deploy-phone.md

copyright	lastupdated	subcollection
years 2020, 2025	2025-06-02	watson-assistant

{{site.data.keyword.attribute-definition-list}}

Integrating with phone

{: #deploy-phone}

[IBM Cloud]{: tag-ibm-cloud} [Plus]{: tag-green}

IntelePeer free phone number service for {{site.data.keyword.conversationshort}}
Effective July 31, 2025, the IntelePeer free phone number service is discontinued for {{site.data.keyword.conversationshort}}. After this date, phone numbers that use this service no longer connect, and users can't make or receive calls. To ensure continued service, migrate your phone numbers to Twilio or another telephony provider. Update your phone numbers and adjust your integration settings in {{site.data.keyword.conversationshort}}. For assistance with the transition, contact support at https://www.ibm.com/mysupport/. {: deprecated}

You can enable the streaming feature in conversational search for the phone integrations in your assistant. This helps your assistant to stream the responses while generating them. For more information see, Conversational search.{: note}

Adding the phone integration to your assistant makes your assistant available to customers over the phone.

If an end user asks to speak to a person, the phone integration can transfer the call to an agent. Supported live agent and contact center integrations:

• Genesys
• Twilio Flex
• NICE CXone
• Bring your own

There are several ways to add the phone integration to your assistant:

• You can generate a free phone number that is automatically provisioned from IntelePeer. This is available only with new phone integrations. If you have an existing phone integration, you must delete it and create a new one to switch to a free phone number.
• You can connect to a contact center with live agents. For more information about setting up the integration, see Integrating with phone and NICE CXone contact center.
• You can use and connect an existing number by configuring a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunk from a provider such as Genesys, IntelePeer, or Twilio.

A SIP trunk is equivalent to an analog telephone line, except it uses Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to transmit voice data and can support multiple concurrent calls. The trunk can connect to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or your company's on-premises private branch exchange (PBX).

When a customer makes a phone call using the telephone number connected to your assistant, the phone integration makes it possible for your assistant to answer. The integration converts output from your assistant into voice audio by using the {{site.data.keyword.texttospeechfull}} service, and the audio is sent to the telephone network through the SIP trunk. When the customer replies, the voice input is converted into text by using the {{site.data.keyword.speechtotextfull}} service.

This feature is available only to Plus or Enterprise plan users.

Depending on the architecture of your existing telephony infrastructure, there are multiple ways you might integrate it with {{site.data.keyword.conversationshort}}. For more information about common integration patterns, read the blog post Hey Watson, can I have your number? on Medium. {: tip}

Set up the integration

{: #deploy-phone-setup}

You must have Manager role access to the instance and Viewer role access to the resource group to complete setup. For more information about access levels, see Managing access.

To set up the integration:

1. In the Integrations section on the main page for your assistant under Essential Channels, you will see a tile for Phone.

2. On the Phone tile, click Add.

3. On the pop-up window, click Add again.

4. Choose whether to generate a free phone number for your assistant, integrate with your contact center, or connect to an existing SIP trunk:

   • To generate a free phone number for your assistant, click Generate a free phone number.

     Generating a free phone number is supported only for {{site.data.keyword.conversationshort}} instances in the Dallas and Washington DC data centers. {: note}

   • To integrate with a contact center, click Integrate with your contact center.

   • To use an existing phone number you have already configured with a SIP trunk provider, click Use an existing phone number with an external provider.

   Click Next.

5. If you are integrating with a contact center, follow the instructions to configure the contact center. Skip this step if you are generating a free phone number.

   1. On the Select contact center page, select the tile of the connect center you would like to use.

   2. On the Connect to contact center page, enter the required information. There is a Test Connection button on the page to validate the connection. Click Next.

6. If you are using an existing phone number, follow the instructions to configure the SIP trunk. Skip this step if you are generating a free phone number.

   1. On the Bring your own SIP trunk page, copy the SIP URI and assign it to your SIP trunk. Click Next.

7. On the Phone number page (only for Integrate with your contact center and Use an existing phone number with an external provider), specify the phone number of the SIP trunk. Specify the number by using the international phone number format: +1 958 555 0123. Do not surround the area code with parentheses.

