital expenditure than recurring operational expenditures. But, in IVR, there is always an fixed or variable operational expenditure in the form of telephone rental and outbound call cost. So, many have started opting for just operational expense without any major capital expense and hosted IVR just fits in between.

Most probably, with slowing of economy world wide, even bigger companies might be finding it easier to go with “pay per usage” hosted IVR system to server their customers.

I would be happy to know feedback from others how they feel about hosted IVR in India.

IVR and toll free number has very close relation. Almost all toll free numbers in the world are first answered by an IVR before a caller can speak to human agent. Many people are almost impatient to speak to human agent after dialing a toll free number, while Ithe VR seems to get in between the caller and human agent with various prompts, questions, confirmation, hold music etc. This is one of the reasons why people hate IVR.

This post acted as an IVR so far ? It did not answer the question “How to Get Toll Free Number in India” yet! Actually, I keep getting mails asking the question, “how to get toll free number in India ?”, so I thought I would post about it.

Essentially, the toll free number is given by telecom company. In India, these companies majorly provide Toll Free numbers :-

1. BSNL : Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited

Most probably, this is the biggest toll free number provider in India having the largest network. Since it is a government undertaking, one should be ready to deal with government bureaucracy. BSNL can provide toll free number in almost all major cities, big towns in India and that is their main advantage.

2. Reliance Communications
They also provide toll free number and I think they have second largest telecom infrastructure in India after BSNL. They can also provide toll free number in many cities except North East India. They are efficient, good service and provide very competitive rates.

3. Tata Indicom
Tata indicom also provides toll free numbers. They also provide very good service, support and available in all major cities.

Apart from them, other old telecom companies like MTNL ( Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited), Airtel etc. can also provide toll free number as far as I know. I have bee using BSNL, Reliance and Tata toll free numbers only, so I have experience with these three telecom service providers.

These telecom companies have separate marketing team ( normally known as enterprise solution ) for providing toll free numbers, leased lines and they normally operate through franchisees. So, in order to get toll free number, you may have to contact their local franchisee in your city/area, and most of the time it may be easy to locate one for a new customer!

When looking for a toll free number, be sure to ask the telecom operator if the given toll free number would accessible from all telecom operators (both mobile and land line) or not! India has more than 8 telecom providers, so it is good idea to be sure and careful!

On final note, Toll free number is free for caller, but not for the toll free number owners. The charges vary from telecom operator to operator as well as call volume. The usual jargon used is “PRI lines” in the industry. One PRI line has 30 voice channels or thirty conversation at one point of time.

And finally, if any one wants toll free number in India, he can surely contact me.

Mobile Content Summit second edition was held today at Shangri-La Hotel in New Delhi, India. This summit was a day long event where IVRS World was a partner. This mobile content was organised by Virtue Insight and attended by more than 100 delegates from Mobile Content, Telecom industry.

Mobile Content Summit 2011

The first session was chaired by Mr. N K Goel who is president of CMAI ( Communication and Manufacturing Association of India an industrial organisation with more than 5500 member companies). During his opening remark, he had informed the captive audience that India has the lowest voice call rate in the world , still its profitability is in the range of 20-25 range which is again highest profitability in telecom industry int he world!

Mobile Content Summit

In the morning keynote was delivered by Mr. Suresh Jayaraju, vice president, Head – new age VAS ( Value Added Service), 3G service from Reliance infocomm. In his speech, he opined that India has many innovative low cost VAS ideas where “missed call” can be used to exchange many information. For example, he said that if I give a “missed call” to a person with one ring, h/she would understand that I would come after one hour, if I give missed with with two rings, it means I would be late by 2 hours!

Mobile Content Conference

Vamshi Reddy from Yahoo had explained about mind boggling amount of content being stored, processed ready to be delivered to consumers. He had also informed that, now a days there are many user generated content and this is likely to increase manifold once 3G is rolled out in India.

Mr. Keith Curran, CEO of Steadings Group, United KIngdom had talked about UK experience about Mobile VAS industry and how India will have to gear up for changes in its content development. He explained about “PUSH” and “PULL” method of product development and how “PULL” method had been phenomenal success ( obviously referring to Apple’s IPad). He had also declared that Mobile Phone is now dead and we should gear up for new gadget which will do much more and voice call would become a mere feature in it!

