Telecommunications Applications of Speech Processing

Abstract

The ways in which people communicate are changing rapidly. The standard voice call over a wired network is but one means of communications, which already includes cordless and wireless voice calls, video calls, beeper service, FAX service, e-mail service, and data services. This revolution in communications is being fueled by several sources, including the availability of low cost, low power, computation in both DSP and RISC chips, larger and cheaper memory chips, improved algorithms for communications (e.g. modems, signalling) and signal processing, and finally the creation of world-wide standards for transmission, signal compression, and communication protocols. The broad goal of the communications revolution is to provide seamless and high quality communications between people (or groups of people), anywhere, anytime, and at a reasonable price. Although there are many technologies that form the bases for the communications environment of the twenty-first century, one of the key technologies for making the vision a reality is speech processing. In this paper we attempt to show, by example, how speech processing has been applied to specific problems in telecommunications, and how it will grow to become an even more essential component of the communications systems of the twenty-first century.