Today, the majority of blind and visually impaired people use simple 2G mobile phones for voice telephony only.

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Voice telephony will be virtually free.

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That said, as fixed-line voice telephony becomes a low-growth commodity, it is Sprint's mobile-phone arm and its 4m subscribers that must seem irresistible to Mr Ebbers, especially in the wake of last week's deal to unite the American wireless assets of Vodafone AirTouch with Bell Atlantic's mobile business.

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Cisco's gateway, which underwent a trial in Honolulu, functions similarly but is more hardware-based, complementing its line of network routing equipment and voice-over-IP telephony.

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Cable operators want to be able to offer the "quadruple play" of communication bundles--Internet, television, voice-over-IP and wireless telephony.

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So guys, come help out a brother from the motherland with your suggestions for digital telephony transcription, any Brits out there find Google Voice to be the answer?

ENGADGET: Ask Engadget: Are there UK-based Voicemail to SMS / email alternatives?

The rivalry between the two Internet telephony services ratcheted up last week when Google announced it was expanding Google Voice to more (38) languages and countries (150) and reducing the fees it charges for international calls.

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