Telstra’s Voice2Text™ Service Lets Business Customers Read Voice Messages

Telstra’s business customers will be the first in Australia to take advantage of an innovative new service that converts voicemails to text messages.

Subscribers to the new Voice2Text™ service will have their voice messages sent as a text message to their mobiles, letting them read voicemail messages, as well as listen to them. Voice2Text™ subscribers will also see the caller ID on messages, so they can see at a glance who left the message, and then call or text back straight away.

Telstra Group Managing Director, Ms Deena Shiff, said that the service would be available to Telstra’s business, government and enterprise customers from the end of November and was set to help people better manage their communications.

“Voice2Text saves time and improves productivity and means customers never need miss an important or urgent message, even when they’re in a meeting,” Ms Shiff said.

Telstra Executive Director of Wireless and Mobility Products, Mr Roberto Vannini, said, “Telstra is the first in Australia to offer this type of speech conversion service and our customer trials have shown great levels of conversion quality and effectiveness.”

Telstra is partnering with UK company, SpinVox, to bring the voice to text technology to Australia. At the heart of the SpinVox service is its Voice Message Conversion System™ (VMCS), which works by combining computer-based state-of-the-art speech technologies with a live-learning language process.

SpinVox Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Mr Daniel Doulton, said he was delighted that Australians would soon be able to use the Voice2Text™ service which is increasing business productivity, and helping with mobile phone etiquette, on four continents.

“We expect Telstra’s business customers will find Voice2Text a simple and valuable way of controlling and improving their daily communications and it will soon become an essential tool in helping them get the most out of their busy lives,” said Mr Doulton.

“Like mobile email, SpinVox puts you in control of business critical messaging wherever you are – home or abroad,” he continued.

Business customers will have the choice of three pricing options: $10 for 25 messages, $20 for 80 messages or pay as you go at 55 cents per message. Telstra will look to make Voice2Text available to its consumer customers in 2008.
Telstra Media Contact:
Peter Taylor, Tel: +61 439 031 996

Telstra’s national media inquiry line is 1300 769 780 and the Telstra Media Centre is located at:

www.telstra.com.au/abouttelstra/media

Contacts

SpinVox Media:
SpinVox Global PR Director
Jane Henry
T: +44 (0)20 7965 2000
M: +44 (0)7941 941 794
Jane.henry {at} porternovelli(.)com
or
Porter Novelli for SpinVox – UK
Atheer Al Salim
T: +44 (0) 7853 2212
M: +44 (0)7802 412 424
Atheer.Al-Salim {at} porternovelli.co(.)uk
or
SpinVox Public Relations Director – North America
Tony Carter
T: +1 404.316.0201
tony.carter {at} spinvox(.)com
or
GK Communications for SpinVox – North America
Greg Kalish
T: +1 646.290.8840
gkalish {at} gkcomms(.)com