STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Oct. 29, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Communicating with SMS is now even more fun. All telephone users with a regular fixed line can, as of today, receive text messages - SMS - from Vodafone Sweden's mobile customers. Messages are automatically delivered as a voicemail.
Vodafone is the first company in Sweden to offer this slightly different and entertaining communication service. To send an SMS message to the fixed network, customers follow exactly the same procedure as with mobile SMS, except you enter a fixed network number (including area code) instead of a mobile number prior to sending.
When customers receive an SMS via the fixed line, their telephones will ring in the same way as with a regular incoming call. When the customer answers the phone, a computerised voice automatically reads the message and specifies the sender's telephone number.
"This is a service with a difference - a fun way for giving our customers more possibilities for communicating with family and friends. Hearing your messages read to you by a computerised voice is highly entertaining. I can't think of a better way to send congratulatory SMSs, for example, than this. But the service is also beneficial in other respects: it enables the use of SMS by the visually impaired, for example," said Goran Mannerstrale, Commercial Director Consumer at Vodafone Sweden.
This service is also available to Vodafone Sweden's mobile customers when they are abroad*. Mobile users do not have to enter Sweden's prefix when sending an SMS home to the Swedish fixed network, but simply dial the fixed network number in the exactly the same way as they would in Sweden.
If the recipient does not answer or if the line is busy when the SMS is being sent, the system will automatically make eight more attempts to send the message - once an hour. If the recipient still does not answer on any of these nine attempts, the message is automatically deleted without the recipient having heard the message. Messages are recorded onto the customers' telephone answering machines. Senders of SMS automatically receive a receipt when their text message has reached the recipient.
To prevent the service disturbing people at inconvenient times, there is a limit on when SMS can be sent to the fixed network. The fixed-line SMS delivery times are: Monday-Friday between 07.00 - 22.00 and Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays between 09.00-23.00. For fixed-network text messages that are sent outside these hours, deliveries will automatically be resumed when the network is open for SMS deliveries.
Anonymous text messages are not permitted. They will automatically be blocked from delivery.
The price of sending SMS to the fixed network will be exactly the same as SMS to other mobile phones.
For more information, please contact: Johan Holmgren, Director Public Relations, Vodafone Sweden Telephone: +46 708 33 14 00 e-mail: johan.holmgren@vodafone.se Hans-Olof Johansson, PR Manager, Vodafone Sweden Telephone: +46 709 61 47 23 e-mail: hans-olof@vodafone.se
* conditional upon an existing roaming agreement with a provider in the country concerned. Please visit www.vodafone.se for information regarding countries with existing agreements.
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