Visual voicemail

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Visual Voicemail, or Random Access Voicemail, is the process of adding a visual aspect to phone voicemail such as allowing users to view a list of audio voicemail entries or even read transcriptions of voicemail. In the recent months, several companies in the telecommunications space have integrated a visual element into their voicemail services. The most prominent usage of this technology is found in Apple's iPhone, Samsung's Instinct and the Blackberry Storm.

Other phone system vendors are now also offering these features for internal voicemail users. This complements the basic voicemail to e-mail delivery which is becoming ubiquitous in that it allows better management of voicemail messages without clogging up the user's inbox.

In April 2009,OMTP created a Technical Recommendation^[1] for an open and standardised Visual Voice Mail (VVM) interface protocol which VVM clients may use to interact with a voicemail server. The key functions of this interface are the support of Message Retrieval, Message Upload, VVM Management, Greeting Management and Provisioning. The document intention is to ensure that standard functionality of voice mail servers may be accessed through a range of VVM clients via the defined interface. This approach leaves scope for operators/carriers and vendors to differentiate their products.