| Author |
Send text messages to a landline |
axxxr
Joined: Mar 21, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Londinium
PM, WWW
|
Especially useful since now that making regular voice phone calls is totally out of fashion, BT is introducing a new service in the UK that let’s you send a text message to a regular landline phone. Since hardly any landline phones can receive text messages (believe it or not, there are actually a few out there), BT’s service uses text-to-speech software to convert the message into a voicemail, even translating that text shorthand favored by teens into something a bit more comprehensible.
Until now, the only way to send a text message from a land-line was to use one of a small number of expensive cordless digital phones. This is the first gizmo with a qwerty keyboard that performs the same job.
It sends texts to all mobile networks and to land-lines (converted to speech if the recipient doesn't have a similar device). The £20 price tag includes three months' subscription to BT's Caller Display service, which is required and costs £4.50 a quarter thereafter. Texts cost 10p each. With group sending, it makes light work of adding to the 70 million text messages sent every day in the UK.
For stockists, call 01204 478888.The great British summer has returned with a soggy vengeance. With that in mind, a round-up this week of gadgets to keep the children occupied and entertained during the summer holiday, whatever the weather. They were tested on a panel aged from two to 14.
_________________
<<<+TIMELINE+>>>
[ This Message was edited by: axxxr on 2004-08-05 14:27 ] |
|
|
shyam335
Joined: May 25, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: 127.0.0.1
PM |
I am wondering how far itll be successfull. The process is a bit complicated too
This message was posted from a T610 |
Cytech
Joined: Feb 19, 2002
Posts: > 500
From: Stockholm, Sweden
PM |
Vodafone Sweden released this services in October last year... don't think it has been any success... quite useless really... you might as well call the person yourself instead of sending a SMS to their landline phone... |
bigred485
Joined: Jul 13, 2004
Posts: 5
PM |
Such a service has excisted in south africa for a long time. The computerized voice was pretty acurate. Would be nice if the US got such a feature. |
Residentevil
Joined: Feb 29, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Raccoon City, USA
PM, WWW
|
there are some services that are not needed and this is one of them unless you are reading impaired.
Tough times don't last, tough people do!
Free Tibet |
joebmc
Joined: Jan 03, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Kent
PM |
Or blind! |
Lynx69
Joined: Feb 22, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: [ENGLAND]
PM |
Correct me if im wrong but doesnt T-Mobile UK offer the same thing. You can text a landline number and the number will get a call and the message will be read out?!
 >>*Wow 2100+ posts*<< |
methylated_spirit
Joined: Jul 07, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Bonnie Scotland
PM |
Erm...the amstrad e-mailer has allowed you to do it for years...ive got one and its very handy, and it worked no problems at all.
Also, THREE has been doing this, it converts emails into speech then you can listen to them a la voicemail, it swears and everything! Its old hat, this.
_________________
Visit Aberdeen, where men are men and sheep are nervous!
[ This Message was edited by: methylated_spirit on 2004-08-04 20:10 ] |
axxxr
Joined: Mar 21, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Londinium
PM, WWW
|
BT is hoping to launch the next big thing in texting - SMS between fixed and mobile phones - and is bringing out a range of handsets and signing up some big name operators to help.
Vodafone, T-Mobile, BT Mobile and 3's customers can all send texts to BT's specially adapted handsets and BT says more operators will join in soon. Texts from fixed lines will also be able to reach Orange and Virgin Mobile users and other fixed phones.
For those without the text-enabled fixed line phones, the message is converted into electronic speech and left as a voicemail. It can even translate smileys and emoticons into speech, apparently.
Texting is still one of the mobile operators' chief cash cows, bringing in around 15 per cent of revenues.
According to figures from the Mobile Data Association, mobile-to-mobile text numbers are still growing. The numbers from April show over an average of 70 million texts a day were sent - an increase of 26 per cent compared to the corresponding month last year.
While no one expects fixed-to-mobile SMS to draw in the same huge revenues as mobile-to-mobile, there's still a place for the emerging technology.
Analyst house Frost and Sullivan recently predicted fixed-to-mobile would take off.
Frost and Sullivan estimates that Western Europe has between three million and five million fixed line SMSers, each sending two or three messages a month. While that doesn't compare to the two billion mobile texts sent in April, Frost and Sullivan is optimistic about the growth potential for fixed-to-mobile texting.
The analysts predict fixed SMS traffic will increase by between 15 and 20 per cent per month and subscriber numbers will grow at about the same rate.
[addsig] |
|
|
Posted: 2004-08-03 20:35
>>*Wow 2100+ posts*<< 
