Mobivox enables real savings on wireless long distance charges

Imagine being able to call your client in Rio de Janeiro, partner in San Francisco and supplier in Montreal, from your mobile phone in Toronto, at the same time, without any long distance charges. Sound too good to be true? Not if you're a Mobivox client.The Montreal start-up launched their low cost VoIP service last May, and while President and CEO Stephane Marceau, couldn't provide usage numbers, he says they've been happily "surprised by the use." Mobivox claims that mere hours after launch, its service was being used in 23 countries. It has since been expanded to 29 nations including: France, Hong Kong, the UK, US and Canada.The service, which provides users with a local access number and employs speech recognition technology, can be used on both mobile and land phones. After dialing the local access number, users are greeted by VoxGirl - the voice of their speech recognition technology and to which they say the name of their desired contact and are connected in seconds, with their mobile or landline phone number appearing on the recipient's call display.Long-distance calls to Mobivox and Skype users are not billed, but users have to pay applicable carriers airtime charges. Other long distance calls are billed as low as 1.9 cents per minute, as a result of negotiated wholesale rates with international carriers."The problem we saw was with international calls. Rates are just ridiculous," Marceau, a former VP with Bell Mobility, tells Report on Wireless. "Most people avoid making international calls from their mobile devices and we wanted to make it cheaper or free."While the low costs are appealing, Marceau thinks some of the greatest benefits are the service's reliability - uptime has been close to 100% since launch - ease of use and universality. "One of the biggest virtues of Mobivox is that we work regardless of which carrier you're with, regardless of which handset you use. We don't ask you to download software either," he says. Users register online at http://www.mobivox.com/ and create a free account. Long distance charges are pre-paid and Marceau says most people purchase $5 to 10 credits at a time. Although many small businesses have signed on to Mobivox, they continue to target and attract greater numbers of residential consumers. "The sweet spot, as I would describe it, ex-patriots and immigrants. We're working on versions of our software in different languages. Right now VoxGirl only speaks English."Voice recognition above the restA high-powered but small vocabulary platform, VoxGirl can talk circles around many other speech recognition platforms used in customer care, according to the company. VoxGirl, who is summoned each time a user calls a local access number or presses the star key during a call, compares utterances against a user's contact list or common feature terms, such as "transfer call."The idea behind VoxGirl was to create a more user-friendly experience. "Phone numbers don't make sense," Marceau told a small audience at July's 2007 Wireless and Mobile Expo and Conference/ RFID Forum in Toronto. "I shouldn't have to remember a string of numbers. I should just be able to say "Call John Smith" and be connected." Mobivox enables users to place conference calls with up to ten people. Users can also seamlessly transfer calls from mobile to land devices and vice-versa. The conferencing service is currently free, but Marceau says this and other services may be offered at a small charge in the future. For now, the company's revenue stems from discounted long distance charges.Frequent travelers, however, beware. Incoming calls outside your local area are still subject to carriers' roaming fees. It's a reversal of traditional communication norms; with Mobivox it's cheaper to make, rather than take, a call.

Mobivox enables real savings on wireless long distance charges

News | 09/10/2007 11:00 am EDT

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