MetroPCS offers voicemail to text service

MetroPCS Communications Inc. is offering its subscribers voicemail to text messaging alerts for $3 per month. The flat-rate carrier said it is the first national U.S. carrier to offer the automated service, powered by Yap.
“Customers are keenly interested in the latest wireless innovation combined with the greatest value,” said Roger D. Linquist, president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of MetroPCS. “Automated conversion of voice mails to text is the biggest innovation to voice mail in decades. By converting messages to text and sending along as email or SMS, MetroPCS voice mail becomes a convenient real-time communication tool akin to instant messaging and email itself.”
Smaller wireless carriers often deploy extra features like voicemail to text services as a way to differentiate themselves from their larger competitors. MetroPCS and Leap Wireless International Inc. are seeing increased interest in the prepaid market from their larger rivals.
“We’ve truly reached a tipping point where the accuracy of fully automated voice mail-to-text solutions rival and in some cases exceed that of human transcribed offerings,” said Igor Jablokov, chief executive officer at Yap. “We worked very closely with the MetroPCS team to deploy a service that makes their subscribers’ mobile experience more compelling. Voice mail transcriptions can be read, replied, forwarded, stored and searched, just like e-mail.” Subscribers also can choose to keep the voicemail as a voice file.