BPL Launches miHearmail Service

Our Bureau, Mumbai, Sep. 17: BPL Mobile on Monday announced the launch of miHearmail, a service that allows subscribers to receive their e-mail in voice format.

miHearmail is essentially a marriage between e-mail and voice. For BPL, it is a key step towards the unifying messaging service (UMS) platform which allows subscribers to communicate across standards and technology through a uniform platform,'' Mr Girish Rangan, Executive Director & CEO, BPL Mobile Communications Ltd, told newspersons.

BPL is partnering with Speech and Software Technologies (I) Pvt. Ltd., a Tata venture, for the speech recognition technologies that convert text messages to voice interface.

Based on the interactive voice response (IVR) system, miHearmail converts text messages of any size sent to a cellular phone, either from a cellular phone or a computer, into voice messages and plays them over the user's phone. Long messages with text and HTML attachments can also be sent over miHearmail.

miHearmail is available for both post-paid and pre-paid services of BPL Mobile at a charge of Rs 2 per minute and Rs 2.25 per minute, respectively.

In the future, it will be possible for BPL to extend the miHearmail service, which recognises only the Indian English accent, to multi-lingual voice recognition, i.e., Gujarati, Marathi and Tamil,'' Mr Rangan said.

Other features we could introduce include the option of having your e-mail faxed anywhere, attachments to be read out or faxed anywhere, and linking your voice mail and answering machine. We would also work on providing access to miHearmail across India at a local call cost,'' he added.

Speaking about BPL's recent merger with the Tata, Birla and AT&T combine, Batata, Mr Rangan said, ``We will use this alliance to create domain excellence in telecom pooling our IT resources and R&D talent to offer cutting edge technologies to customers.''

Picture: Mr Prakash Shukla, President, Speech and Software Technologies, and Mr Girish Rangan, Executive Director and CEO, BPL Mobile, at the launch of miHearmail in Mumbai on Monday.


Source: THE HINDU Group of Publications, September, 18, 2001