Write Once, Use Any Hardware - The Holy Grail of IVR Software

[jayakrishnan]

Most IVR Software as written, work only with specific voice cards in the market and in most cases this is limited to the voice cards of a single vendor. The main reason for this is the voice card API that each Manufacturer bundles along with its voice cards. IVR Software written to work for one API become in a sense locked into that API. The overall effort to implement support for a second API is so great and the cost-benefit ratio so small that software developers do not consider implementing support for a new vendor.

While this might have been true for the past decade or so when the competition between voice card vendors were limited, the arrival of high speed multi-core CPU's bringing with it the ability to implement Host Media Processing thereby reducing the DSP requirements at the board level and the emergence of the Chinese voice card vendors into the global market has resulted in fierce competition between the vendors and a resulting drop in voice card prices.

Unfortunately many IVR solution providers have been unable to take advantage of this situation due to the lock-in imposed of the proprietary API. As a direct result many software developers have been looking at toolkits that support multiple voice devices. Unfortunately many toolkits are still voice card specific or only support one of the standard API like CAPI or TAPI.

The USP of Xtend IVR toolkit is its capability to support multiple voice devices out of the box. Each voice card has its own device driver which implements the Xtend IVR VDIL (Voice Device Independent Layer) enabling us to support any voice device in existence. (We even have a proof-of-concept driver for Skype that supports multiple Skype channels and works with all our standard IVR scripts)

API's and Voice Devices currently supported:

• Dialogic (SDK 5.1.1)
  All Dialogic Voice Cards supporting Global Call API 5.1.1 is supported. Extensive testing of Xtend IVR is performed using D/4 PCI UF (for Analog) and D/300 E1 JCT (for Digital) voice cards.


• Dialogic (SDK 6.0)
  All Dialogic Voice Cards supporting Global Call API 6.0 is supported. Extensive testing of Xtend IVR is performed using D/4 PCI UF (for Analog) and D/300 E1 JCT (for Digital) voice cards.


• Diva Server (SDK 4.0)
  All Dialogic Diva Server Voice Cards and Soft Device (H323 & SIP) are supported. Extensive testing of Xtend IVR has been performed using Diva Server V-Analog-4P (For Analog) and Diva Server PRI/E1/T1-8 / Diva Server V-PRI/E1 (For Digital).


• Ai-Logix (SDK 3.8)
  All E1/T1/Analog Ai-Logix Voice Cards are supported. Extensive testing of Xtend IVR has been performed using Ai-Logix LD409 (For Analog) and Ai-Logix DT3209 (For Digital).


• Opal H323 Driver (BETA)
  Opal H323 driver supports the H.323 protocol for VoIP. The driver implementation utilizes the Opal Libraries available from http://www.voxgratia.org/


• Opal SIP Driver (BETA)
  Opal H323 driver supports the SIP protocol for VoIP. The driver implementation utilizes the Opal Libraries available from http://www.voxgratia.org/


• Skype Phone (BETA)
  Skype is supported via the Skype API. Extensive testing has been performed only for up to four simultaneous ports.


• Telephony API 2.1 [Half-Duplex]
  TAPI 2.1 is supported in half-duplex mode. Extensive testing has been performed using the Dialogic D/4 PCI / Tata PCT An (For Analog) and Dialogic Diva Server PRI/E1/T1-8 (For Digital) voice devices.


• Telephony API 2.1
  TAPI 2.1 is supported in this full-duplex tapi driver. Extensive testing has been performed using the Dialogic Diva Server PRI/E1/T1-8 (For Digital) voice devices.


• Multimedia Wave Driver
  Multimedia devices are supported via this driver. This enables one to stream voice to the Multimedia Speakers or stream in voice from the Line-In/Mic. Live audio services can be supported via this driver.


• Xtend Service Driver
  The service driver is a null device used to create worker threads that can be utilized to perform any background task like reading from the com port or to schedule services for later date.


• Generic GSM Modem
  The Generic GSM Modem is a driver than supports the sending and receiving of SMS Messages using standard GSM Modems. Full support for Unicode, Long, Blink and Flash Sms are present. The Generic GSM Modem driver is available along with the Xtend SMS toolkit as a separate purchase and can be integrated into an IVR solution if required.

API's and Voice Devices whose support is planned or in progress include:

• Dialogic (HMP SIP & H.323)


• Synway (SynCTI 4.7)


• Donjin (NADK 1.8)


• NMS (Natural Access 2005-1)


• Googletalk

The Developer Edition of Xtend IVR comes with a 1-port runtime that enables you to test the developed script on any of the currently supported voice devices and can be download from www.xtendtech.com/ivr.