Visual mail interface defined

The Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP) has issued its latest recommendation document that defines an open and standardised interface between visual voicemail (VVM) clients and voicemail servers.

By gaining consensus for this key enabler between operators and vendors, market fragmentation can be avoided.

Visual voicemail services are becoming increasingly popular because instead of having to listen to messages, VVM enables the recipient to see, control and manage voicemails from a handset screen and decide whether to reply, delete or even compose a new message via the VVM client.

However, due to current fragmentation issues across differing handsets, the delivery and growth of VVM is hampered and consumers and the industry are missing out.

A key recommendation within the document is for the industry to implement a VVM protocol based on IMAP4 and SMS for natively supported handsets. This will ensure that, whatever the chosen device, the basis procedures will be the same whether retrieving messages, changing passwords or changing languages.

By ensuring that the standard functionalities of VVM servers can be accessed through a range of VVM clients via the defined interface, service development and delivery can be expedited, service offerings enhanced and user experiences improved, all facilitating faster and wider uptake of VVM services.