Background Analysis

Development of voice value-added services has undergone three stages:

First stage

After the popularization of telephone services, the fixed telephone operations at then have based on intelligent network(s) to activate the first voice value-added service——the 168 audiotex information service providing the simple information receiving, ordering and sending functions. The novelty and entertainment property of this service has led to fast growth of voice value-added services at the early stage, as well as the emergence of value-added service providers(SP) independent of basic telecommunication operators. However, due to the closeness of technical architecture of intelligent network(s), most of voice value-added services were operated by basic telecommunication operators, so that those independent value-added telecommunication service providers (SP) did operate in unclear operation modes and small scales. 

Second Stage

Since 2002 when there was already a fairly mature mobile communication market, and the size of mobile users broken through a number of 200 million and kept increasing rapidly, both the openness of mobile communication platform(s) and privacy of mobile terminals have impelled the voice value-added services to enter into a period of great development, during which there has been the formation of an industrial chain of valued-added services that is predominated by telecommunication operators with sufficient participation of value-added service providers(SP). With the positive promotions of operators and SPs, there have been the increasingly abundant voice value-added services——e.g. chat and friendmaking, music, game & entertainment, news and communication assistant, etc, while an explosive growth has been achieved in the market size for voice value-added services. In 2003, the total revenue of voice value-added services was around 400 million yuan all the year, in 2004, this figure arrived at 1,240 million yuan and in 2005, this figure further amounted to a market size of 2,180 million yuan. During this period, an unprecedented growth has been acquired and higher market return has been secured, whether for basic telecommunication operators or for value-added service providers.

Third Stage

Namely the current service development bottleneck stage. During this stage, the SMS service has maintained a relatively higher market size, while there has been a rapid growth of colorful ring back tone as a brand-new service, and other emerging value-added services such as MMS, WAP and mobile games have started to grow up as well. Consequently, these other value-added services have created impacts on the voice value-added services, while the homogenization of voice value-added services per se has become growingly severe. Violations in contents have brought down the reputation of such services, while the business thoughts of basic telecommunication operators have been shifted from the uplift of service volume to the building of service brands, and these operators have depended on their predominant status in the industrial chain to strength the monitoring of their services. On the other side, the SPs have encountered an unprecedented cold winter due to the standstill of their services and strengthened surveillance.

Development of aforesaid value-added services has signified a process of evolvement from mutual cooperation to mutual gaming between SPs and basic telecommunication operators in view of their mutual relationship. The SPs would lay greatest emphasis on the profitability of their services, whereas the operators would put stress on: 1. building of service brands,2. Uplift of total service volume and 3, sustainable service development. As operators wish to enhance the brand value of their data services, stabilize and expand their existent service volumes and achieve the sound development of their services via the creative services, they have intensified the severity of punishment on violative operations on one hand, and have actively fostered the development of their creative services by way of simplification of examination and approval processes, input of promotional resources and preferential settlement policies on the other hand. From the perspective of those value-added service operators, the SPs do not lack creative business thoughts and plans, but can even have creative services of strong market operability instead. However, due to the limitations of technical architectures and platform designs, it often requires a period of 3 months or even half a year to go through such procedures as planning, design, deployment, testing and launch of services. Such a case is extremely incompatible with the market characteristics for voice value-added services, and so, it can lead to the missing of market opportunities and further, to the loss of support of operators in business expansion. When these services became severely homogenous, the SPs have adopted some unconventional measures to even more compound their unsound interaction with the operators.

At now, the voice value-added service platform can impede the creative services mainly in the following regards:

1. System Closeness. Targeting only at a certain specific service, this system adopts the design of a fully closed structure stretching from its hardware layer to its application layer, and therefore, it is impossible to adjust services and load new services in accordance with market changes.

2. The system Lacks Flexibility. While adopting an open system structure, the system lacks flexible service interfaces. Therefore, service adjustments, if necessary, would often require the scheduling or alteration of system-level function interface(s) to increase the instability of system. When any new service is loaded, sharing of original system resources would be also impossible, thus resulting in the low efficiency of the system and increasing the time cost and manpower cost of services. 

3. The System Lacks An Operation Support System. The system can not work out the accurate statistics of relevant service attribute data such as user characteristics, flow characteristics and time characteristics. Due to a lack of powerful data support, it can only conduct the manual qualitative evaluation of services, so that errors in service evaluation can be hardly avoided. As such, it is impossible to fulfill the correct adjustments of service attributes and the service competitiveness is thus decreased.  

To sum up, the building of a flexible, creative service platform and construction of voice value added services according with the operator demands can serve as the basis for maintaining excellent relationship with operators and realizing sustainable profitability.

