T-Mobile - Text-To-Speech - Insane!

I recently upgraded my fixed line (BT) package to Together 3 - we make
lots of outgoing calls at all hours - and noticed that the package
includes 200 'free' text messages per month. I decided on Saturday that
I'd update the house phone to something text-enabled, so I wandered
down to Argos, and bought a BT Diverse 6250. I set it up early on
Sunday (the 16-hour first charge slowed me down as usual), and used it
to send a registration text to BT at shortcode 00000, and almost
immediately got a text reply confirming that I had successfully
registered for BT's SMS service.

I tried sending a message to my T-Mobile handset, and that arrived
fine. I then tried replying, and that's when the trouble started.

Instead of me hearing an SMS beep, the house phone started ringing. I
noticed that it was an 0975 number, one of T-Mobile's. I picked up the
call, and there was a disembodied voice reading out the message. I
thought I might have got something wrong, but couldn't get any help
because BT's help lines are closed on a Sunday. So there is at least
one thing that T-Mobile is better at - 7/7 helplines.

I called BT again yesterday, and was assured that everything should
work just like it says on the box. A couple more test text messages
clearly proved that it didn't. I got back to BT, and got switched
through to a tech support 'specialist' ... in India. Two false starts
with silly advice, and on the third call - I got straight through to
the same (only?) specialist every time - I was asked if I was texting
from a T-Mobile phone. My heart sank! I was given a T-Mobile number to
call, and was told that I could select the delivery method there.
Wrong!! It did enable me to set a time band for the delivery SMS
messages to the landline I was calling from, or to block text
altogether, but there was no way I could get it to send text as text
instead of phoning me to read it out.

I tried with messages sent from my wife's phone and my daughter's
phone, Orange and O2 respectively. Both worked like a charm, and
readable texts arrived on the house phone. I'm guessing Voda does the
right thing too.

A couple of calls to T-Mobile elicited the information that they don't
use BT's text-to-speech delivery system, which knows if the target
phone is text-enabled or not and delivers the message as text or a
phone call accordingly. Instead they have their own system, which just
happens to be out-of-step with the rest of the market. They seem to
have no idea that house phones CAN receive textual messages, and insist
on phoning and reading all messages out regardless.

I have tried pointing out that there are a couple of major drawbacks
with their version. First, it's not a lot of use to deaf people! My
wife is hearing impaired, and that was one reason for wanting another
usable channel of contact when I'm away. Second, it's damn-all use for
any language except English. I tried texting myself in French and
Finnish, and the resulting attempts on the part of T-Mobile's robot to
read the messages out to me were spectacularly silly, to say the very
least!!!

Does anyone have any idea of a way of persuading T-Mobile that if the
whole market is doing something one way, and T-Mobile are doing
something quite different, then they just might be getting things a wee
bit wrong!

Bob Jones

--
Robert S. Jones, I.T. Security Consultant | Vox +44 20 7882 5326
Computing Services, Mile End Campus | Fax +44 20 8980 2001
Queen Mary, University of London, U.K. | GSM +44 79 56 383659

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Robert Jones <[email protected]> wrote:
> I have tried pointing out that there are a couple of major drawbacks
> with their version. First, it's not a lot of use to deaf people! My
> wife is hearing impaired, and that was one reason for wanting another
> usable channel of contact when I'm away. Second, it's damn-all use for
> any language except English. I tried texting myself in French and
> Finnish, and the resulting attempts on the part of T-Mobile's robot to
> read the messages out to me were spectacularly silly, to say the very
> least!!!
>
> Does anyone have any idea of a way of persuading T-Mobile that if the
> whole market is doing something one way, and T-Mobile are doing
> something quite different, then they just might be getting things a wee
> bit wrong!

The deaf thing is a good point, perhaps this could be considered
"disability discrimination" and possibly illegal. Not sure how you could
enforce anything though apart from maybe a letter to head office.

Bob,

I did notice on the BT website there's an advert for the Tom Baker Celebrity
voice;

http://www.btcelebrityvoice.com/

There is a specific disclaimer at the bottom of the page marked * that
specifically says there's a problem with T-Mobile phones.

I know it's not any help, just to let you know.

Cheers,

David