Voice-Enabled Web Applications

Cisco AS5400 Series Universal Gateways can interpret Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) documents. VoiceXML is an open-standard markup language that creates voice-enabled web browsers and IVR applications. While HTML enables users to retrieve data with a PC, VoiceXML enables subscribers to retrieve data with a telephone. The universal accessibility of the telephone and its ease of use make VoiceXML applications a powerful alternative to HTML for Internet access.

To illustrate a voice-enabled web application in action, consider the following scenario:

1. A baseball fan dials a number from the PSTN and is connected to a Cisco voice gateway configured as a VoiceXML-enabled gateway.

2. The Cisco voice gateway uses the caller ID information and associates it with the appropriate VoiceXML document residing on a web server. This document provides baseball scores for the caller.

3. The voice gateway runs the VoiceXML document and responds to the caller by playing the appropriate audio content. The application might play a recorded prompt that asks the caller to press a specific dual-tone multifrequency key to hear a sports score, such as "Press 2 to hear the results of the playoff game between Baltimore and New York."

4. Cisco IOS VoiceXML can transfer the caller to another party, such as customer service. For example, after playing the score, the application might prompt the caller with the message, "If you sign up for a one-year subscription to this service now, you will be entered into a drawing for two tickets to the next World Series. Press 5 to speak to one of our agents."