It was successful summit attended by top executives who are stake holders in the Mobile Content Industry in a telecom market which has more than 770 million users and increasing by 20million every month!

The most important and straightforward form of communication available to us is the spoken word. So why is it that in our everyday lives we have to mess around with keys and keypads to be able to communicate with a device? In fact, the key to direct dialog between man and machine without recourse to other aids is language.

The voice compass is the compendium for Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and looks at the domain of voice, i. e speech applications on the telephone in full detail. Nowadays, every businessman, entrepreneur, manager or decision maker needs to be informed about the possibilities regarding voice applications. The voice compass gives a compact account thereof.

Have a look into this compendium which Detlev did with more than 17 years working in IVR business.

A preview is available at:

http://voice-compass.com/english/main/read/voice-compass-international-0809.html

I6NET Solutions and Technologies, an R&D company based in Madrid, Spain has recently released their latest version of popular VXML Browser VXI* VoixwXML Browser. This browser works on Asterisk on Linux Operating System. Asterisk is open source Telephony software development tool, now widely used to develop IVR and Voice Applications.

VXI* is native integration between the Asterisk Open Source Telephony engine and VoiceXML, one of the most advanced voice and video application’s standard language. VXI* is an advanced complementary software for Asterisk-based IVR systems. Adding VXI* to any Asterisk server enables access to the large VoiceXML applications world. You will get great advantages in opening your favourite PBX to the new evolution of IVVR (Interactive Voice & Video Response) and web enabled applications. More details, one may visit here.

The release post of this version of VXI* Browser says :-

There’s very important improvements and new specific ASR features in this new release, that will provide you the best IVR experience for your voice and video telephony projects. VXI* 5.2 is suitable for production platforms running with all lastest Asterisk 1.4, 1.6 and now 1.8 kernels! (all Asterisk’s packages are available for download too).

Few of the enhanced features are :-

# mod: Correction in the fonction wait/silence (wait for openvxi).
# add: Add the parameter dialnumbersonly to filter called numbers.
# mod: Change the open sequence for better reactivity.
# mod: Increase the number of accounts to 200.
# add: File descriptors counters (with show top).
# add: Average statistiques (duration, response and CAPS).
# mod: Replace the nanohttp library by the libcurl.
# add: Extra parameters in the transfer (after mark ‘,’) for to the Dial command.
# add: Command line parameters -U and -G to change the OpenVXI linux user/group.
# mod: Correction for uniMRCP to stop the speech/ASR engine.
# mod: Correction for disable bargein with the speech/ASR.
# add: Increase the Asterisk compatibility (disable the using the channel context).
# mod: Ignore the ASR result if a DTMF interaction occured.
# add: Support the attribut repeat for SRGS/XML DTMF grammars.
# add: Options to pass all the SRGS/XML grammars to the ASR engine (voice and DTMF).
# add: Support for Asterisk 1.8.

For complete details : Visit I6Net Website.

CRBT ( Caller Ring Back Tone) has been very successful in Mobile VAS (Value Added Service) industry ( specially in India, where it is said to generate almost 60% of the total revenue). There has been few discussions how CRBT will work when MNP ( Mobile Number Portability) is implemented in India. There has been few deadlines to implement MNP in India which were extended and now we have anew deadline of 31st October 2010 for its implementation.

What is MNP ?

Mobile Number portability ( MNP ) is a feature or facility using which a mobile phone user can change their network operator on choice or on requirement. For example, if a person takes telephone connection from Airtel in India, and after few months, (s)he wants to switch to Reliance, he would be able to that without having to change the mobile number. Without MNP, it is not possible to switch your operator even if you are dissatisfied with them for any reason.

Many unsatisfied users have to stick to its operator as changing phone number is not an option as it gets circulated over a period of time. So MNP offers them a solution.

Many people change cities and when they want to keep their old mobile number, thy have to pay roaming charges. MNP will be a solution for them.

How does MNP affect CRBT in India ?

In India, CRBT services are provided by third party ( normally VAS company) to the telecom operator. It has been a practice that, telecom operators have engaged only one vendor (A VAS company) for its CRBT services. BSNL ( Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, Indian Government owned telecom service provider) has divided itself into four zones and it has engaged separate vendors.

