Glo Mobile has further made its exciting Voice Short Messaging Service (voice-SMS) more interesting by extending the service to other networks.
With the development, Glo subscribers can now send voice SMS to subscribers of other networks. Before now, the service was available for only Glo-to-Glo messages.
Glo Mobile had in February, 2006, become the first network in Nigeria to launch the service which allows subscribers to record and send a voice message to a recipient.
It is a “talk” and “listen” messaging alternative to the regular “type” and “read” service provided by short messaging service (SMS).
Globacom said the service was extended to other networks in order to give Glo subscribers more opportunity to enjoy its benefits.
Samson Isa, Globacom’s head, Value Added Services, explained that Voice SMS enables the user to add a personal touch to his message by recording his own voice, in his own language and sending it to a recipient who in turn is able to listen to the voice of the sender.
“With the conventional SMS, a subscriber ‘types’ and ‘sends’ 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,” Isa said.
“Glo Voice-SMS is one more demonstration of our commitment to meeting the changing needs of our customers. It adds a fun dimension to short messaging as it 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 added.
He noted that the service is easier to use than SMS as the subscriber can effectively send a message without wasting too much time inputting text. It also offers the user the opportunity of recording his message in any language of his choice.
Glo VoiceSMS service is available to both prepaid and postpaid subscribers on the Glo network and will be quite useful to youths, students, businessmen, companies and people who find the conventional SMS cumbersome as well as people with reading and writing difficulties.
A Glo subscriber who wishes to send voice SMS to another Glo subscriber is required to dial ‘*’, followed by the recipient’s Glo Mobile number, and press call button to record the message. The sender has 45 seconds to record his message and is charged N5 per message on net and N10 for off net messages sent. The recipient of the voice SMS receives a notice and is asked to dial ‘115’ to listen to the message free of cost. However, to listen to stored message, he is required to dial 116 and is charged N3.
For the off net recipient, she/he listens to the VSMS by dialing 08050185000 free. “Subsequent retrieval of old messages will require the subscriber to dial 08050185100 and is charged his network’s regular calling rate for listening to old VSMS,” Isa explained.