Send email to regular phone possible?

[silverbytes]

Is it possible to send a written message to a person not using email, just regular phone?

I guess it's possible from the web to cell phone.
But is there any service that "translates" a text message to send it to a common phone?

[coopster]

Lotus Domino used to do this years ago with one of it's services ... I would like to think there is something available yet today. Search for terms like "text to speech" or "text-to-speech". Bell Labs had a TTS system too if I recall correctly.

[silverbytes]

Thank you. My main interest is not about text to speech. In fact some of these makes wav files from text. My interest is about how to send that wav file (or the original text) to a regular phone, to get in touch with people that don't have computers or don't like computers...

I saw something from Verizon (text to landline phone) but you need a cell phone from them and it's only for US and canada (not worldwide)

[piatkow]

Text to voice is possible and I believe BT provides this as an additional service (for a fee).

[silverbytes]

Who's BT?

[jtara]

(BT = British Telecom)

You could do this with voice systhesis software and a modem.

The most practical way, though, would be with a VOIP service. Most have an API, which would allow you to initiate calls from your software, and deliver a message from a digital file that you provide.

Not sure just what your application is, but check the applicable laws in your area. In California, for example, unsolicited machine-initiated calls are illegal, except for non-profits or political campaigns. (The law requires that a human operator verify that the person wants to listen to the message.)

My interest is about how to send that wav file (or the original text)

I'm a bit confused about this statement. Are we talking about phones that have text capability or that do not? Obviously, you cannot send a text file to a phone that doesn't have text capability. I am assuming that you want to deliver to phones using voice, and have the text-to-speech part under control, and just need to know how to deliver the voice message to a phone.

I would imagine there are companies that do this as a service, without requiring that you generate an audio file. I would also imagine that this would be more costly than doing it yourself and using a VOIP service for delivery.

[silverbytes]

Thanks. I'm talking about sending a voice message to a landline phone but starting with a text message.
There is speech to text (text converted to wav) and I was wondering if there is wav to landline services (all together will be better)

[moltar]

All you need is a dial-up modem. You can dial the phone number and just play the wav file you've generated from the text.

I am not saying it's easy, but it's definetely doable.

Edit: look into Asterisk (PBX) [en.wikipedia.org] on how to manipulate modems and voice from a linux box. It also has an API, so you can write your own hooks.

[jtara]

Asterix sounds like the best way to go. Generate a wav file (or mp3, etc.) using text-to-speech software. Then use the Asterix API to deliver the message. Asterix can connect to a phone line, a T-1, most VOIP services, etc. This way, you cna change your delivery method and not have to make a lot of changes to your software. A VOIP service with dial-out capability is probably the most cost-effective of the choices.

Somebody will probably do all this for you, but it's almost certainly going to be cheaper to do it yourself. Do some searchs, I'm sure you will find it. We can't talk about specific service providers here anyway.

[bill]

These are called relay calls. This service is commonly offered to allow deaf, mute, or otherwise telephone challenged people to make calls. What typically happens is that a relay operator will call the person and read the text to them. Various phone companies offer this service.

[jtara]

Relay services probably wouldn't be happy to have some web site sending it text to read to consumers. While the web site might qualified as "telephone challenged", they weren't intended for non-human users!

There have been serious abuses of relay services by scamsters and I am not sure if/how the problem has been solved. As a result, many mailorder stores now refuse credit-card orders received via relay service.