ESCA - NATO/RSG 10 Workshop on Applications of Speech Technology Lautrach, Germany September 16-17, 1993

Integrated Application of Low Bit Rate Coding and Text-To-Speech Synthesis for Intelligent Telecommunications Services

Geza Nemeth (1), Attila Tihanyi (1), Gabor Olaszy (2), Jozsef Gatmezei (2)

(1) Department of Telecommunications and Telematics, Technical University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary
(2) Phonetics Laboratory, Linguistics Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

In the paper speech technology aspects of a voice announcement system (called Intelligent Message System, IMS) designed for providing real-time multichannel services for crossbar and/or for stored program control (SPC) exchanges will be introduced. The most important messages are coded from human voice at a bit rate of 1.5 kbits/s. Additional messages can be created instantly on the spot, from existing vocabulary elements or by using the MULTIVOX multilingual text-to-speech system /I/, enhanced with extra editing and downloading capabilities. An approximately double Eurocard format board contains a Voice Synthesizer Subsystem (VSS)t that can handle maximum 16 channels in real-time from a vocabulary of approximately four minutes. 10 VSS boards (i.e. 160 channels) can be controlled together using the multipoint RS-422 interface. The system has been installed in six large exchanges of approximately 160.000 lines between December 1992 and May 1993 . Keywords: intelligent telecommunications services, speech synthesis, voice announcement, messaging systems, exchange extensions.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Nemeth, Geza / Tihanyi, Attila / Olaszy, Gabor / Gatmezei, Jozsef (1993): "Integrated application of low bit rate coding and text-to-speech synthesis for intelligent telecommunications services", In AST-1993, 163-166.