DONJIN Voice Value-Added Service Platform

To suit the market needs of SPs to construct their creative services and make such services more compliant with the value-added service development strategies of operators, Donjin Tech has developed the Donjin voice value-added service platform.

The Donjin voice value-added service platform was designed to satisfy the needs of fast development, flexible loading and stable operation of voice value-added services, where this platform adopted the core technologies of Donjin Tech in multiple areas to attract the complicated technical attributes, structural attributes and market attributes of voice value-added services. In this way, the visible, graphic development measures and methods were formed to realize the irrelevance of this system with the development, deployment and operation of voice value-added services, so that the operators could overlook the technical architectures and methods of realization of voice value-added services, but focus on the design of service logics, market development and operation instead, thereby increasing the service development efficiency and accelerating the market response speed.

Shown below is the diagram of system structure of Donjin voice value-added service platform:

用户-User

业务层-Service Layer

彩话、魔话、彩铃、电话QQ、电话秘书、语音短信、呼叫中心-BGM, Magic Talk, colorful ring back tone, telephone QQ, Miss Call, voice SMS, call center

表现层-Presentation layer

图形化控件 (基本语音、变声、BGM、SMS、Email、Fax、人工电话、外呼、会议、系统管理、数据库、函数……)-Graphic controls (basic voice, sound distortion, BGM, SMS, Email, Fax, manual telephone, outbound call, conference, system management, database, function……)

实现层-Realization(Instrumentation) Layer

语音中间件平台-Voice middleware platform

东进NADK开发工具包、开发的应用程序接口-Donjin NADK development tool kit and developed application program interface

东进语音卡、资源卡-Donjin voice card and resource card

东进-Donjin

基础层-Base (Infrastructure) layer

电信交换网、计算机互联网-Telecommunication switching network, computer Internet

Features of Donjin Voice Value-Added Service Platform

1. Merge of Multiple Services.

This platform deepens and extends the basic voice value-added service means, and intensifies the flexibility & interoperability of such means to merge a number of different voice value-added services as well as their realization methods onto one uniform platform, so that the application scope of this platform can cover all the voice value-added services. Meanwhile, this system is installed inside with the newly developed Donjin Tech system resources such as sound distortion and background music to provide a platform basis for the construction of abundant and colorful voice value-added services involving telephone QQ, BGM, mobile IVR, mobile secretary, super sound distortion, UNICOM NICAM, multi-party communication and voice SMS and so on. As this system can structure different services on the same one platform, the service flexibility has been improved as a result.

2. Open Service Interface.

The Donjin voice value-added service platform can provide the open development interfaces from its base layer to its application layer, which can fall in compliance with the standards of computer and communication industries. When developing new services, the SPs can directly use the service controls of this system rather than care about the realization of underlying technology. In this way, the SPs can focus their attention on the logics of their services, thereby shortening the service development cycles, increasing the market capabilities of services and ability of SPs to carry out the service creation. Meanwhile, the Donjin voice value-added service platform can also provide the function interfaces and controls connected to databases, Web service and E-mail service, by which to realize multiple applications such as support to service operation and data excavation.

3. Carrier-Grade Stability.

Based on the carrier-grade hardware structure, this system can utilize the core technologies of Donjin Tech in multiple areas to strengthen and optimize its voice processing capability, voice switch capability and system calculation capability, thereby laying solid foundation for the stable, reliable operation of services.

Applications of Donjin Voice Value-Added Service Platform

Depending on the Donjin voice value-added service platform, the value-added service providers can develop abundant and colorful services.

1. Super Sound Distortion

Your own telephone number and voice characteristics can be concealed to realize the intangible phone calls and mutual switch between the “distorted sound” and “original sound”. This service can really bring a lot of humors and wits to you.

2. BGM Service

The background music service which can enhance the phone call sentiments and ambience. 

3. Personal Assistance Service

Missed call notification, telephone directory, scheduling reminder, non-disturbance, subscription information and sending of blessings.

4. Information Inquiry

Inquiry and scheduling of flights and hotels 

5. Transaction Processing

Lottery betting, stock trading, recharge and payment.

6. Telephone conference ( conference scheduling, notification, calling, hosting, recording, text communication and fax, etc)

7. Telephone QQ ( ChatRoom)

8.Telephone callback service (Saving call charges)

9. Call Center ( Local, Distributed)

10. Virtual PBX ( Auto voice, transfer)

11. Hotline ( Consultation, interaction)

12. Industry marketing ( Dining, securities, insurance……)