Amazon’s Alexa Will Serve as Answering Service With Verizon Phones

Voice command telephone calls have been available in cars for decades, but a new tie-up between Amazon and Verizon looks to bring that practice indoors to consumers’ homes.

By simply asking Alexa to dial or answer calls through smart speakers, Verizon customers can now outsource another trivial task to their omnipresent digital assistant, according to a Tuesday (Nov. 16) announcement that noted its new feature would be called Number Share – Home.

For a monthly fee of $5 per phone line, customers can sign up for Number Share – Home and then link their mobile number to one or more Amazon Alexa-enabled Echo, Echo Dot and Echo Show devices through the Alexa app. They can then place and receive calls hands-free by asking Alexa.

“Almost everything works just like you’re using your actual phone,” the company says in a video promoting the new service, which it dubs “smart calls through your smart home.”

Making Calls Through Smart Speakers

When announcing Number Share – Home, Verizon outlined a number of potential benefits. For example, customers can make calls through the smart speaker even when their phone’s battery is dead. They can dial calls hands-free by telling Alexa either the number or the contact’s name.

In case of an emergency, users can say, “Alexa, call 911” or ask Alexa to call an emergency contact. So long as the user has previously provided an address, that address will be displayed to emergency services.

In routine use, the user’s mobile phone number will be displayed on the other party’s device during a call made through the smart speaker, just as it would be if placed through the mobile phone.

Customers can also stop incoming calls on the smart speakers by setting up Alexa Routines and saying “Alexa, I’m leaving home,” or during specified times or by using the Do Not Disturb mode in the Alexa app.

Becoming the Operating System That Connects it All

As PYMNTS reported in the aftermath of Amazon’s annual fall preview of its new hardware and voice-activated capabilities, the online retailer’s Alexa platform is set to become the operating system that connects it all.

Read more: Amazon Alexa Announcements Point to Connected Living Writ Large

As its ecosystem continues to scale in new directions, more of Amazon’s long game is coming into focus. It’s about being embedded in consumers’ lives as an operating system not just for devices but for many aspects of living in the connected economy.

“Alexa, introduced by Amazon in November of 2014, turned a cylinder called Echo into a voice-activated device that sat mostly on kitchen counters at home and gave its users a new way to access the internet,” PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster wrote in a Sept. 20 opinion piece.

See: Voice Operating Systems Like Alexa Will Power the Connected Economy: Here’s Why

“The intent was for Alexa to become the operating system for the connected economy, embedding its voice-activated operating system into the growing number of devices that were or could be connected to the internet,” she added.