Glo enhances Voice SMS

Second National Operator (SNO) Globacom, has announced the enhancement of its Voice Short Messaging Service (Voice-SMS) with additional five new features.

A press statement from the operator made available to ITRealms Online enumerated the latest features to include “Save, Replay, Forward, Group Messaging and Reply.”

Globacom’s Head of Value Added Services (VAS), Mr. Samson Isa, while confirming this, said a user could now save a Voice-SMS on his phone, replay it any time he chooses and also forward it to his friends and relations, stressing that the group messaging feature enables the subscriber to send a voice message to a group of persons.

 According to Isa, complementing these are the skipping and validity features added to the service recently.

He explained that skipping enables subscribers to select and listen to any desired mail out of the lot in his mail box, instead of listening to all, one after the other before he gets to listen to the desired mail.

“With the service, the subscriber is able to skip some messages in order to listen to the intended mail,” he declared.

Isa also said that the Validity feature, avail users to save received voice messages for 10 days within which the recipient could still listen to them.

“This gives the subscriber the opportunity to read a message at his own time and at his discretion,” he said.

Recalling that Globacom had in February 2007 pioneered within the Nigerian telecom space the Voice Short Messaging Service, a package which allows subscribers to record and send a voice message to a recipient.

Isa emphasized that the service is a “talk” and “listen” messaging alternative to the regular “type” and “read” service provided by short messaging service (SMS).

“Glo Voice-SMS enables the user to add a personal touch to his message by recording his own voice and sending it to a recipient who in turn is able to listen to the voice of the sender. Thus the new service has the advantage of conveying the sender’s mood, passion and emotion along with the voice message, which the conventional SMS does not do,” he said.

Noting that with the conventional SMS, a subscriber could ‘type’ and ‘send’ his text message which is read at the receiving end, while the Glo Voice SMS allows the user to ‘dial’, ‘talk’ and ‘send’ the recorded voice message which is listened to by the receiver.

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