Verizon launches 'Iobi' service

Verizon Communications Inc. yesterday launched a new $7.95-a-month messaging and call-forwarding service that lets people get many of the benefits of advanced Internet phone systems, even if they have only conventional telephone lines and dial-up Net access -- or no computer at all.

Dubbed "Iobi," the service offers functions such as temporary forwarding of calls from home to a work or wireless number; access to voice mails from the World Wide Web; text message alerts to a cellphone when a new voicemail message is waiting; and even a feature that lets people see a map showing the location of the number of an incoming phone call with one computer mouse click.

Verizon is now offering the service for residential customers in Massachusetts and the four other New England states where it provides local service. It will expand the residential service to all 35 million local customers across the nation in coming months, along with a "professional" version aimed at small businesses, according to Toby Frank, the Verizon executive director overseeing the Iobi product line. A version designed for big business, government, and institutional customers with hundreds of phone lines will be rolled out next year, she said, and several new Iobi services are in the works also.

Although the Iobi services may be most easily used by people who download a small software program to their computer or use a password-protected Verizon Web page, Verizon also is offering a toll-free "speech portal" phone number for Iobi. People who do not own a PC can use voice commands to set up call-forwarding or dictate a message that gets sent in e-mail to someone whose address they have pre-entered. The system supports only Verizon voice mail, which costs $6.95 a month in New England.

Bob Ingalls, Verizon retail markets group president, said the company envisions Iobi as a personal communications "control panel to help make consumers' lives much, much easier. Wireless and Internet technology can make communicating easier, but when someone has multiple phone numbers and e-mail addresses, these innovations can make communicating more, not less, complicated."

Among other Iobi features:

Users checking their log of incoming calls can instantly add the number to an online address book.

An enhanced caller ID service lets people see the number of an incoming call even before it rings, then decide whether to route it to voice mail or transfer it to another number.

With visually accessible voice mail, someone with a dozen pending messages can look at the associated phone numbers and pick which ones to listen to first.

Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com.