An interesting concept proposed by TringMe where it allows an user to use voice service offered by different VoIP service providers. This service is built using the TringSwitch a platform for providing the web telephony. But in my opinion this platform is an ideal candidate for a “voice delivery platform”. This voice delivery platform is an integral element in the overall service delivery platform and would focus on the voice as a service in the all IP network (or IMS network). Having such a voice delivery platform would enable the operator to offer voice as a service from different Internet provider as well as offering their own premium voice service. Since such a platform offers operators to manage the VoIP services (even it can be made prepaid or pay-as-you-use service), this could be a platform that also provides access to their charging engines like 3GPP online charging system (OCS).
So here are the components in TringSwitch voice delivery platform (note the differentiation on whether a component is a mandatory or optional is not given by TringSwitch, this is my assumption. Also I have not considered telephony gateway component as this may be useful only if it is used as web telephony switch and not as a voice delivery platform)
Mandatory elements:
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- Voice application server interface – interface to the voice application services that send voice over IM – both from Internet as well as operator’s own voice service
- Enablers (these can be just interfaces as operator would be already having these enablers) – TTS & ASR Engines, VXML Server, Voice Mail server
- Device rendering engines – flash server for connecting with the flash client on the mobile device
Optional components:
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- Protocol components (mainly if some voice services are developed by 3rd party) – SIP for signaling and voice processing engine supporting various Codecs (G711, G723, G729, GSM etc). However it should also be possible to have access to the operator’s infrastructure elements like media gateways and in my opinion these components need not be part of the voice delivery platform
- Customer usage analytics and ad engine also their interfaces with external VAS enablers like SMSC
However I guess following components are also mandatory to be included as part of this voice delivery platform.
- QoS enforcing and monitoring element
- Identity federation i.e., single identity to log into multiple voice service accounts
- Interface to presence, location
- Interface for the operator’s IN/billing and OSS components
- Interface with OTA as device configuration will have to be managed for the voice services
Now when the operator wants to integrate the premium voice service offered by them, then it can either integrate using voice over IM or provide some kind of service brokering functionality to include operator’s voice AS.
