Dial Directions, an Alameda-based startup, unveiled a new cell service Sept. 18 in San Diego that allows users to get directions to and from any location via text messaging.

Users can choose directions from address to address, similar to typing in where you are and where you need to go into an online service like MapQuest or Google Maps.

For example, a user in the Gaslamp Quarter would call (347) 328-4667 (which spells “directions” on a keypad) and an automated voice would ask where they were. The Fifth Avenue and Market Street location would serve as the starting point from which the user would simply tell the service he or she needed to go to Qualcomm Stadium. A moment later directions to the San Diego Chargers’ home field arrives as a text message.

The service will simplify getting on-the-go directions for the average San Diegan looking for the closest Starbucks to the out-of-town businessperson looking for the convention center, said co-founder Amit Desai.

“What we have right now is something very unique for the public,” said Desai. “The alternative is you have to find a computer, (which) is inconvenient or get one of these smart phones and those are very frustrating.”

The service is also available in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, and will soon launch in five other cities.

Dial Directions has a number of private investors, including former executives of AT&T and Google, as well as faculty at both Stanford University and Harvard College. The company would not disclose how much capital has been raised or the amount of revenue they expect to pull in from the mobile navigation market.

However, the potential market, according to Desai, is “huge.”

He would not give figures of how large the market is in dollars but said it was in the “billions.”

Dial Directions isn’t the first company to try to crack the proverbial over-the-phone speech-recognition egg. Desai cited companies that worked on solving the problem six or seven years ago but failed because at the time it was virtually impossible to make the process accurate and clean.

Dial Directions works through an advanced system of voice recognition that Desai, along with co-founders Adeeb Shanaa and Dr. Benjamin Van Roy have worked on since last October. All three have backgrounds in speech recognition.

“We’ve made a product that has an easy to use interface that is powerful, accurate and speedy,” says Desai. “The product will speak for itself.”

“I would say this is one of the only companies I’ve worked for that I’ve actually been helped by or used the product I’ve worked on,” says engineering team member Sid Sen. “It’s the simplicity of it. It’s the kind of idea that you hear about where you think, why wasn’t that around five or 10 years ago?”