Currently, only one primary phone number can be added during initial setup of the phone integration. You can add more phone numbers in the phone integration settings later.

Click Next.

1. On the Speech to Text page, select the instance of the {{site.data.keyword.speechtotextshort}} service you want to use for the phone integration.

   • If you have existing {{site.data.keyword.speechtotextshort}} instances, select the instance you want to use from the list.

   • If you do not have any existing {{site.data.keyword.speechtotextshort}} instances, click Create new instance to create a new Plus instance.

2. In the Choose your Speech to Text language model field, select the language model you want to use.

   The list of language models is automatically filtered to use the same language as your assistant. To see all language models, toggle the Filter models based on assistant language switch to Off.

   If you created specialized custom models that you want your assistant to use, choose the {{site.data.keyword.speechtotextshort}} service instance that hosts the custom models now, and you can configure your assistant to use them later. The {{site.data.keyword.speechtotextshort}} service instance must be hosted in the same location as your {{site.data.keyword.conversationshort}} service instance. For more information, see Using a custom language model. {: note}

   For more information about language models, see Languages and models{: external} in the {{site.data.keyword.speechtotextshort}} documentation.

   Click Next.

3. On the Text to Speech page, select the instance of the {{site.data.keyword.texttospeechshort}} service you want to use for the phone integration.

   • If you have existing {{site.data.keyword.texttospeechshort}} instances, select the instance you want to use from the list.

   • If you do not have any existing {{site.data.keyword.texttospeechshort}} instances, click Create new instance to create a new Standard instance.

4. In the Choose your Text to Speech voice field, select the voice you want to use.

   The list of voices is automatically filtered to use the same language as your assistant. To see all voices, toggle the Filter voices based on assistant language switch to Off.

   For more information about voice options, and to listen to audio samples, see Languages and voices{: external} in the {{site.data.keyword.texttospeechshort}} documentation.

   Click Next.

Any speech service charges incurred by the phone integration are billed with the {{site.data.keyword.conversationshort}} service plan as voice add-on charges. After the instances are created, you can access them directly from the IBM Cloud dashboard. Any use of speech instances that occurs outside of your assistant is charged separately as speech service usage costs. {: important}

The phone integration setup is now complete. On the Phone page, you can click the tabs to view or edit the phone integration.

If you chose to generate a free telephone number, your new number is displayed on the Phone number tab immediately. However, provisioning the new number might take several minutes. {: note}

Adding more phone numbers

If you are using existing phone numbers you configured via a SIP trunk provider, you can add multiple numbers to the same phone integration.

If you generated a free phone number, you cannot add more numbers. {: note}

To add more phone numbers:

1. In the phone integration settings, go to the Phone number tab.

2. Use one of the following methods:

   • To add phone numbers one by one, click Add phone number in the table, and enter the phone number along with an optional description. Click the Add button to save the number.

   • To import a set of phone numbers that are stored in a comma-separated values (CSV) file, click the Upload a CSV file icon (![Add phone number][images/phone-integ-import-number.png]), and then find the CSV file that contains the list of phone numbers.

     The phone numbers you upload will replace any existing numbers in the table.

Setting up live agent escalation

{: #deploy-phone-live-agent}

If you want your assistant to be able to transfer a conversation to a live agent, you can connect your phone integration to a contact center. For more information, see instructions for the supported platform:

• Genesys
• Twilio Flex

Phone integration limits

{: #deploy-phone-limits}

Any speech service charges incurred by the phone integration are included as Voice add-on charges in your {{site.data.keyword.conversationshort}} service plan usage. The Voice add-on use is charged separately and in addition to your service plan charges.

Plan usage is measured based on the number of monthly active users, where a user is identified by the caller's unique phone number. An MD5 hash is applied to the phone number and the 128-bit hash value is used for billing purposes.

The number of concurrent calls that your assistant can participate in at one time depends on your plan type.

Plan	Concurrent calls
Enterprise	1,000
Plus	100
Trial	5
{: caption="Plan details" caption-side="top"}