Some VoIP Customers Now Have Access to Automatic In-Call Translation

Telinta is a cloud-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) switching and billing provider, and offers a hosted softswitch platform that allows its customers to become their own VoIP providers. Thanks to a collaboration between Telinta and Lexifone, these smaller VoIP providers can offer a new tool to their business and enterprise customers of all sizes. Now, making international calls to customers will be much easier thanks to Lexifone's automatic in-call translation services.

VoIP offers an alternative to landline phone systems by routing calls through the Internet in a digital format that is far more efficient than traditional analog signals. Thus, calls made through VoIP come in with a higher audio quality while the customer pays a bill roughly half the cost of a landline system.

Typically, VoIP services also include several premium features, and Telinta-based providers can now offer translation services as part of their packages. By using speech recognition software to analyze what is said on both sides of the phone conversation, the software waits until there is a pause in communication to begin announcing a translated version of the speech.

The translation service is a unique feature that other companies can't offer, and according to Lexifone CEO Steve Dubnik, “Lexifone is the world's first provider of robotic in-call translation services...Our voice-to-voice interpretation technology provides rapid automated translation enabling end users to transact business or just share ideas across multiple languages.”

Ideally, this will give business VoIP providers a distinct edge over their competitors. The development also puts another nail in the coffin of traditional landline telephony, since international calls are much cheaper when made over the Internet, with little to no long-distance calling fee. Calls sent through the Internet use far fewer resources than transferring through an undersea phone cable, and having added translation services makes traditional phone calls an antiquated tool for International communication.