Has anyone tried SimulScribe - w w w .simulscribe.c o m? I just signed up and I will post back with my experience. It looks like they charge $0.25 for each message. If this is correct it will cut my $400 PhoneWire bill down to $100 or so.

Jon

Jon,

I have been using simulscribe since April 2006 and it's great. Sometimes one word in my voicemail gets transcribed funny by their voice recognition software, but I still know what the message is all about. As far as billing goes, they say that the service is free for the first month, but I don't think they are billing their customers yet. In the 7 months I have been using simulscribe, I have not been charged a cent. My guess is that they are trying to build their user base and grab early adopters like us before they start billing.

Paul

Do you still get a notification on your berry that you have vx mail?

I no longer get voicemail notifications. It was a bit weird for the first day, but I quickly got use to checking my email when I saw missed call notifications. Now I don't even think about it. At the time I called Simulscribe on it and they told me that when the wireless carriers start reselling their service, the voicemail notification will be included with the service.

This solution is great! I had a bit of trouble getting going, I guess sprint is a little fussy about setting vx mail forwarding. But I called the help desk on Sunday and got a prompt call back from Jamie. He got me squared away. No more checking the voice mail, I can simply read it. Great product support and price. I would encourage everyone to try it out.

what is the benefit of using this service?

It is a solution that fowards your rejected or missed cals that instead of going to your vx mail from your carrier it goes to simulscribe where you have a voice mail box, and when a call goes to voice mail it bybasses your carrier and goes to your simulscribe voicemail, where you have your standard outgoing message and they convert it to text and send you an email of the message converted to text so you can read instead of listening. It is a slick service. Very fast.
You program your voice mail number on your berry/phone to your simulscribe number so you can still listen if you'd like.

This service is great. It even attaches a WAV file to the transcribed email with the recording of the voicemail in case you want to hear the message. You can open it up like any normal attachment and listen. I have the Pearl, so it plays WAV files no problem - not sure if other BBs will play the files. Good reason to upgrade to the Pearl!!

The pricing is $9.99 month for 40 messages and >24 cents for each thereafter.

I just completed a behind the scenes, first look tour of the CES technology show and the most exciting company in the BlackBerry space I saw is Simulscribe. I got a first hand demo from Simulscribe's CEO and founder Jamie Siminoff. Aside from the the giant BlackBerry they have on site, here are the features that super charge voicemail on BlackBerrys:

1. Users never have waste time listening to their voicemail on an old school push button and listen interface

2. Users get a transcribed text copy of the message in their BlackBerry inbox within minutes of getting a voicemail.

3. The voicemail box never fills up, users get unlimited voicemail.

4. There is an online interface which lets users read their voicemail over the Internet anywhere in the world.

5. Did I mention you can read your voicemail on your BlackBerry?

According to Siminoff the service is $10/month for 40 voice messages and $0.25 per message thereafter. Totally worth it.

techguru....took your advice and started using service today so far i have to say i am very impressed....easy to setup.... responsive customer support and very cool to receive voicemail as an email...i encourage others to try the 7 day trial....

I tried to set up simulscribe but I was unsucessful. I have a Bell Mobility 8703e and there is no provisional forwarding options; ie "forward when busy" etc. With Bell you either forward to a specific number or you dont forward.

I tried updating the firmware to Alltel's firmware for the 8703e but that didn't seem to make any difference.

I called Simulscribe support and Bell support but had no luck.

I canceled the service and interestingly I have received 2 spam simulscribes - go figure?

If anyone has got it working on Bell or Rogers for that matter - please let me know because I tried to set it up on a Rogers BB and no luck there either!

Speaking specifically to setting up simulscribe with Rogers, I was just informed by one of their blackberry support staff that the ability to alter the conditional call forwarding numbers is restricted if a voicemail package is present on the wireless account. So before I can gain the ability to change the if busy/if unanswered/if unreachable numbers, I will have to remove my voicemail calling feature with rogers.

-Aaron

That's interesting to know. The Rogers 8700r and the Bell 8703e I tried to set up Simulscribe on had a voicemail packages on them. I wonder if I cancel the voicemail, if it will work on either or both?