Indian
service provider Airtel has selected Voice SMS company Bubble Motion to
deploy a Voice SMS over fixed line service. The deployment means that Airtel customers
will be able to send Voice SMS messages to any mobile – and soon they will also
be able to send messages to other Airtel fixed line customers.
To
use the service, the customer dials * followed by the mobile number of the
customer they wish to send the Voice SMS to. The recipient then receives an SMS
alert on his mobile phone, notifying them that they have a new Bubble
message. To retrieve the message, the recipient
dials *0* from their mobile.
Voice
SMS is a phenomenon which has gained a great deal of traction in recent months
as more and more service providers deploy BubbleTALK services, the company
says. It adds that the ability to include more emotional content in a short
message than other messaging services such as IM, SMS and email, has made Voice
SMS messaging a popular channel amongst the youth market. Voice SMS has also
proven very popular with many groups who find SMS inconvenient, as well as
those whose first language is not supported by text entry on a phone keypad.
Airtel
has become the number one service provider in India on the back of service innovations, which have successfully captured the
imagination of
wired and wireless customers says Bubble Motion President and Co-Founder, Sunil
Coushik. By deploying the best Voice SMS solution on the market, Airtel is
staying one step ahead of its competition.” 
Bubble
Motion says it enables operators to create a new revenue stream within three weeks,
using its existing infrastructure, with no cannibalisation of existing
services. The company has been winning plaudits recently for its Voice SMS
services. BubbleTALK was recently honoured as being the Best Consumer
Application Award at the Mobile Messaging Awards. The BubbleTALK implementation
at Vodafone
was also recently named as being one of the top 10 non-voice revenue-generators
by telecoms analyst group Analysys.
