State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

There are a lot of new voice services around these days. Some promise international calls with no extra charge than using your mobile minutes, others take your voice calls and convert them to text. Financial Times recently did a good review of the various services to bridge the gap between voice communications, text messaging and mobile web.  In Pakistan we have a few similar services such as voice 2 text. Some (edited) excerpts from the FT article are presented below:

JAXTR
Jaxtr, which is free, is designed to link your fixed or mobile phone to the web, so you can hear from callers worldwide while keeping your number private. You need to sign up for a free Jaxtr account.

To call your friends with Jaxtr, you click on their Jaxtr link using a PC and enter your phone number. Jaxtr connects the call by dialling their number and calling you back on the number you entered. If they do not have an account, you can invite them to sign up.

Calling Jaxtr numbers is free from any long distance or international toll charges if Jaxtr supports local numbers in your area - currently it has numbers in the major metropolitan areas of 51 countries (including Pakistan). Each account comes with unlimited voice and text messages, and the service allows you to forward up to 100 minutes of incoming calls to your phone a month, depending on your country and the kind of phone.

GRANDCENTRAL
Although its application is not limited to mobile phones, GrandCentral, a start-up recently acquired by Google, is worth taking a look at though the service is currently only available as a beta or trial service by invitation.

GrandCentral lets users consolidate all their phone numbers, including home, office and mobile numbers, into one new number provided by the service. New voicemail messages on any of the old lines are forwarded to your GrandCentral number and kept as audio files and consolidated into a single online mailbox.

SPINVOX
One of the most interesting services is from UK-based SpinVox. Its flagship voice-mail-to-text product, launched in 2005, helped define a new category of messaging, “voice to screen”. At its heart is a patented “voice message conversion system” which underpins the company’s retail, enterprise, service provider and global carrier products. The services include Spin-my-Vmail, which turns voicemail messages into text and delivers them straight to a mobile phone, e-mail inbox, or both. Spin-my-Vmail users receive messages discreetly and within minutes - they just appear on-screen ready to read. The service works on all phones (including Blackberries) and networks - mobile, landline or VoIP.

Other SpinVox services include Spin-my-Blog, Spin-my-Broadcast and Spin-my-Memo (voice memos to e-mail).

GOTVOICE
GotVoice uses an automatic dialling system to log in to each of your voicemail accounts, records them and then e-mails them to you as MP3 files.

The GotVoice Premium service, Dollars 9.95 a month, also enables users to archive voicemails and access them from anywhere using an internet-connected PC or other device logged into your account on the GotVoice web page. For another Dollars 4.95, the GotVoice Compose service enables users to send broadcast messages simultaneously using a mobile phone or PC.

JOTT NETWORKS
Jott claims e-mail and text messages can be created more than three times faster with Jott than thumb-typing the same messages. Early users have reported that Jott’s “human enhanced” transcription service is remarkably accurate, but not word perfect.

Seattle-based Jott Networks takes a similar approach to other services, enabling users to dial a number and dictate messages to oneself, like notes and reminders, or messages that can be broadcast to others. But it goes a step further, transcribing what you say and enabling users to send e-mail and text messages without a keyboard.

Other features include Jott Folders, Reminders and the ability to use it to access blog sites, social networking sites and consumer information services.

PINGER
Pinger lets US mobile phone users send voicemail to a large group of people without calling each recipient. Signing up is easy, and free. New users can add or import phone contacts to the service, so that you simply speak the person’s name to send a Pinger message. This works on any US phone, whether or not it has voice dialling capabilities.

Pinger subscribers can also use its web interface to simplify how they use the mobile. For example, they can scan messages to identify the most important ones. A single click plays the message, and a text box opens so you can take notes.