A speech utterance is sensed using a mobile telecommunication device. The speech utterance is compressed into compressed data that is communicated from the mobile telecommunication device to a remote system. The remote system performs a first remote attempt to recognize the speech utterance using a personal directory specific to the mobile telecommunication device, and a second remote attempt to recognize the speech utterance using a group directory for a group of which the mobile telecommunication device is a member. At least one remote recognition result is communicated back to the mobile telecommunication device based on the first and second remote attempts. The mobile telecommunication device performs a local attempt to recognize the speech utterance and retrieves at least one local recognition result based thereon. A final recognition result set is determined based on the at least one local recognition result and the at least one remote recognition result.