A method for providing voice telephony services can include the step of receiving a call via a telephone gateway. The telephone gateway can convey call identifying data to a resource connector. A media port can be responsively established within a media converter that is communicatively linked to the telephone gateway through a port associated with the call. A call description object can be constructed that includes the call identifying data and an identifier for the media port. The call description object can be conveyed to a telephony application server that provides at least one speech service for the call. The telephony application server can initiate at least one programmatic action of a communicatively linked speech engine. The speech engine can convey results of the programmatic action to the media converter through the media port. The media converter can stream speech signals for the call based upon the results.