Summary

Recommendation ITU-T H.248.9 provides two sets of packages: syntactic and functional. The syntactic packages provide the ability to specify announcements with variable content, with a degree of flexibility constrained only by the provisioning of the MG and MGC. This syntax may in principle be used to specify multimedia announcements, although its application in this Recommendation is to evoke audio content. The functional packages provide advanced control of an Audio Resource Function using the ITU-T H.248.1 protocol. The packages provide the ability to play recorded announcements with variable content, carry out prompted collection of digits, and carry out prompted collection of recorded audio. An additional package provides the ability to manage recorded media segments on the media gateway.

Additional functionality incorporated by ITU-T H.248.9 (2005) Amendment 1 (2007):

•            6.3.6.11          New variable type "Tone" for dynamic audio segment specification.

•            6.4               Set extension of basic syntax: introduction of a new selector for text attributes.

•            6.5.5.1         Variable type "Phrase": introduction of subtypes.

•            9.3.1            Signal PlayCollect: enhanced functionality, new parameters.

NOTE – This Recommendation has been renumbered in 2002. It was formerly known as Rec. ITU‑T H.248 Annex M.1.

ITU-T H.248.9 (2005) Amendment 1 (2007) defines packages which enable automatic speech recognition (ASR), text to speech (TTS) and multimedia playout functionality between a media gateway controller (MGC) and a media gateway (MG) controlled by ITU-T H.248.1. In this scenario, the MGC may take the form of a media controller (MC) and the MG may take the form of a media processor (MP).

This revision introduces a number of new functions. The new functions include:

–           A playout completion event to determine the duration of the played announcement and the offset into the announcement the playout ended.

–           The ability to report the key that terminates a recording as well as the length in time and bytes of the recording. It allows the MGC to specify whether recordings are amended to or overwrite a storage uniform resource identifier (URI).

–           The ability to specify an offset into the announcement, where to start playing from.

–           The ability to specify an absolute volume for an announcement.

–           The ability to detect and report control digits and whether they are associated with the announcement or collection phases.

–           The ability for control digits to request the MG to pause, resume, fast forward and rewind an announcement or to increase or decrease the volume of an announcement and to adjust the speed of delivery.

–           The ability to indicate whether the collected digits should be stored in a log file or not. For example: digits related to a pin code would not be stored.

–           The ability to detect "marks" within text to speech grammar script.