We’ve covered this issue before, but The Register has spoken with T-Mobile about it today, so we thought we would provide a summary of the recent changes T-Mobile have introduced to voicemail redirection.  Firstly, T-Mobile still charge if you redirect your phone to another number, although they now no longer directly charge you for the call being directed to voicemail.  That’s the change; now the voicemail redirection comes out of your Flext allowance, instead of costing you 12p per minute.  However, as The Register point out, redirecting your number to another UK phone number, for accessing services such as SpinVox, will cost you 17p per minute, and does not come out of your allowance.

T-Mobile are alone in the UK with this stance; all the other mobile networks will take that redirected call out of your voice call allowance (as long as it’s to a normal UK landline number), which companies like SpinVox use.

The article also takes about how HulloMail, which offers an Android based solution, was hoping for a better deal with T-Mobile, as the exclusive supplier of the Android based G1; we say to HulloMail; concentrate on the HTC Magic, which goes on sale on Friday with Vodafone, who are less petty about voicemail redirection (and who support twitter for their users too).

If you fancy an HTC Magic, Vodafone are currently offering a £5 discount (per month) off the line rental for people who pre-order the HTC Magic before Friday on a £35 per month contract.

We’ve been a big fan of both Skype and SpinVox for quite some time, but today the two companies have announced that you can now use the SpinVox service on your Skype voicemail.  SpinVox’s main product is the ability to take your voicemails (instead of diverting to your mobile network operator’s voicemail service, you divert your phone to your dedicated SpinVox number) and SpinVox will do it’s best to convert that message into both a text message (sent to your chosen number via SMS) *and* it will email you text as well. On top of that, should the message come out garbled (a lot of background noise can, for example, make it difficult to hear exactly what is said), you can even ring in yourself and listen to the original message.

Well, the Skype offering is very similar.  First, of all, you’ll need some Skype Credit, as there are a few small charges associated with the service.  Once you have enabled the service, any voicemail you receive in your Skype voicemail will be converted for you.  Like the SpinVox service, the original voicemail is still accessible, although for this service, you simply sign into Skype and listen as you would today.

Even nicer, Skype will wait 10 minutes before passing your voicemail to SpinVox, giving you a chance to hear the message (if you were on a call to someone else, for example), and if you listen before it’s processed, you won’t be charged.

SpinVox will then take the call and process it.  They will send the content of the voicemail in 1 to 3 SMSes (our experience is that most voicemails are converted within 1 or 2 SMS messages, so it will be rare that someone leaves a sufficiently long message to not get the whole thing converted in 3 messages), and you are charged 17 pence plus 1 to 3 SMS charges (whatever the Skype charge is to SMS your mobile number, currently 9.2 pence for most UK numbers).  So, a typical voicemail which takes 2 SMSes to transcribe will cost just over 35 pence.

That may sound a lot, but remember, you didn’t have to pay data charges or phone charges to listen to the message, and even more importantly, it came directly to your mobile phone, so if you are out, and not using Skype on your mobile phone, you will get the exact contents of the message and allowing you to react to the message well before you can get home or pay to listen to it.

If there is too much background noise to process the message, you still pay the 17 pence, and then just for 1 SMS to cover the alert telling you about the voicemail and the inability to process (so just over 26 pence).

If you are out and about, and need to listen to the original message, then you just need to dial your Skype To Go number and can access the voicemail service from there (and you might as well sign up for a Skype To Go number; you used to need a subscription for this service, but it’s now available for anyone as long as you have some credit on your Skype account).

The Skype voicemail to text service currently should be able to handle English, French, German and Spanish voicemails.

If you think this service is a little bit of an overkill for your needs, then Skype have also launched some simpler voicemail alerts.  You can receive an email alert when you receive a voicemail (which is free), or you can receive a single SMS alert (again charged at the standard SMS charge rate for your mobile).

