Method and apparatus for normalizing speech to facilitate a telephone call

[0002] This invention relates to a technique for processing the speech of one or more parties to a telephone call carried by a telecommunications network to enhance the intelligibility of each party's speech.

[0003] Present day providers of voice telephony service, such as AT&T, handle both domestic, as well as international calls. In most, but not all instances, a party to a telephone call uses the language of the country of origin of the call when speaking with another party, especially when both parties reside in the same country. Thus, for example, the parties to a call within the United States generally speak in English. In some instances, the national language of the country of origin of the call may not necessarily be the native language of one or more parties to that call. Immigrants to the United States from non-English speaking countries, even when they become proficient in English, often speak with an accent. While this is neither bad nor uncommon, a party to a call may encounter difficulties in attempting to understand a non-native language speaker, especially if that party speaks with a heavy accent.

[0004] A non-native language party to a call could avoid the difficulty of comprehension by choosing to speak his or her native language and employ a translation service, such as AT&T Language Line, to translate the speech into a language comprehensible by the other party or parties to the call. Such language translation services, which effective, are nonetheless costly to use on a regular basis. Moreover, for most non-native language speakers, communicating with others in the national language of the country of origin of the call becomes a matter of pride and perception by others on the call.

[0005] Thus, there is a need for a technique for normalizing the speech of one or more parties to a telephone call to improve intelligibility.

[0006] Briefly, the present invention provides a method for normalizing the speech of at least one of the parties to a telephone call carried by a telecommunications network to enhance the intelligibility of that party's speech. The method of the invention commences upon at least one party to the call invoking a speech normalization service offered by the network for that party. The requesting party may invoke the speech normalization service by manually signaling the network, such as by entering a prescribed sequence of Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) signals. Alternatively, the network itself could invoke the service in response to receipt of a call originating from, or a call dialed to, a subscriber pre-subscribed to the speech normalization service.

[0007] Once a party has invoked the speech normalization service, the network then determines the manner in which the speech of the party invoking the service should be normalized. Upon initially subscribing to the speech normalization service, a subscriber “trains” the network by providing a specimen of the subscriber's speech. The network samples the subscriber's speech specimen to establish various parameters of the subscriber's speech, such as pitch, tone, cadence, frequency and amplitude, to name a few. From such parameters, the network selects the appropriate speech normalization program that instructs the network how to normalize the subscriber's speech to maximize intelligibility. For example, based on a subscriber's particular speech parameters, the normalization program may instruct the network to alter the one or more aspects of the subscriber's speech, such as the tone and/or pitch. Once trained, the network can then automatically invoke the program corresponding to a particular subscriber for a call originated by, or dialed to that subscriber and normalize the subscriber's speech.

[0008] A Caller and/or called party not pre-subscribed to the speech normalization service, but who invokes the service on a per-call basis, also trains the network by providing a speech specimen. From that specimen, the network ascertains the party's speech parameters in order to determine the appropriate program by which the network will alter one or more aspects of the party's speech to enhance intelligibility. A party who manually invokes the speech normalization program on a call-by-call basis must train the network each time. Alternatively, the network could store the speech parameters for a Non-service subscriber for a short period of time. Thus, should a non-subscriber seek to invoke the speech normalization service again within that time, the non-subscriber would not need to re-train the network.

[0009] FIG. 1 illustrates a block schematic diagram of a telecommunications network in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention for normalizing the speech of one or more parties to a telephone call.

[0010] FIG. 1 illustrates a telecommunications network 10 in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention for normalizing the speech of one or more parties, represented by station sets 12 and 14, respectively, to a telephone call carried by the network. In the illustrated embodiment, a call initiated by the calling party 12 to the called party 14 passes to a first Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) 16 that provides the calling party with local service (i.e., dial tone). Assuming that the call requires inter-exchange routing, the LEC 16 routes the call to an Inter-Exchange Carrier network 18, such as the IXC network maintained by AT&T, for receipt at an Ingress toll switch 20 in the IXC network. The ingress switch 20 typically comprises a toll switch, such as a 4ESS® switch manufactured by Lucent Technologies. The ingress switch 20 routes the call to an egress toll switch 22, either directly, or through one or more intermediate or via switches (not shown) for receipt at a second local exchange carrier 24 serving the called party 14.

[0011] The IXC network 18 typically includes a signaling network 26, such as the SS7 network maintained by AT&T. The signaling network 26 communicates out-of-band signaling messages between and among the switches, such as switches 20 and 22, within the IXC network, as well as the LECS 16 and 24 to facilitate handling of the call. In the illustrated embodiment, the signaling network 26 includes at least one Service Control Point (SCP) 28. The SCP 28 acts as a hub to route signaling messages to and from one or more of the switches 20 and 22 as well as at least one Network Control Points (NCP) 30 that serves as a database to provide the switches with information on call processing. Additionally, the signaling network 26 includes one or more databases, in the form of segmentation directories 32aand 32b. The segmentation directories 32aand 32btypically store telephone numbers of subscribers, as well as an indication for each telephone number whether the subscriber associated with that number subscribes to a special service, such as speech normalization in accordance with the invention. The illustrated embodiment of FIG. 1 depicts each of switches 20 and 22 as exclusively coupled to segmentation directories 32aand 32b, respectively. However, several switches could share a single segmentation directory.

