GoogleVoice: Singlehandedly Overcoming AT&T Voicemail Shortcomings?

The iPhone really keeps AT&T in the game.  And maybe Google does too.

In my many years of using AT&T, the signal/connection quality and voice mail quality have been frustrating at best.  I’ve had dozens of dropped calls, and periodic complaints about voice mail not answering calls.  But just as I consider switching – I consider getting rid of the iPhone.  From Windows smartphones, Sony Ericsson smartphones, to Palm smart phones, no smartphone has matched the iPhone.  And of course, I’m not alone.

But I recently found that GoogleVoice is another great way to patch up the service problems from AT&T, specifically in the area of voicemail.  When you sign up for GoogleVoice account, you are able to reroute your voicemail to GV’s service, circumventing error-prone AT&T voicemail.

GoogleVoice inbox

What is even better about making this switch is that Google uses ASR to convert incoming voice mail to text, and sends it to your email (and stores it visually in your GoogleVoice account).  In addition to making it possible to store and archive voicemails much more easily and flexibly, you can actually see what message was left without calling your voice mail.  In contrast to what the iPhone calls “Visual Voicemail” this is *really* visual voice mail.

It’s true that the ASR is not perfect – take a look at the attachment below.  But ASR can be tweaked and improved with data and experience, so expect this to improve. In fact, for those who are so inclined, you can submit your voicemails with poor transcription to Google to help them improve, which is a great feature.

But probably the most exciting part of GoogleVoice, in our opinion, is the fact that it points towards greater unification in messaging, turning multiple possible channels into a single message queue for users, which has been a grail of the industry for quite a while.

Finally, to give AT&T credit, it does appear that their network is improving based on recent experience.