Combining VoiceXML with CCXML: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Many Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems use the popular VoiceXML standard for managing vocal dialogs. For call control aspects, such systems often use the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) or a similar protocol. W3C is currently developing a new Call Control eXtensible Markup Language (CCXML) standard, at a higher abstraction level than SIP and which could hide the latter in order to accelerate the development of complex VoIP solutions that have an IVR component. But will this really be the case? This paper presents a comparative study base on a simple Personal Assistant system. Although there are undeniable benefits to a CCXML-VoiceXML approach, many observations and lessons lead us to believe that developers will face several limitations and potential pitfalls.