BY RICH TEHRANI
President and Group Publisher

Streaming Voice Mail: Service Provider Goldmine

There's something I really need from my phone company, and the first service provider that gives it to me will have me as a loyal residential customer: I need streaming voice mail over the Net. Most of my telecom expenses are not from my home use, but I do drop more than $100 in an average month just on my home-based service. Considering that my hectic travel schedule prohibits me from being home all that often, the phone company does pretty well with my business.

What got me thinking about having this voice mail feature tied into my home phone is the fact that other service providers already offer Web-based unified messaging with streaming audio. There's usually a computer stuffed with DSP resource boards from any number of manufacturers (Dialogic, Natural MicroSystems, Brooktrout, Odin TeleSystems, Aculab or others) located in a service provider's office. Users are assigned an account and pay a minimal monthly fee to access Web-based e-mail, fax, and voice mail. Telinet is one company that supplies such a service; its MediaMail product is a Web-based unified messaging service. I have been using this service for nearly two years now, and while the technology is not new, the audio streaming capabilities are perfect for someone who travels a great deal such as myself.

When a caller leaves a voice mail message, you can access that message through the Web using RealPlayer, which seems to be the predominant standard for playing streaming media on the Web. But to be honest, I don’t use this mailbox as often as I could --  I have so many voice mail boxes already that it is not always convenient to use yet another account. There's voice mail at work, at home, and on my cell phone -- I'm getting to the point where I probably couldn't remember another password if I had to. Aside from the password issue, it is challenging to manage all these diverse accounts already.

So what if SNET, my local phone company, was to provide me with streaming voice mail via the Web? I could eliminate one of my voice mail boxes that way, at least. Although it is usually inexpensive to use my cell phone to access my messages at home, reception is often poor inside hotels, and  I would prefer to see the caller ID information of the party before listening to the message. That is where SNET and other service providers could implement streaming audio as part of their voice mail offerings to make me (and many other customers like me) very happy.

The unified messaging category is getting more exciting by the day and the Web-based service provider market seems to be the best part of the market from a growth standpoint. Even the famous headset manufacturer and catalogue reseller Hello Direct has begun to offer a unified messaging service. But Hello Direct is not alone. TMC's recent CTI magazine 1999/2000 Buyer's Guide is a great place to look for a wealth of unified messaging hardware and service provider offerings. Just select "Web-Based Unified Messaging" in the Products/Services drop-down menu and click "Advanced Search" for a listing of many companies in the field. For additional listings, try selecting "Integrated/Unified Messaging" or "Voice/Fax/Unified Msg" for your search terms.

If you are an ILEC, it should be apparent that offering Web-based voice mail access is a great opportunity to lock in your customers. And in the ultra-competitive field of telecom services, it makes sense to build that loyalty before you lose customers to a service provider offering lower-cost calling.

There are certainly work-around solutions I could cobble together to retain the functionality of my MediaMail account, while reducing the number of voice mail boxes I need to check. In theory, I could use a "No answer, call forward" option on my home phone line to forward calls to my MediaMail account. I guess that gives me a homework assignment for this weekend since SNET's Web site doesn't seem to list this feature as an option for residential customers. Still, a straightforward Web interface to my home voice mail would be a much more ideal, and direct, solution.

In the meantime, if you have some experience in this matter, please drop me a line. I certainly don't mind accepting outside help on my homework assignment.

Rich Tehrani welcomes comments at rtehrani@tmcnet.com.