AUTOMATIC VOICE RESPONSE TO DTMF TONE CONVERSION
by David E. Cozad
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Most, if not all, major voice mail systems do not have voice recognition capability. This places a major restriction on their use in non-DTMF capable telephony systems. The restriction is that current voice mail systems can setup for leaving voice mail only when the caller cannot generate a DTMF tone(s).
Other activities, such as retrieving voice mail, transfer voice mail, change personal identification code, cannot be done when the caller cannot generate a DTMF tone(s). Situations where DTMF tones cannot be generated is where the caller is operating a pulse or rotary dial phone and the telephony system has completed the connection to the called party/re-routed or alternate designation.
The telephone system can no longer intervene for the caller to support DTMF tone(s) generation. Another is where the caller is not in a position to look for and press the keys to generate the DTMF tones, i.e. driving a car in traffic. Since most voice applications require a response within a few seconds, the caller must interrupt whatever the caller is doing and press keys, lose the call or go into an error recovery cycle. In either case, the caller cannot accomplish what he wants to do.
DESCRIPTION OF INVENTION
This invention provides real time ability to convert voice into DTMF tones. This invention makes use of configurable predefined scripts to control a voice recognition subsystem and a DTMF tone generator to produce a real time, voice to DTMF protocol converter.
The benefit of this invention is that any Cellular Digital Messaging Service, like the Motorola Cellular Messaging Center (MCMC), will give callers full access to any external voice mail system (EVMS) or paging system when in a non-DTMF environment.
Full access may include: voice mail retrieval, change Personal Identification Numbers (PIN), change greetings, re-direct voice mail to other users, answer voice mail by return voice mail, etc., or sending digital pages, short message pages, etc.
OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
The operational environment for this invention would be as a hardware and software subsystem within a Voice Response User (VRU) and Voice Mail System on a single platform system, or on separate hardware and software platforms.
OPERATIONS OF THE INVENTION
The invention operates generally as follows, first from the perspective of a user, and next from the perspective of the internal operations:
USER PERSPECTIVE
From the perspective of the user, or caller, the operation of the invention is as follows:
1. The caller hears the voice prompt from the EVMS requesting input, for example, a request for service selection. See Figure 1.
2. The caller voices his selection. See Figure 2.
3. Then the caller hears the next voice prompt unless the previous selection terminate...
