September 22, 2012
TMCnet's Hosted IVR Week in Review
By Michelle Amodio
TMCnet Contributor
It’s that time of the week where TMCnet rallies up the latest headlines in technology. Let’s “fall” into the news in hosted IVR to kick off a new season.
This week, TMCnet issued a special report on hacking and how it can affect IVR systems. What businesses need to know is that IVR systems can be attacked through audio processing algorithms. And because call centers rely on PBX (News - Alert) and IVR technology, they are easily targeted for such crimes.
“If an attacker could trigger an exception in DTMF-processing algorithms, then they could crash the entire application server by making a single phone call, causing the entire phone banking to become inaccessible, or no calls from the customer goes through,” wrote Rahul Stasi.
Read the full report to gain insight on IVR systems and how you can avoid an IVR hack.
In other news, the Opus audio codec has been standardized by Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as RFC6716. What this means is Opus can handle a wide range of audio applications, including Voice over IP (VoIP), videoconferencing, in-game chat and even remote live music performances – so it can be used for interactive speech and music over the Internet.
Read the details on the Opus audio codec and more information via Zingaya.
TMCnet reported that PDC4U announced its new PayPhone system, designed to help manage the income and outflow of cash into the system.
PayPhone provides the ability for corporate clients to send their customers a phone number by a variety of means, including e-mail, text message, automated dialer, or as part of a billing statement.
Read more about PDC4U’s PayPhone offering and how it can benefit businesses when it comes to cash management.
Last but not least, USAN (News - Alert) made headlines this week as it plans to demo its cloud-based customer engagement solutions at an upcoming conference. The demonstration includes a cross-channel customer experience that represents the key components of their customer engagement platform.
The solution joins USAN’s portfolio of contact center products, of which includes features such as Interactive Voice Response (IVR), Automatic Call Distribution (ACD), Outbound Predictive Dialing, and other engagement and optimization capabilities.
Read the full report for the details.
That’s it for this week’s hosted IVR week in review recap. Be sure to check into TMCnet’s Hosted IVR community for all of the latest news in this space.
Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX. Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO (News - Alert). Follow us on Twitter.