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Teaming up with Nuance, U.S. Cellular just unveiled a voice-mail-to-text solution that unfortunately is not free.
In the Chicago-based carrier’s defense, the big boys like Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile all charge for the privilege of using their visual voice mail software, typically $2 to $3 a month. U.S. Cellular’s product is right in line with the market, and expects to tack on an extra $2.99 to monthly phone bills if customers subscribe.
Don’t get me wrong, visual voice mail is a technical achievement right up there with sliced bread in terms of convenience. I personally don’t feel, however, that I should have to pay for a carrier-branded service when Google offers its Google Voice application for free. In fact, besides not having to cough up a red cent for it, Google Voice is much more capable. Not only does it list calls in an e-mail-style inbox, it transcribes spoken messages to text–or tries to, at least.
I also appreciate how Google Voice supports multiple phone numbers, essentially unifying everything into one message center. I have noticed that Voice often doesn’t play well with carrier-crafted voice mail systems, which could either be simply because of a technical issue, or something more sinister like active blocking by cell providers. In any case, whether you choose to get modern voice mail from your wireless company, Google, or a third-party software maker, audio-only messaging and their confounding phone trees deserve a quick death.
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