Why Concatenated Voice Technology Is Your Best Choice
For Public Safety Applications

In plain English, concatenated voice technology is the best choice for public safety applications, where a mispronounced word could misdirect a fire/EMS crew to the wrong address during an emergency.

Concatenated voice technology is based on a pre-recorded audio database. A voice talent records the necessary information (street names, incident types, etc.) and the voice "engine" breaks apart the recordings and stores them in fragments in the audio database. When a call comes through, it assembles specific word "bits" and audio phrases to form sentences, i.e. the emergency dispatch.

The "Pros" of Concatenated Speech Technology

	•	Natural sounding because it's based on actual recordings of a human voice
	•	Clear and easy to understand
	•	Sentences are spoken with natural rhythm and pitch
	•	Little chance for pronunciation errors because the audio is pre-recorded
	•	Recordings are created in a noise-free environment
	•	Often can't tell the difference between a concatenated and "live" announcement

The "Cons" of Concatenated Speech Technology

	•	There aren't many
	•	Concatenated speech technology requires the development of a pre-recorded audio database
	•	It requires disk space, RAM, and processing power
	•	Example: A 15k-entry audio database would require about 2 gigabytes of storage, which is much less than what's typically available on today's PCs

Another Technology Option: Synthesized Speech

Synthesized speech technology has some serious drawbacks for mission-critical public safety applications.

	•	Can sound robotic and unnatural
	•	Requires correctly spelled, well-punctuated, unambiguous text to be accurate
	•	Mispronounces and misconstrues words quite easily
	•	Can convey only limited emphasis and emotion