Vodafone has announced the launch of its Voice SMS service in 16 circles with Kirusa. What's interesting from a marketing point of view, is that Airtel has been promoting its Voice SMS service, powered by Bubble Motion for a few weeks now, and Vodafone will be able to take advantage of that buzz now. What we're not sure of, is whether Vodafone is deploying the Voice SMS service in one shot, or like Airtel, has been deploying the service circle by circle. Airtel first began deploying Bubble Talk in 2006, in Goa and Maharashtra. Both companies have priced the service at Rs. 0.75 per minute, and it is available to both Prepaid and Postpaid subscribers. Details of how Vodafones service works: -- Does not require any special handsets, or handset settings -- Vodafone subscribers have to dial* and the mobile number of the person for sending the message. -- If the recipient is a Vodafone subscriber, he will receive a text SMS notification and can dial *0* to hear the Voice SMS. -- Old Voice SMS can be retrieved by dialing *1*. -- Users can replying, forwarding, saving or deleting the Voice SMS messages. -- Subscribers not on the Vodafone network will get a text SMS notification with an embedded DirectListen number An issue for Airtel: Twice in the last 30 minutes, I've been unable to send a voice SMS since "All lines are currently busy". Looks like they don't have enough capacity for the service. Some thoughts on Voice SMS…
