EarthLink Adds Telephonic E-Mail

EarthLink, the nation's number three ISP, continued its rollout of value-added services by introducing telephone access to e-mail. The ISP will use a speech application developed by Audiopoint.

by Roy Mark of internetnews.com [July 10, 2002]

Audiopoint, a speech applications company developing products for businesses that reach consumer markets, uses an online interface to allow users to create a personal contact manager and establish service preferences and filtering rules to help eliminate spam and junk mail. Once registered, users can retrieve previously unread e-mail and listen to their messages through text-to-speech technology. Users may then respond to messages by sending a personally recorded .WAV file attachment.

Using an online enrollment form, EarthLink is charging $4.95 a month for the service. Erogo, Inc., will process the registrations on behalf of EarthLink, providing subscribers with immediate pass code protected access to their e-mail account via telephone. Audiopoint plans to offer additional service features including security via voice authentication later in the year.

"With Audiopoint's technology and network, EarthLink is able to deliver a truly distinctive service to its customers by offering them the ability to experience a technologically advanced communications medium," said Brian L. Lichorowic, CEO and president of Audiopoint.

The privately-held Audiopoint has been developing and hosting large-scale commercial voice applications since 1999. Products by Audiopoint include the Voice Terminal contact management suite which features e-mail-by-phone, voice print security and VAD. Using Audiopoint's 4.0 platform release to provide new strategic technology, voice applications by Audiopoint can be deployed as either on premise or hosted solutions.

"Audiopoint's creation of E-mail-by-Phone is an evolutionary occurrence that represents the next wave of advanced communications technology for end users. It's functional, stable and offers a full scope of features to provide a truly superior experience," said Lichorowic.

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