METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR INITIATING A VOICE-DIALING OPERATION

Hands free voice dialing telephony devices that can perform relatively simple speech recognition, e.g., to recognize one or a few words corresponding to a command to initiate voice dialing, are described. Speech recognition models stored in the telephony devices can be relatively small and may be either of a speaker dependent or speaker independent type. In response to detecting a command to perform a voice dialing operation the telephony device establishes a connection with a voice dialing intelligent peripheral (IP). The IP includes far greater speech recognition capabilities than the individual telephone devices and is responsible for supporting voice dialing operations associated with a plurality of voice dialing service subscribers. The IP performs speech recognition on speech provided by individual telephony devices and outputs telephone numbers corresponding to recognized spoken names. Telephony devices are coupled by the telephone network to destination telephones corresponding to the telephone numbers output by the IP. In one embodiment, speech recognition models are generated by the IP from speech transmitted from the individual telephony devices. The generated model or models are then stored in the telephony devices for use during speech recognition operations. Thus, processing resources required to generate speech recognition models can be located in a centralized network accessible location.