New ASP Offering Allows ISPs to Offer Voicemail

eVoice's voice-ASP division reaches out to ISPs with a service that will allow subscribers to receive all voice messages on a single software platform. The product also allows ISPs to bypass local phone companies.

by Wayne Kawamoto
[December 19, 2000]

eVoice announced the availability of its eVoice Premium service. According to the company, its services allow ISPs, wireline and wireless carriers, and voice portals to bundle voicemail with traditional telecommunications services to help reduce customer churn, differentiate their services, and increase revenue. Also, eVoice's model should allow carriers to add à-la-carte voicemail services without spending significant amounts of money on hardware, personnel, or provisioning.

Here is a sample screen shot:

Some of the features of the eVoice system include:

• All-Access Message Consolidation that lets users consolidate voicemail messages from multiple phones, such as multiple home lines and wireless phones, into a single mailbox. This should eliminate the need to check multiple voicemail boxes daily.
• Notification of messages on pagers and cellular phones, and via e-mail.
• The ability to create personalized greetings.
• The ability to define the number of rings before eVoice answers.
• Message storage that can receive and store up to 50 messages for an unlimited amount of time.

According to eVoice, the benefits of its system to ISPs include:

• An opportunity to provide customers with a complete telephony solution.
• An additional revenue stream for ISPs.
• Enables wireless providers to combine a user's land-line voicemail with wireless voicemail which can dramatically increase Minutes of Use (MoU), differentiate their service, reduce churn, and provide opportunities for upselling.
• Lets ISPs and portals bypass the local phone companies and enable their users to manage inbound phone calls while staying connected on their dialup line.

"Long-distance and wireless carriers need quick integration of superior features to become and remain competitive," said Mark Winther, group vice president, worldwide telecommunications, International Data Corporation. "By allowing this integration through the Voice-ASP model and offering unique features such as multiple phones in one voicemail box, eVoice is giving these carriers the ammunition to compete for customers with incumbent local exchange carriers, without the massive expenditures in hardware and personnel associated with building a proprietary system."

"eVoice enhanced messaging capabilities allow ISPs to bypass the local telephone companies enabling their users to manage inbound phone calls while staying connected on their dialup line," said Lee Priest, vice president of Telecom services at eVoice. "Adding voicemail to the ISP bundle will increase site stickiness and dramatically reduce churn."

Pricing and availability
The service is available now. Pricing depends on the features subscribed to.

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