For those who want to try it out, but are concerned about potentially spending a fortune on this service, then do not fear, you can optionally set a limit on the number of voicemail conversions you are willing to receive a day (thereby putting a cap on your costs), and/or you can specify to only convert voicemails from people on your contact list.

Additional services like these are both good for the user, and are starting to distinguish Skype from the traditional SIP based VOIP providers (Skype uses a proprietary protocol), and with Nokia planning on providing Skype directly on their phones, it looks like 2009 might be the year that Skype really moves from being an application you run occasionally on your PC into part of your everyday mobile life.

Here at UK Gadgeteer, we are big fans of SpinVox, it’s a very useful voicemail to SMS / email service, and it’s coped with all sorts of bad quality lines, people calling from mobiles walking down windy streets, and even regional dialects.  So, here’s an offer we wanted to tell you about..

There are two important reasons we want to promote this particular SpinVox trial.  Firstly, instead of the usual 1 week trial, this allows you to have access to the SpinVox system for 2 months, which is a nice long time to realise the true benefit of it.  Secondly, at the end of the trial, instead of being charged £5 per month for the first 40 voicemail conversions, it’s actually £5 per calendar month for unlimited conversions (and unlike many network operators, SpinVox mean unlimited).  As part of the trial, SpinVox will also provide you with a BlackBerry application that helps make SpinVox work better on these devices.

Head over to SpinVox BlackBerry trial to sign up, although word on the street is that apart from access to the BlackBerry application, this gives access to the “normal” service, and might work for anyone…

SpinVox and ping.fm have just announced the ability to speak your social networking updates!  As of today, you are able to “Ping through SpinVox“, which will allow you to use the power of ping.fm to update up to 30 social network sites at the same time, but instead of needing to be near a computer, you’ll be able to do this via voice, through the power of SpinVox.

SpinVox traditionally provide voicemail to text (and email) service, which we use here, but by working together with ping.fm, they have managed to launch another unique service.

This service has just gone live in the last few minutes, all you need to do is register your mobile number in your account settings of ping.fm, although you can also head to ping.fm/spinvox.

More information can be found at both SpinVox and ping.fm.  Thanks to James at SpinVox.

Here’s an interesting device, the Flip Video. In the US, it’s referred to as the Pure Digital Flip Video, but in the UK, it’s just the Flip Video (possibly related to the existence of Pure Digital, the DAB radio specialists in the UK). For just under £100, you can get a really small video recorder capable of recording upto 60 minutes before you need to upload the video. It supports easy uploading to YouTube. It comes in Black, White, Pink or Orange.  The built in USB port makes it very handy to use.

How well does it work, well Ewan over at SMS Text News is currently trying one out in the Maldives, and finding it very useful with the underwater housing, although he did need to remember it’s not rechargeable.  Ewan also thinks the Flip  should not exist; the mobile phone manufacturers should have this market sewn up, but with the lack of easy transferring and uploading of the video content, he can understand why the Flip Video is so useful.  Also, James Whatley from SpinVox is trying one out at Glastonbury right now, so hopefully he’ll report back week how he found it.  Without a PC with him, he can’t upload any video until he returns, so will he find the 60 minute limit too small for a 3 day music festival?

Interestingly, James also took a Freeloader Solar Charger and a Loc8tor Lite, two devices we featured last week, so we’ll hopefully report back on how he found these too.

Scrolling around the 3 intranet the other day, we noticed that 3 offer a 7 day unlimited trial to Spinvox. Spinvox offer a voice to text service, so your voicemails are provided as SMS. You simply divert your phone to Spinvox, instead of the more usual 3 voicemail option. Once the trial is over, you move onto their chargeable, but low rate, service; although there is a limit to the number of messages you get before incurring more charges. What 3 fail to mention is whether the cost of the call diversion is chargeable or not, and we believe it is, which we feel 3 should state.

To signup, simply use Planet 3; if you can’t find it, head to Services, A-Z, and then select Spinvox.

Spinvox should work with any UK mobile, although for other networks you’ll need to sign up at Spinvox.