Airtel introduces voice SMS over fixed lines

New Delhi, 31st July 2007: 'Voice SMS' pioneer, Bubble Motion has been selected by India's Number One Service Provider, Airtel, to deploy 'Voice SMS' over fixed line. This deployment means that Airtel customers will be able to send Voice SMS messages to any mobile - and soon they will also be able to send messages to other Airtel Fixed Line customers.

To use the service, the customer dials * followed by the mobile number of the customer they wish to send the Voice SMS to. The recipient then receives an SMS alert on his mobile phone, notifying them that they have a new Bubble message. The recipient then retrieves the Voice SMS by dialing *0* from their mobile.

Voice SMS is a phenomenon which has gained a great deal of traction in recent months as more and more service providers deploy BubbleTALK services. The ability to include more emotional content in a short message than other messaging services such as IM, SMS and email, has made Voice SMS messaging a popular channel amongst the youth market. Voice SMS has also proven very popular with many groups who find SMS inconvenient, as well as those whose first language is not supported by text entry on a phone keypad.

Sunil Coushik, President and Co-Founder of Bubble Motion said: "Airtel has become the number one service provider in India on the back of service innovations, which have successfully captured the imagination of India's wired and wireless customers. By deploying the best Voice SMS solution on the market, Airtel is staying one step ahead of its competition."

Bubble Motion, a Sequoia Capital India investee, has been winning plaudits recently for its Voice SMS services. BubbleTALK was recently honored as being the Best Consumer Application Award at the Mobile Messaging Awards. The BubbleTALK implementation at Vodafone Egypt was also recently named as being one of the top ten non-voice revenue-generators by telecoms analyst group Analysys.

About Bubble Motion

Bubble Motion is the award-winning pioneer of 'Voice SMS' services for mobile operators. The company allows operators to create a new revenue stream within 3 weeks, using their existing infrastructure with no cannibalization of existing services. This allows operators to create a new core service.

BubbleTALK, the carrier grade intentional voice messaging service provided by Bubble Motion is the worldwide standard for intentional voice messaging or 'voice SMS'. With 8 mobile operator partners, in 6 countries, and local points-of-presence in an additional 31 countries, BubbleTALK is available to over 1 billion people with local-dial access.