Setting Up a Telephony Server

The Telephony Server provides the interface between the Web server and the telephone network. This enables phone access to SALT applications. For speech applications that run on a Web browser (multimodal), an Internet Explorer (IE) plug-in is available to interpret SALT tags. For telephony applications, the server itself acts as the SALT interpreter.

The Telephony Server can be a standard server machine running Windows 2003. It will include Telephony Application Services (TAS), third-party interface software, or the Telephony Interface Manager (TIM), and a telephony board. It will communicate directly with the Private Branch Exchange (PBX) or the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). The telephony board provides the physical connection to the network. TAS is the piece that interprets SALT tags. And finally, the TIM is what connects the telephony board to TAS.

There are many considerations when setting up a telephony server, such as how many ports to use and whether to use analog or digital connections. You may want to consider working with a Microsoft Speech partner to set up your telephony server. This should reduce the amount of time it takes to deploy your telephony application. A list of current Microsoft partners can be found on the Microsoft Speech Server Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/speech.