BT trials wholesale SMS to voice service
'Synthesised lady' to pass on SMS messages to fixed-
line phones
08 January 2004
BT announced today that it is trialing a new service
that it aims to wholesale to service providers that will allow
SMS messages from mobiles to be sent to fixed-line phones using
automatic text-to-speech conversion technology. Users of SMS-enabled
telephones will also be able to send messages to mobiles using
the same system and receive them as text. This is a big step towards
providing some of the 'mobile experience' to the fixed-line network.
The synthetic speech conversion will even be able
to recognise and convert 'text speech' abbreviations such as:
#:-( or :-| (bad hair day and determined respectively!) The voice
can laugh and in the future will be able to send musical 'jingles'
as part of messages.
Users with voicemail systems, such as BT's Call
Minder, will have the message delivered directly into their voicemail
which makes it a very reliable method of ensuring messages are
delivered. Recipients without voice mail will still be able to
receive the text as a voice message via a telephone call where
an automated voice will deliver the message. If the user's line
is busy then the system will make a number of attempts to pass
the message on. The speech message can also be saved and accessed
later to listen to it again. Users with text-enabled fixed-line
handsets will be able to receive messages in text format rather
than as voice messages.
The proposed service will be useful for anybody
who wants to text someone without a mobile, or when they know
that a mobile will be out of range, switched off or do not know
the mobile number. It will also prove useful to the elderly, blind
or partially sighted people who have not been able to make use
of SMS previously. Equally, it could become a valuable aid to
parents who have not caught up with the SMS world but want to
keep in touch with their children. Or it could be used because
it is simply a fun way to send a message!
In business SMS to voice could, for example, broadcast
information to a wide range of people ensuring that as far as
possible urgent messages are received because the telephone is
never switched off, unlike PCs or mobiles. It can also be used
in business situations where, a mobile is not provided by an employees'
company, and where it would be intrusive to send a text to a personal
mobile, SMS can still be used.
Paul Reynolds, chief executive of BT Wholesale,
said: "SMS is now a major telecommunications service and
has become a very useful and positive part of many people's lives.
Extending it to fixed lines through the imaginative use of text
to voice technology will make it a much more flexible and fun
service for business and personal users. It is also a great example
of the work we are doing to help converge fixed and mobile communications
for the benefit of customers in the future. We are looking forward
to completing the trial so that our customers can begin offering
text to voice as part of their service."
BT Wholesale's trial of SMS-to-voice will establish
any technical and process issues so that they can be solved before
launch and gauge how users will interact with the system. A number
of operators have expressed an interest in the service and are
currently in discussion with BT Wholesale.
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