Alltel Announces Voice to Text Service

First posted on 12-17-2007

It’s been either voice mail or text – until now.

Alltel Corp. along with SpinVox, a British company, has developed technology that lets wireless phone customers to read their voicemail messages as text messages.

“It’ll appeal to a broad customer base ... people who are in meetings quite regularly and can’t take a phone call - it’s very useful in those settings,” said Wade McGill, Alltel’s senior vice president of product management.

Alltel soft launched the product it calls Voice2TXT last Friday. Prices start at $4.99 monthly for 20 voicemail conversions and top out at $19.99 monthly for 100 conversions. Customers will also be able to listen to their messages the more traditional way.

SpinVox said its Voice Message Conversion System eliminates the need to write down voice message details and it can be translated into English, French, Spanish and German.

Little Rock based Alltel is the first major U.S. wireless carrier to offer this type of service.