What is Wildfire?

Wildfire is a virtual personal assistant. You interact with Wildfire by talking to her as if she were alive (though you can use DTMF tones if you prefer)

OK: Who is Wildfire?

She is a voicemail system that recognises voice commands and acts on them. She can store contact information about people and interact with callers when they reach your voicemail (Wildfire). She asks their name and their number (unless she knows them already).

Wildfire is the brand name of a product marketed by Wildfire Communications Inc, offered to phone operators all over the world. Orange is the only UK network to offer it to customers, and is the only network in the world to offer it without charging an additional monthly subscription.

What does she cost?

Orange offers wildfire at answerphone call charges, and if you are on an OVP price plan with free answerphone access, for free. You pay a £11.75 one-off connection charge to start using Wildfire.

What does she do?

If connected, to get Wildfire's attention, you just say "Wildfire"

With Wildfire listening, you can simply say "Call Albert". If Wildfire has more than one number recorded for Albert, she will ask which number to call.

Wildfire supports call waiting, and you can use her to set call diversion.

You can use Wildfire from another phone (even from a fixed phone) and place calls, charging them to your Orange account.

If you use your mobile phone when you are driving, or are otherwise unable to look numbers up or press buttons to connect, or if you are disabled, Wildfire is a wonderful boon.

The snags

If you have all your contact information stored in Wildfire, it is attached to your Orange account, and is available from any handset you use, but there is no way to get it all out if you decide to change networks.

If you are roaming overseas, Wildfire is an international call away, just as a flesh-and-blood personal assistant would be, so if she holds all your address book details, this can prove expensive.

If these matter to you, keep a separate note of all your contact numbers.

Meeting her

For more information and a demonstration of Wildfire, call 176 from an Orange phone, or 07973 100176 from another network.

See also [ Using Answerphone ] : [ Message Services ]

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