The country’s top mobile operator, which now has 25 million local subscribers, announced the launch of the offering with US-based mobile connectivity expert Roamware as partner.

In a statement issued by Roamware headquarters in San Jose, California, the company said the service will enable OFWs to send low-cost Voice SMS from their mobiles, dramatically cutting the cost of communicating with friends, family, and business colleagues back in the Philippines.

"The successful installation of Roamware’s international Voice SMS with Smart is the first implementation of its kind anywhere in the world. It highlights our commitment to developing and rolling out innovative technology that helps increase average revenue per user (ARPU) for operators and value for consumers," Bobby Srinivasan, Roamware’s chief executive officer.

"Filipino workers in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will now be able to send and exchange voice messages with family back home who are on the Smart network at a fraction of the cost of making a conventional mobile call," the statement added.

Danilo J. Mojica, wireless consumer division head at Smart, said the ability to send and receive Voice SMS across international destinations will be of "huge interest to mobile subscribers who are on holiday or living and working abroad as it represents the cheapest way to make voice communications on a mobile."

"Until recently, our mobile users used SMS as the primary means of communication over the network because it is cheaper than voice or Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS)."

Smart subscribers will be able to send a Voice SMS by calling a short code and leaving a Voice message and the recipient’s international number. An SMS notification is then sent to the recipient containing a number which the recipient calls to listen to the message.

The service is initially available to all Smart subscribers based in the Philippines with relatives, family, and friends in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the statement said.

According to Roamware, international Voice SMS gives operators like Smart with a way to increase use of voice and SMS products at a time when SMS price erosion is running at over 20 percent a year, with MMS prices also being cut by 10 percent a year.

Unlike MMS, Voice SMS works across all handsets and provides operators with a value-added service which is as non-intrusive as SMS, easy to use, and appeals to the mass market.

Voice SMS also enables mobile users to verbalize emotions and expressions not possible in standard SMS and provides a low-cost way to communicate without having to engage in a full conversation, it added.

Voice SMS, it explained, is not limited by device language capability and transcends any literacy barrier by allowing people who cannot read or write to send and receive verbal messages using their mobiles.

Roamware’s Interconnect network, it said, enables routing and delivery of Voice SMS to international destinations and allows operators to launch services instantly without having to negotiate arrangements with foreign operators or invest in termination infrastructure in participating countries. (Melvin G. Calimag)