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
1. Cross Operator Service: What’s key about the Voice SMS service is that it is available across a few mobile operators (Idea Cellular, Airtel, BPL, MTNL and Vodafone) and service providers (Bubble Motion and Kirusa).
2. Inter-operability – one of the issues with MMS was the lack of interoperability. Because Voice SMS is a hosted service and not handset dependent, it doesn’t have such issues. Also, by integrating with SMS and a voice portal (example: Kirusa’s DirectListen), users can still send messages to those who are not on their network.
3. Ease of usage - Both Airtel and Vodafone have made it incredibly simple to send a voice message – by just adding a * before sending a message. It actually requires less thumbing of the keypad than sending an SMS
4. VoiceMail? Answering machies and voice mail never really took off in India, and with the massive marketing push behind Voice SMS from the operators, this just might be the voice mail for this market.
5. The pricing: is quite low at Rs. 0.75 per minute. I pay more for sending an SMS.
Just a thought: It’s interesting that Bubble Motion is deployed with Vodafone in Egypt. I wonder if, as a consequence of deployment with Vodafone India, Egypt will also go the Kirusa way.
Funding status:
Bubble Motion raised $14 million in a second round of funding in March 2008, from Sequoia Capital, Comcast Interactive Capital and NCD Investors.
Kirusa raised $13.3 million from Qualcomm, Accel India (Erasmic), Eastven Partners, Helion Ventures and Nexus India Capital.
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9 Comments until now.
Inbox just got paid!!
Voice SMS is not operator agnostic at this moment..airtel user can send it to airtel users only
For first time user can listen to it free there on to retrieve it user pays 75 Paisa….
but then even your sub 2000 rs can read out ur messages loud while ur driving…
Inbox just got paid?
About the service being operator agnostic – it is. I’m an Airtel subscriber, and I sent the message to a Vodafone subscriber, who retrieved it.
I also just received a Voice SMS from a Vodafone user – I had to dial +919711698800 to retrieve it.
I never could understand what is difference in voice SMS and a voice call.
Unlike SMS there is nothing offline / no-immediate-intrusion about it.
It could be a fad service which should work when promoted and post promotion what will happen, can’t say much.
Is it 75p for sending and another 75p for retrieving? That makes it Rs 1.50 for one message – more expensive than a text sms.
Are there any STD/ISD ramifications as well – i.e. what if I send a message to a sub outside the circle/country? Is the duration also capped?
“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.”
Could also be that the service got clogged because Airtel was offering some (or all) of its subscribers a free try out of the service yesterday. The Saif-Kareena ad notwithstanding, I can’t quite figure out the utility of this service though, once the novelty factor fades.
Service on vodaphone has been great – have been able to send to other providers like airtel, idea, bpl and it works fine. Incidentally, this service seems to also be available on Idea and BPL. I don’t think it is a fad it is more convenient non-intrusive way of sending a message and it takes way the hassle of typing a message … this is here to stay!
Have had a pretty good experience so far – seems to operate across all networks. I have an Idea service and I was able to send to Vodaphone, Airtel, BPL and was able to get replies as well. The charge is 75P for a compose and no charge for the first time retrieve of a message – so it is only 75P per message. Apparently they have the capability to send to providers abroad as well – I am yet to figure out how.
get with the times! my friends use VSMS all the time.
airtel promo yday and circuits jammd up. its 75p to send and pickup is free- so ‘Me’ doesnt get it.
Still seems like a fad to me — whats the advantage over voice mail ? Paying to listen to old messages also, you don’t do that with voice mail.
Airtel has had service since 2006 or so, why push it now ? Are they just trying hard to find new services and new methods to increase ARPU ?