Most of the CRBT implementation in India is IN-based, so technically the porting CRBT application to MNP may not be difficult. Also, when a CRBT subscriber changes its operator, it may want to retain his song/tone in his new operator too. Now some problems may come up,

1. The new operator may not have the same CRBT vendor of the old one. How will these two CRBT vendors exchange their subscriber details ?

2. The CRBT vendor of the new operator may not have the same song/music in its song collections.

But, in a multi-vendor scenario like in BSNL, these problems may be more difficult to tackle.

Technically, it may be possible to overcome these problems, but apart from technical issues, I think there are also commercial issues like subscription charges, billing cycle etc.

It will be interesting to know about effect on CRBT by implementing MNP in India. Easiest way might be, just discontinue the CRBT service in old operator and subscribe it again in the new operator!

I would like to have feedback, comments fro people in CRBT industry in India.

In mobile world, we often hear about ‘Smart Phone’ . Now what is a smart phone ? As per Wikipedia definition :-

A smartphone is a mobile phone that offers more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary basic ‘feature phone’. Smartphones and feature phones may be thought of as handheld computers integrated within a mobile telephone

Now the question what ‘smart phone feature’ does it have ? Can a ‘smart phone’ IVR like services ? Smart phone features of IVR like voice mail, answering machine or any other smart call features which presently handled by switch or PBX ? When it can not do any of these smart things expected out of a ‘phone call’, why do are they called ‘smart phones’ ?

IVR Functionality in Smart Phones

May be, the time has come when Mobile Phones will have built-in IVR capability in it or some smart guy will create an App down-loadable from IPhone store, which will have start voice mail function when the phone is in silence mode or when a person is in a meeting, in a conference or busy, without having to pay the phone company for using these services! After all, the so called phone is almost hand-held computing devices running highly technical sounding operating systems like Android, Windows Mobile, IPhone OS4, Linux etc.!

And that may explain the sudden visits to this IVR Blog by people searching “Embedded System for IVR Software of Mobile“, an interesting phrase, in Google. And most probably, some people may have already started working on developing IVR capabilities in mobile phones!

Think about the dual SIM ( Subscriber Identification Module), which could have have call patching or call bridging feature and do many more thing itself without having to use conference facility provided by telephone company! A truly smart feature in a mobile phone, right ?

One should not be surprised if next generation Smart Phones will come with IVR feature among others!

Recently, IVRSWORLD.COM was media partner for prestigious 2nd Annual Mobile VAS submit 2010 organised by Virtue Insight on 3rd September 2010 at Shangri-La Hotel in New Delhi, India. It was day long program with key speakers from VAS industry in India who had spoken in great details about present VAS ( Value Added Service) scenario, future focus areas of the ever growing industry.

Mobile VAS Summit 2010 by Virtual Insight

It was well attended by industry people majorly from mobile operators as well VAS companies operating in India. It was a very well organised summit with useful interaction among delegates.

Mr. Sridhar , Tonse Telecom pointed out that Major revenue of VAS is from Music content in the form of ring tone, CRBT etc. He has also pointed out that there will be 40 Million 3G Users are expected till 2015.

Virtual Insight Inaugration

Interesting speech provided by Mr. Uttam Kumar of Aircel who had informed that low cost Phones like: Lava, Micromax, Lemon etc… are creating High GPRS Traffic. And in India UP West is the highest GPRS usage from Aircel. About Next Technology: Location awareness social Networking, Friends on Map, User can see that where their friends are on map are picking up. He has opined that for attracting more and more users, operator should maintain Profile of Customers and make them download application as well as special offers to free application download.

Key Speaker

Mr. Manish Kansal from Nokia has informed the delegates that in India 15 million mobile come per month while expecting 1 Billion mobile per month till 2015 in his speech.

Interesting facts were revealed by Mr. Mahesh from Google :-

• 2 Lac Ipads sold every week.
• 300 million download from itunes.
• 150 million facebook mobile users.
• 1 Million Android activation per 5 days.
• Mobile search on google increased 280%.
• India generate 2nd highest mobile web traffic.
• Must give emphasis on regional language content in VAS market.

So, VAS people can see where VAS industry is growing!

With input from Mr. Shailendra.