News 2001
Virgin Mobile launches voice-activated audio-on-demand services
28/11/2001
Dial 4321, and just say the word
Virgin Mobile, the UK's fifth network, today becomes the first British operator to launch a voice portal. The service, simply controlled by speech commands, gives all Virgin Mobile customers access to a menu of audio-on-demand content, including on-the-hour news bulletins, sport and celebrity interviews, as well as TV soap updates, and much more.
The content-rich service is accessed by dialling 4321 from any Virgin Mobile phone - giving the company first-mover advantage in a market forecast to be worth $41 billion by 2005*.
Making the most of state-of-the-art speech recognition technology, the voice portal is currently available to all of Virgin Mobile's 1.25 million customers, irrespective of the type of phone they own. The service does not rely on WAP, and allows information and entertainment to be delivered immediately, in a natural medium, wherever and whenever a customer wants it.
The 4321 service allows customers access to the company's VirginXtras range of content, and the speech-recognition facility lets people 'skip' to the area they are most interested in - with no need to wait for any 'download'. What customers say goes: all they need to do to 'barge' to their preferred choice is say a keyword, or simply the name of the subject category they desire. So, for example, if a customer wants news, they say 'news'; or for sport they say 'sport' - it really is that easy.
Dial 4321 and say the word
The broad range of audio-on-demand services include:
Sport - all the latest sports news including results as they happen, top sporting stories, team news and top star interviews. Sport channels cover: football, cricket, rugby, horseracing, F1, golf, tennis, boxing and snooker.
Entertainment - the entertainment zone gives you the low-down on all that's happening in music, TV & film, including:
- Music charts, news, reviews & interviews with pop, film and TV stars.
- TV soap updates as soon as the soap is finished.
- Film reviews & Interviews.
- Buy concert tickets from Way Ahead Ticketline.
- Buy music, DVDs, videos and games from Virgin Megastores with 15% discount.
Fun
- Lottery results updated straight after the draw
- Horoscopes updated every day - find out what's in-store for you
- Trivia - put your mind to it and win some cash every week
- Competitions - weekly competitions with some great prizes.
News - All the news, as it happens. All UK, Sport, Entertainment & Business news updated on the hour, every hour.
- News and Weather is supplied by PA News
- Sports news is supplied by Sportsmedia
- Traffic updates are supplied by TravelNews.
Shopping - Enjoy all the highs of the high street without any of the headaches.
- Get 15% discount off all CDs DVDs & Videos and console games
- Range of electrical goods at discounted prices
- Wines and gifts - also at discounts
- Tickets for Sporting & Music events.
Favourites - You can put all your favourite services right in one place so whenever you call up you can get your favourite information straight away. Set your own voice character to take you around 4321 - choose between the delectable Chantelle, a sexy French maid, or Ronald the geezer gangster.
What's New - updates from Virgin Mobile on additions to the VirginXtras 4321 services.
In early 2002, the voice portal will be expanded to include a personal organiser. This will let customers have their emails 'read' to them - using revolutionary text-to-speech technology. They will also be able to reply by speaking their email in response, which gets sent back as a WAV file. Conference calls, diary appointments, and voice-activated dialling for all numbers in a customer's address book are also due to be added to the service.
Tom Alexander, managing director of Virgin Mobile, said: "Virgin Mobile has always been 100% focused on making a mobile more than a phone, and the launch of our voice portal service does exactly that. Customers just say the word and their mobile becomes a newscaster, a sports commentator and even a TV soap guru. The introduction of this cutting-edge technology clearly establishes us as mobile industry leaders, not only in what we can now offer Virgin Mobile customers, but also in the future as we continue to expand and develop our service."
Consumer demand for voice activated portal services is high. Recent research** showed that across Europe, 64% of people were willing to pay a monthly fee for these type of services, 32% said they would churn between operators for them, 52% said they would want it in the next six months if it was there and 82% of people said they found voice services appealing.
Behind the scenes
Virgin Mobile has partnered with Eckohtec, 365Corp plc's voice services division, to bring this voice portal service to its customers. Content providers include PA, Sportsmedia, TravelNews and Unique Broadcasting. Virgin Mobile aims to expand content on an ongoing basis with other media and retailing partners.
Virgin Mobile's new voice portal service costs 20p a minute and it offers another access point to VirginXtras, which to date have been obtained by web, text and WAP.
Virgin Mobile customers can log on to www.virgin.com/mobile to see a demonstration of the service and all the VirginXtras content, including games such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire, picture messaging, celebrity voicemail and ringtone downloads.
* The Kelsey Group Voice Ecosystem White Paper, March 2001
** Revolution, April 18 2001
Virgin Mobile
Press office on 0845 600 6272 or pressoffice@virginmobile.com
Steven Day, Virgin Mobile, 07931 777777
Joanne Baker - 07941 233300
Consolidated Communications
Joanna Cotton - 07941 696303
Julia Clark - 07941 230500
Action for Blind
James Lawrence - 020 7635 4898
Notes to the editor
VirginXtras call charges:
- Calls to Virgin Mobile's voice portal service cost 20p a minute
- Personalised SMS news alerts from VirginXtras are free
- To browse VirginXtras service using a WAP handset costs the same price as making a voice call - 15p a minute for the first five minutes of use each day and 5p a minute after that
- Customers pay 20p per SMS to play Virgin Mobile's interactive games, such as Who wants to be a Millionaire, on VirginXtras
About Virgin Mobile:
Virgin Mobile is now established as the most successful virtual network operator in the world, and is the UK's fifth network. Since its launch in November 1999 it has attracted over 1.25 million customers, making it one of the fastest growing mobile phone companies in history.
Virgin Mobile is a 50:50 joint venture company between Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Deutsche Telekom's One 2 One, and is the UK's first mobile virtual operator.
It has scored a number of firsts, including being the first operator to scrap peak rate calls, introduce a daily discounting tariff and was the first company in the world to introduce an integrated MP3 mobile phone.
In the UK, Virgin Mobile phones are available direct on 0845 6000 600; on the web at www.virgin.com/mobile or on the High Street at over 5,000 outlets including Virgin Megastore, Our Price, V.SHOP, Sainsbury, Tesco, WH Smith, Co-op, Asda, Somerfield, John Lewis, Littlewoods, Morrisons, The Link, Phone People and Carphone Warehouse.
