Ribbit cloud phone beta announced

A new cloud based phone service called Ribbit has been announced by telecoms giant BT in the UK.

The Ribbit service promises to centralise all your phone tasks and offer up a host of new functions, such as turning your voicemail into text and then sending it to you via email or SMS.

Ribbit Mobile also provides an online message inbox that, like the voicemail, will store your messages indefinitely - they're fully searchable too. In other words it's a direct rival to Google Voice.

The service also provides 'smart call routing', allowing you to answer your calls on either your mobile, home or office phone.

A bonus of the system is that there's no software to install and it doesn't require a new phone number.

The beta's not actually due to start until next year but if you fancy a free play around with the service it'd be best to get your name on the list - from the looks of the official Ribbit sign-up page the final price might run to $30 (£20) per month.