Alltel Offers Voicemail-To-Text Service For Mobile PhonesAlltel Offers Voicemail-To-Text Service For Mobile Phones

A service that converts voicemail-to-text on cell phones is spreading in North America as Alltel announced Monday that it will provide the SpinVox conversion service for its customers.

The SpinVox service rolled out across Canada last week by Rogers Wireless and Cincinnati Bell began offering the service to its postpaid wireless subscribers earlier this year. Alltel is the first of the Big Five U.S. wireless service providers to offer the service to its subscribers.

Called Voice2TXT, the Alltel service is available on mobile phones with SMS text messaging capability. Incoming voicemails are immediately converted to text messages giving subscribers the option of viewing the messages without listening to the voice messages.

"Our customers will appreciate the fact that they no longer have to wait for the opportune time to listen to a voicemail," said Craig Kirkland, director of messaging and voice services for Alltel, in a statement.

The SpinVox service has been popular in Europe and also in Africa where it was recently introduced by South Africa's Vodacom. Another voicemail-to-text service is offered by Simulscribe, which markets its product directly to individual subscribers.

Alltel is offering different plans for the Voice2TXT. A $4.99 monthly plan includes 20 voicemail conversions with each additional conversion priced at 25 cents; $9.99 a month gets 50 conversions and $19.99 a month gets 100 conversions.