1. A method of operating an automatic speech recognition service remotely accessible by a client over a packet network, the method comprising: (a) receiving from the client over the packet network a grammar identifier associated with one of a plurality of grammars; (b) based on the grammar identifier, selecting a grammar from the plurality of grammars; (c) receiving from the client over the packet network information representing speech; (d) recognizing the received speech information by applying an automatic speech recognition algorithm in accordance with the selected grammar; and (e) sending information based on the recognized speech over the packet network to the client.