Anything that says “Open Source” is thought to be freely available, customizable and really exciting for many software users. (Specially people from India who are very price competitive, but I am sure Open source software sounds tempting to people all over the world!) Open Source alternative for any popular application software has almost become a industry practice and specialised Software, IVR too followed the same with some CTI vendors providing open source IVR platform for developers.

Thus Asterisk has almost become synonymous with Open Source IVR as well as Telephony Systems. Many companies have developed numerous Telephony solutions based on Asterisk.

While Open Source has many backers and takers, a newbie may still be confused when to choose Open Source
IVR or Telephony Application! First let us look at what one saves by using Open Source Telephony platform :-

A typical IVR System consists of the following components:-
1. Application Software ( IVR Call Flow)
2. Operating System/ Database
3. CTI Cards
4. PC or Server

By using Open Source Telephony platform, one saves #1 and #2 above! But is it a significant saving for you in the long term ?

1. According to me, one should choose Open Source if a company has spare manpower who is proficient in Linux and good in Linux based programming Languages. Many start up companies where the founders are normally engineers with programming background may choose Open Source IVR as they would be able to maintain the IVR without any extra cost! But for a company which may have to dedicate one or two manpower to develop and maintain the IVR systems, it may not be beneficial at all, in the long run!

2. Another advantage of choosing Open Source IVR is, the CTI cards seem to be less costlier than the CTI cards which have APIs. It is majorly because of the fact that, these CTI boards use host PC’s computing resources and does not have on-board DSPs to perform all those telephony signalling, audio processing. So if one is really constrained by budget, one may choose Open Source Telephony platform.

Some people are die hard fans of Linux and Open Source. For them, it is natural to choose Open Source IVR. But they should consider few things below :-

Other than Traditional Open Source ( Linux OS + Asterisk or FreePBX), there are IVR toolkits too available which provide the Toolkit free of cost and charges just per channel licenses at deployment! For example, VBVoice IVR Toolkit is freely downloadable along with 2 channel free license!

Apart from this kind of “offline” Tool kit, now a days, almost every company provides IVR in Cloud! Here anyone can design an IVR in a visual tool online and use as per usage!

Hope this may help how and when to choose an open source IVR!

Recently, I had a chance to work on Sangoma Board and FreeSWITCH ( an open source Telephony platform) which can also work as Interactive Voice Response system. The main challenge

Experience with Sangoma A101 and FreeSwitch

was to install the FreeSWITCH on Windows and get Sangoma board ( Model A101) work. Since I was new to Sangoma board low cost boards, I faced many problems due to lack of information availability on net for beginner.

Though Sangoma support was more or less satisfactory, but no where near the excellent support provided by Dialogic. So, few small things I learned about Sangom board which may be beneficial for people who have worked only with Dialogic board, but not Sangoma boards.

1. Sangoma drivers do not have any telecom protocol ( ISDN ) built into it. It always uses third party software for these protocols.

2. Sangoma boards are mainly made for Asterisk/FreeSWITCH and Linux systems. The basic card is cheap, but additional features like ‘echo cancellation’, NBE ( NetBorder Express – required for Windows) cost extra. So, if some one wants features equivalent of Donjin DN300 in A101, the cost will become more or less same!

3. Configuring the board is more difficult than developing the IVR system for beginner. I could not find any step by step guide for installing the card, run a demo application and test. This kind of utility is available in Dialogic, even in Donjin. Most of the time, Dialogic and Donjin support will help install the card, install the driver, do the configuration and run those demo application and hand over the system back to developer for installing their application. In case of Sangoma, we had to really, really struggled hard to get such support. At first, we were told that in order to get Sagoma board work in Windows, we will have to buy NBE as well as AFT series of board, A101 will not work! But after exchanging mail to and fro with main Sangoma support, we were finally advised to use FreeSWITCH in Windows and it worked for us!

4. Finally, Sangoma support had installed FreeSWITCH on our server and handed over to us. They compiled the recent FreeSWITCH source code along with freeTDM.

After installing FreeSWITCH, developing our IVR using JavaScript was quite easy actually. The were also good documentation about customizing “Dialplan” required to forward any incoming calls JavaScript codes.

So, I would say it was mixed experience for me with Sangoma boards. Using high level language like JavaScript has advantages as well as disadvantages too. But it surely is faster and much easier to learn then learning to write software in C++.

I hope to write a step by step guide to configure Sangoma A101 in Windows using FreeSWITCH some day.

There has been lot of talk about video IVR or IVVR ( Interactive Voice and Video response System) recently. Dialogic also has announced recently of their availability of Beta DiaStar™ Server, Version 1.1, “Allowing developers to create video applications for fixed and mobile phones. this brings into variety of existing video features into open source marketplace.” (Dialogic Press release) Indeed a good news for large open source Asterisk IVR/IVVR developers.

Dialogic Releases Beta DiaStar

Dialogic is no doubt the leader in the field of CTI boards, Telephony Signaling products in the world and this initiative by Dialogic to make their existing Video enabled products accessible by open source developer community will boost the development of video IVR applications.

Now, can Video IVR or IVVR can be the next big VAS for Telecom operators ?

I think so and here are my reasons:-

1. 3G is available
3G has been introduced almost everywhere in the world including big Telecom market India by state run mobile service providers BSNL ( Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) and MTNL ( Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Limited). MTNL operates in two big Indian metros New Delhi and Mumbai while BSNL operates all circles in India other than New Delhi and Mumbai. 3G is the requirement for video call in the mobile network and 3G enabled phone is the requirement at the user end. 3G enabled mobile phone with twin camera for video calls have been in the market for long time now. Also entry level 3G enabled with camera is now available at less than $100, even in India. So using video applications or services by large number of users is a reality in India.

2. Innovative Video Application
Think about getting an SMS alert about Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s huge six with a link to make video call to watch it! Or an SMS alert informing about Irphan Pathan getting out Ricky Ponting out by a yorker ? Who in India or in Indian subcontinent want to miss it ? Video IVR creates possibility of many innovative video application which will entice user to avail video value added services! If YouTube could be such a hit, video IVR with large contents and innovation would also be hit!

3. Concept of citizen journalism or citizen activism
People are getting used to the idea citizen journalism now. With video IVR, there will be people who would be uploading video footage about events immediately for large audience which will be available simultaneously on internet, TV or mobiles of any 3G users!

4. Customer care
Video IVR may revolutionize customer care and call center industry! With video call, many problems by customers could be solved remotely as proper instruction could be provided to the customer for self-help. Frustration with traditional voice based IVR where they are made to speak to machine, by customers would also reduce as through video IVR, they can discuss with customer care executives face to face!

5. Video Advertising, blogging, cinema etc.
Video blogging can be expected to increase by many fold! Video portal would have much larger audience with 3G users. People would be able to watch trailer on movies before they buy a ticket for it over video IVR! SMS advertising would give away to video advertising now! Watch TV advertising on your mobile!

6. Utility Services
A user will be able to video weather conditions live at any place! Phone banking will be replaced by video banking which will make it more secure as well as personal! It will be very useful in healthcare industry where specialist would be able to instruct many locations simultaneously from a remote location!

So, innovation and ideas are many for video IVR applications! So, if video IVR is introduced after 3G, it may be the next big VAS ( Value added service) for mobile operators!