Economic Times Mumbai
April 28, 2006

NEW DELHI: If the text message were to convert into a voice message, it would have an entirely different meaning to ‘I love you’. Complete with emotions and voice, adding a new dimension to messaging on mobiles. This is not fiction, but will be a reality in the next few months in India. Text messaging could soon be dead, giving way to voice messaging.

The around 2bn text messages sent out by subscribers in India, every month, will have the option of being sent out as voice messages. And yeah, no sore fingers to worry about. Just dial the number, say what you want to and press send. The receiver gets a beep and hears it at the touch of a button.

The downside: you could be listening to your boss in the middle of the night or getting goose pimples that the voice message from the insignificant other is being heard by your spouse. Never mind the fallout, the new service will change messaging forever and in the process overhaul the lucrative messaging business. It will make it more profitable, as sending voice messages will be slightly more expensive than texting.

Around the world, 15 mobile service providers are offering voice messaging. These include Sprint in the US, Vodafone in Spain, IndoSat in Indonesia, Digi in Malaysia and Grameen in Bangladesh. In India, the mobile operators are currently doing pilots. The service is likely to be rolled out in the next eight months.

Says Taranjit Batra, vice president, sales, South Asia, Kirusa Inc, a US-based voice messaging service provider, “SMS has been a great success with 50-70% penetration. Regular SMS use is by about 40% of subscribers. In many areas low literacy level and lack of comfort with text messaging reduces its use. This is where voice messaging fills the gaps.” For instance, in Bangladesh 38% of the 7m subscribers of Grameen use voice SMS. In France and Spain it is 15%.

Sources say that some operators are doing pilots in states like Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Punjab. However, none of the operators, ET spoke to, wanted to go on quote about it.

Voice SMS does not require a new handset and will be available on both GSM and CDMA networks. Each message could cost around Re 1 to Rs 1.25 (text SMS on an average costs 50 paise). For users voice messaging is more convenient and personal. While for operators it will bring in higher revenues. Analysts expect that at least 20% of the text messaging market could switch to voice messaging in India.

In countries where it is available, users dial ‘*’ followed by the recipient’s number and leave a voice message. The receiver gets an alert (like in text messages) and dials ‘0’ to pick up the message. Unlike the text message, which is stored on your handset, voice messages will be stored on the mobile service providers’ servers. They could charge extra for each retrival.

Telecom industry watchers say that voice SMS gives an emotional dimension to personal messages while businesses could use the service to broadcast brief company information on mobiles.

The CXOs next decision could soon be sent as a voice command on handsets.

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