[0012] To provide normalization of the speech in accordance with the invention, the IXC network 18 includes at least one, and preferably, a plurality of speech normalization platforms, such as platforms 34aand 34billustrated in FIG. 1 coupled to switches 20 and 22, respectively. Ideally, each ingress and egress switch should have its own speech recognition platform, although several switches could share a single platform. Each of the speech normalization platforms 34aand 34binclude a processor 36, in the form of a computer, and a memory 38. As will discussed below, the processor 36 possesses the capability of performing sampling and modifying subscribers' speech, while the memory 38 stores separate programs for instructing the processor in the manner in which such speech should be modified.

[0013] The IXC network 18 operates to normalize subscribers' speech in the following manner. Upon receipt of a call at the ingress switch 40 from the calling party 12 (as relayed via LEC 16), the ingress switch determines whether the caller has invoked speech normalization. The caller 12 may invoke speech normalization manually, by entering a prescribed sequence of DTMF signals, whereupon the ingress switch 20 launches a request to the speech normalization platform 34a. At the same time, the ingress switch 20, or the speech normalization platform 34amay send appropriate information to a billing platform (not shown) to record billing information to bill the called party for the service.

[0014] In response to a request for speech normalization, the speech normalization platform 34aprompts the calling party 12 to provide a speech specimen. The processor 36 samples and digitizes the speech sample to ascertain various parameters associated with the caller's speech, such as pitch, tone, cadence, frequency and amplitude, for example. The processor 36 then matches the parameters against those associated with different rules stored in the memory 38 to find the rule most closely associated with the parameters of the caller's speech. Each rule in the memory 38 instructs the processor 36 how to process the incoming speech to maximize intelligibility. In this way, the party can “train” the network to normalize his/her speech.

[0015] In practice, the rules are developed empirically by taking actual speech samples, and then making modifications to the speech to maximize intelligibility. The modifications are then correlated to the parameters of the incoming speech to determine for a given of parameters the modifications that achieve maximum intelligibility, thereby creating the rule for such a set of parameters. Ultimately, by taking enough speech specimens and by making various modifications, rules can be developed for a wide variety of different types of speech, and in particular, different types of accents. Neural network technology could be employed to develop and refine the rules stored in the memory 38.

[0016] The called party 14 can also manually invoke speech normalization in place or, or in addition to, the calling party 12. Upon receipt of a call from the calling party 12, the calling party 14 can invoke speech normalization by entering the prescribed sequence of DTMF signals. In response to the prescribed sequence of DTMF signals, the Egress switch 22 launches a request to the speech normalization platform 34bwhich then normalizes the speech of the called party 14 in the same manner that the speech normalization platform 34anormalizes the speech of the calling party 12.

[0017] Either or both of the calling and called parties 12 and 14, respectively may pre-subscribe to speech normalization and have their speech normalized automatically, instead of invoking the service manually on a call-by-call basis as discussed above. A party, such as calling party 12 or/or called party 14, seeking to pre-subscribe to speech normalization may do so by either contacting a service representative of the IXC network. Alternatively, a party seeking to pre-subscribe to speech normalization may do so by dialing a telephone number, such as a toll free 800, 888 or 877 number, to reach the speech normalization platform associated with the toll switch “homed” or assigned to the subscribing party's LEC. Thus, to pre-subscribe to speech normalization, the calling party 12 dials the telephone number of the speech normalization platform 34aassociated with the toll switch 20 homed to the LEC 16 servicing the calling party.

[0018] Upon receipt of a call from a party seeking to subscribe to speech normalization, the speech normalization platform, such as platform 34a, acquires the telephone number of the party. The speech normalization platform 34 could acquire the telephone number either via Automatic Number Identification (ANI) assuming the corresponding switch, such as switch 20, possesses such capability, or by prompting the party for such information. Thereafter, the speech normalization platform 34aprompts the subscribing party for a speech specimen, whereupon the platform then samples the speech to establish the various parameters from which to select the appropriate rule for the subscribing party. Thereafter, the speech normalization stores the rule, using the subscribing party's number or some other label associated with such a number, as the address for the rule. After a subscriber has subscribed, the segmentation directories, such as the segmentation directories 32aand 32b, are updated from the information acquired by the speech normalization platforms 34aand 34bto reflect that the subscriber should enjoy speech normalization for calls originating from and dialed to the subscriber's number.

[0019] The IXC network 18 provides normalization in the following manner for subscribers that have pre-subscribed to the speech to normalization service. For each incoming telephone call, the switch receiving such a call, such as ingress switch 20, accesses its associated segmentation directory, such as segmentation directory 32a, to determine whether the calling party, and/or the called party has subscribed to speech normalization. As discussed above, the segmentation directory 32astores a list of phone numbers and an indication for each number whether the subscriber associated with that number has subscribed to any special services, such as speech normalization. Thus upon receipt at the switch 20 of a call from the calling party 12, the switch makes inquiry, typically via the SCP 28, to the segmentation directory 32a. In response to the number of the calling party and the dialed number of the called party, the segmentation directory 32aprovides an indication of the need for a special service, i.e., speech normalization. When calling party has pre-subscribed to speech normalization, the switch 20 receives such an indication and launches a request to the speech normalization platform 34a. When the called party has pre-subscribed to speech normalization, the switch 22 receives such an indication and launches a request to the speech normalization platform 34b. In response, the corresponding one of speech normalization platforms 34aand 34b, respectively, provide the requested service. In this way, a party pre-subscribed for speech normalization can receive that service automatically for a call originated from, or dialed to that party.

[0020] The foregoing describes a technique for normalizing the speech of one or more parties to a telephone call carried by a telecommunications network.

[0021] The above-described embodiments merely illustrate the principles of the invention. Those skilled in the art may make various changes and variations that will embody the principles of the invention and fall within the spirit and scope thereof.