New Talk

What you see is what you get on the Internet. Or is it?

Wireless data and Internet connections steal the headlines in the wireless phone industry these days. But weren't those phones made for talking? No reading or writing needed — communications was what they were all about.

Some companies are bringing that concept into the wireless-data equation by developing voice access to data sources. More specifically, they are implementing voice-recognition and text-to-speech services that allow users to search a Web site or check their e-mail from a wireless phone.

Services already in place at some wireless carriers enable customers to dial phone numbers or to navigate their voice mail through voice commands. Companies such as Intellivoice and Wildfire have been demonstrating and implementing voice-recognition "personal assistant" systems for the past few years. New applications attempt to bring the same navigation ease to e-mail and Internet sites, thereby completing the bridge to data-based sources.

But will these features make wireless data more accessible and therefore more successful?

Internet Via Voice
At least one company is betting on it. Inter-netspeech.com was founded in 1998 with the goal of bringing Internet access to more people. The company's service, which currently is in beta testing with plans to launch this month, allows users to access e-mail and Web sites via any telephone.

Emdad Khan, Internetspeech.com president & CEO, said the service uses a software intelligent agent to filter out graphics from an Internet site, extract the text and then read it to the user.

"We provide Internet access to anyone, anytime, anywhere," he said. "No computer is needed; you use only voice."

To use the service, customers call the server's 1-800 number, tell it their user ID and password and then what Web site or e-mail box they want information from. That's where the intelligent agent gets to work filtering and translating the text information to voice.

He said an advantage of the system is that Web masters do not have to recode their pages for this audio service as they do for voice-enabled Internet sites or for other data-access methods from wireless handsets.

Recoding sites for VXML (the Voice eXtensible Markup Language) and HDML costs too much money and takes too much time, he said. In addition, according to Kahn, the VXML standard has not been completed yet, prohibiting its entry into the market thus far. Web-site developers do not need to do anything to their sites for them to be accessible by Internetspeech.com's service, he said.

Obviously, the wireless market is one of the service's target markets. Other target markets, according to Kahn, include: people who do not have computers, visually impaired people and business-to-business users who want employees within their companies but out of the office to have the ability to access customized Web information.

The company plans to sell an allotment of access time for a flat fee, Kahn said, at a rate of $20 to $30, and then a charge would be added for each additional minute. The company also plans to recruit wireless, wireline and Internet service-provider partners.

Kahn said the problems his service solves for the Internet include opening access for everyone, eliminating extraneous information, bringing information to the user faster as downloading of visual Internet is determined by available bandwidth and eliminating language barriers. He said although most of the Internet sites are in English, users who speak other languages can access them through the audio service via translated text-to-speech.

Carriers & Wireless Data
It is clear that wireless carriers are looking to make Internet connections a way to increase usage of their networks. In announcing its global strategy for wireless data, Vodafone AirTouch said wireless data and Internet offers "the biggest new growth opportunity of this decade."

The services to be made available in the carrier's Version 2.0 of the plan, which it expects to launch by the end of the year, included voice access to parallel iterative method applications and voice navigation.

A number of carriers already have implemented voice-recognition systems for customers to dial phone numbers or access voice-mail messages, including Bell Atlantic Mobile, Frontier Cellular, Omnipoint and Pacific Bell Wireless in the United States, Orange in the United Kingdom, Bouygues Telecom in France and CTC-Startel in Chile.

Chris Resavy, Omnipoint senior director of engineering operations and facilities, said the PCS carrier has offered voice-recognition service for dialing since 1997 and currently is testing text-to-speech services for accessing e-mail messages.

"I think (the driver for this service) is productivity," Resavy said. "It makes it more reliable to stay connected while traveling."

Resavy said because each Omnipoint phone number also is an e-mail address, it is a natural progression for the carrier to allow subscribers to "hear" their e-mail messages.

Resavy, one of the users trialing the service, said people he communicates with are surprised by how quickly he responds to messages when he isn't in the office.

He said he uses the service to listen to the headers on his e-mail messages, and he then determines by the topic what messages he wants to listen to.

"It's made my life a lot more productive, being able to respond more quickly," he said.

Another benefit of voice-recognition systems is the safety factor, Resavy said. Users can interact via voice more safely while doing other things than they can if they have to push buttons and look at the phone.

"Omnipoint is pro-active with anything that will make using the phone safer," he said.

Resavy said just as wireless providers seek enhanced services in order to stand out in the crowd, vehicle manufacturers are looking at voice-recognition systems to better integrate communications services into their products as differentiators.

The Future
Wireless data has been on its way for a number of years. Bringing data to phones in a way that makes it as easy to use as a simple phone conversation might be a way to give the masses access to it. Or, it might stay a unique feature used only by mobile executives, those who truly want to be connected at all times.

But no matter which scenario comes true, airtime use will increase for carriers that implement it. The gamble, as it is for all enhanced services, will be on whether it increases enough to offset the investment in the technology.

Bainbridge (hbcomm@netnitco.net) is a freelance writer based in Highland, IN.