LATAM Telecom

We have discussed previously (see here and here ) the huge potential and appeal Voice to Text has and the fast penetration it has seen worldwide, including the recent launch in Latin America by Movistar Chile (see Spinvox press release here ). Ther key element that seems to be missing, however, is the lack of enthusiasm Voice Mail vendors have shown for this service. Voice to text delivers voice mail messages via SMS in text format, so integration to the Voice Mail platform is a key component. We have seen strong marketing efforts by Spinvox and Nuance, and operators worldwide are responding. Voice mail vendors, on the other hand, seem to be in a responsive mode, collaborating with integration efforts but not really pushing the service. Perhaps the single notable exception to this might be the agreement Nuance signed with Comverse, who is the leading Voice Mail vendor wolrdwide with >50% market share, but even that was an initiative led by Nuance, not Comverse. Given the fact that v...

Several operators in the Americas region are launching voice to text services. We have heard from Movistar Chile (see press release here ) as well as other operators both in Latin America and North America who are getting ready to launch. Visual voice mail (as commented here before) has gained a lot of traction with the launch of Apple's iPhone, however, I believe that voice to text has the potential to challenge VVM and become a key application in what is now known as Next Generation Voice Mail. The main vendors for this service are rushing to claim territory, 2007 and 2008 seem to be the big year for companies like Nuance and Spinvox launching the service with major operators A year or so ago when I looked at this service for the first time, I found skepticisim with analysts and industry leaders regarding whether this service had the potential to make a significant impact with operators as it was thought to be too expensive and the target market too small. After listening to oper...

Not sure what to think of the headline in the Newspaper CLARIN highlighting the success of Instant Messaging in Argentina: "One hundred thousand already chatting in their mobile phone: IM has been in service for more than a year" (loosely translated for my readers that do not read Spanish, link here for those that do). I understand the point they are trying to make but somehow, if the news is that the service has been there for ONE YEAR .... so do people in Argentina actually know about the service ... after one year? Anyway, other than the weird headline (blame the editors!), the article is well written and informative, and covers the efforts by both Movistar Argentina and Telecom Personal. However .... we will discuss their statistics later, it is an interesting topic. As we mentioned here before, Movistar Chile and Argentina were the first to sign an agreement with MSN, leading the region with these services. Movistar, however, launched a WAP version of the service using M...

Brough's COMMUNICATIONS Blog from 12/08/2007 talks about Ringback Tones Adoption Rates , a service that has been very successful in Asia as a money maker and music distribution channel: Nearly 55% of Korean subscribers have ringback tone service; China Mobile has close to 50% adoption. In contrast, adoption rates in Europe were below 10%; the US has ~12M subscribers or 5%. What about Latin America? Based on our experience with operators in the region, the best cases have about 2% service penetration. Brough pays special attention to the fact that operators in Korea and China have more than 20 content providers just for this service. In contrast, the typical operator in the US or EU is usually the only source of information or content. In Latin America, with the exception of some early adopters like Movistar Chile , most operators launched the service during 2006. For the most part, penetration has been low and the uptake slow, even the most successful cases like Millicom Colombia ...