Sabeer Bhatia Launches Mobile Answer Phone Service in Pune 

In a bid to offer value-added services to its customers, BPL Mobile has
launched its Mobile Answer Phone Service (MAPS) for its prepaid subscribers for
the first time in India using the `Telipower’ technology designed by Telivoice,
a company promoted by hotmail co-founder Sabeer Bhatia.  The voicemail
service which begins from midnight of December 23, would enable a BPL mobile
subscriber to get a voice message even when his/her cellular phone is switched
off or out of coverage area, said Vinay Agarwal, Chief Operating Officer (COO)
of BPL for Maharashtra circle, at a press conference in Pune.

Sabeer Bhatia, who was present for the global launch of his Televoice
service, said that the voicemail facility on mobile phones would not only do
away with the trouble of missed calls, but also actually help increase economic
activities. This service would also enable a person from a landline to leave a
voice message to the cellular subscriber. 

Explaining the working of the system, Agarwal said that the voicemail service
offers the natural benefit of listening to voice with all its intonations and
nuances rather than just reading a text message. “A subscriber can retrieve
any of the messages lying in the voicemail box at a cost of Rs 1.50 at any given
time and place,” he said. The facility would be offered free of cost as a
promotional offer till January 1, 2003. Bhatia, on his first visit to the city,
said that his company had decided to work on voice messaging services, as the
percentage of calls lost by a person on the move despite having a mobile was
very high. In India, televoice services are offered by Navinmail Services (
India) Pvt Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Navin Communications Inc., based in
California, he said. Bhatia who is the president and CEO of the company said
that the company would focus on applications related to televoice and telepower.
He said that Navinmail had raised its second round of funding from the US, which
would see it through for the next couple of years.

Asked if Telepower would be marketed in the US, Bhatia replied that these
kind of applications were more relevant to developing countries like India and
China since voicemail has been around in US for a long time and therefore the
focus is on such virgin markets