What exactly is Simulscribe?

Simulscribe is a voicemail service with a convenient twist. Replacing the voicemail provided by your carrier, your messages are transcribed using voice transcription software, and forwarded to your choice of email address, and/or sent as a text message. A recording in .wav format is attached to the email with the transcription so that you can listen at your convenience. You may never dial into your voicemail again.

Why, you may now be asking, would I want to see my voicemail rather than dial in and listen? It is normal these days to see people at a conference table in a meeting with their Treos or PDA's out taking notes, or retrieving other material necessary to the meeting. It is still considered rude (at best) to make a phone call during those meetings. Even if you know the caller has information critical to the outcome of the meeting…you don't answer the phone. But now you no longer need to. You allow the caller to leave a voicemail with all the pertinent information, and two minutes later, that message appears on your Treo, perhaps pushed instantly by Chatteremail or by an Exchange server supporting push technology. You read the voicemail without any disturbance, and then announce that information.

The technology supporting Simulscribe is remarkable with about 98% accuracy. I have received voicemail from people with a range of accents: deep south to Boston, English to Israeli. The transcriptions are almost perfect.

The subject line of each voicemail gives you the originating phone number (if available), although with this technology you will never worry about missing the hurried call-back number given by your caller. The only downside here is when your friends call and don't mention who is calling because they're used to you recognizing their voice. If you don't recognize the originating phone number you may have to actually listen to the message before you know who left it.

Setting up Simulscribe is a breeze. Most carriers include a field in the Phone Preferences for the voicemail center, so all you have to do is change this to the number given to you when you sign up for Simulscribe. Those of us on the Sprint network have to call *2 and request Tech Support make the change for us to "no answer call forwarding". Not counting the 3 minutes I was on hold (Customer Service should be bypassed for this request), my voicemail number was forwarded to the correct Simulscribe number in two minutes. Once the number forwarding has been completed, you call your new voicemail number and set up your voicemail box with the outgoing message of your choice just like when you first signed up with your cell service.

Because Simulscribe is a service, a monthly fee is incurred. The basic plan includes 40 messages for $9.95/month. Additional messages are $0.25 each. Simulscribe also offers custom integration for all your voicemail: mobile, home, corporate. If you are a busy professional, this service could be just what you've always wanted.

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