Phone-Web: Accessing WWW using a telephone set

In order to provide a ubiquitous, comprehensive and versatile service on the WWW the development of a WWW telephone browsing system named Phone-Web is proposed. This Phone-Web browser system would act as an intermediary between the telephone user and Web sites, thereby facilitating access to the WWW from any phone. The Phone-Web system would filter Web page information and then convert it into speech format. Users of the Phone-Web system could retrieve and hear information stored on WWW servers by using telephone handsets. For this system to work it requires a new hypertext language “Hyper Phone Markup Language” (HPML) and a dedicated Phone-Web browser. By using the proposed HPML language, Web page designers can easily specify service information in a set of HPML pages, which would be included in the site they are designing. The Phone-Web browser would be capable of retrieving and then converting the HPML pages into speech patterns. By connecting to the Phone-Web browser, telephone users can access any information on any site using the HPML language from any telephone anywhere in the world. However, HPML-specified pages can also be accessed using existing browsers (e.g., Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, etc.) This means that both telephone and computer users can now access the same set of Web pages to retrieve the same information. Therefore, instead of maintaining the existing two systems (access via the telephone or computer) service providers can now maintain one system, which would provide a versatile, and comprehensive service for users at all levels of Web-literacy.