Two weeks into the campaign, David Pogue has an update about
Take Back the Beep. So far we'd say the
winner by far is Sprint, who lets you remove the pre-voicemail instructions with a relatively small amount of hassle (we're upgrading to green because Pogue has taken the carrier off his hit list). The other carriers have yet to get on board, however. T-Mobile says that "these comments are being taken into consideration in our planning," but hasn't promised any specific action -- sort of promising, but hardly a win. Meanwhile, Verizon was quoted by ABC News as saying that you could already turn off the message, but apparently what the rep meant to say is that if you don't like the message you can turn off voicemail altogether. Great. So far no hints of real action have come from big red, but the company is responding to complaints with a canned, "The voice mail instructions are there to assist the many callers who may be unfamiliar with the correct prompts." so at least we know they're getting the emails. AT&T is perhaps the most promising of the remaining carriers, saying that while
Visual Voicemail (which doesn't suffer in this way) is the true hotness, and it hopes to get that to other devices soon, "In the meantime, we are actively exploring how to shorten the voicemail message on our other handsets." That sounds promising. In the mean time, we literally have
no idea why these carriers haven't gotten together over coffee and at least figured out a unified button for skipping over the messages. It's true madness.
posted Aug 14th 2009 9:24AM
How hard can it be. If someone has a personal voicemail message the prompt should go away and if not it should go directly into the prompt. Not this "person being called number is not available" mess then the prompt.
I thought verizon implemented a skip button a while back. If you want to skip right to the beep, hit *.
They did but the message leaver still has to hit the button which in some states, believe it or not, constitutes texting if you are doing this when driving. Above all it's just a pain in the ass.
"message leaver" = caller. Less painful to the post "word absorber". :)
i think this whole thing has gotten away from the initial point. these phone companies are making millions from the couple seconds of recorded messages. read some of the first reports about this for the actual numbers. it doesn't matter how easy it is to just press * or whatever to skip, they are stealing time and money from you. the sprint option is ok, but not a fix since its still on by default, theyre counting on most users to leave it alone. the messages need to be off by default on all carriers. how about a universal press # for assistance?
seriously? Millions? maybe 7 years ago, but everyone i know has more minutes then they know what to do with and its only texting that becomes a problem.
^^^i agree that at first i though the numbers were a bit much, but then i remembered that there are millions of other people in this country besides my friends and myself.
Quoted from the original article(the first link in this article):
"He estimates that Verizon, for instance, is netting around $620 million a year thanks to these little annoyances"
this to me is the strongest point of this whole deal. yet none of the follow up articles mention this. so the responses get filled up with "i dont get it, why is this important, just press 1" mostly because the authors miss the point themselves.
Step 1) Figure out what to press to immediately start recording -- # for me on AT&T and T-Mo
Step 2) Include in your recorded message "Press [#] to start recording at any time."
Step 3) Relax, as you've found a way to help your callers without the stress of trying to shove a slow moving corporation.
I changed my business phone to something similar :) Everyone calling that line wants to just get to voicemail quickly, not jump through pre-recorded hoops.
I just press "1" when a voicemail answers and it skips right to the beep.
that's only on sprint.... for verizon it's *. not sure what the others are... I don't leave voice-mails because I hate them myself. if someone doesn't answer, why fill up their inbox with a message that they won't listen to for 2-3 weeks? that's why we have texting.
AT&T you just hit 1.
I wish reporters and bloggers and consumers would get this riled up about something actually useful...like better network backbone, fios, better pricing, you know something that actually would be good for us and not this nonsense.
I do have to agree. I don't really give a damn about voicemail. I do give a damn about the fact I can barely get a signal in my home, when a visitor from the UK - whose phone was connected to T-Mobile and Verizon interchangeably - could.
Agreed. It's nice that AT&T says they're working on it, but I'd rather they work on making their network something other than crap.
You could always use YouMail. It's free and has no annoying instructions from the carrier at all since you aren't using the carrier's vm.
Who cares.
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I use Google Voice for my voicemail. Its quite literally the most advanced voicemail system I've ever used. Even Exchange 2007 doesn't match the features. Unfortunately its limited release, so you have to sign up on the waiting list. Fortunately the wait for me was only 1 day.
One day eh? How'd you get so lucky?!
Same here. I love Google Voice, I just wish their SMS app was better.
Though I really don't see what all this fuss is about. So it takes 5 seconds longer for you to leave a message, so what? Some people have insanely long greetings...
Engadget failed to mention that T-Mobile has visual voicemail too... I wonder if they even realize that.
"AT&T is perhaps the most promising of the remaining carriers, saying that while Visual Voicemail (which doesn't suffer in this way) is the true hotness, and it hopes to get that to other devices soon"
Visual Voicemail doesn't have anything to do with the message a user gets before they leave a message does it? ATT's statement doesn't make any sense to me but I could be missing something.
I am on ATT. I *don't* have Visual Voicemail. I *do* have a personal greeting, and no prompts. I also know people on AT&T and T-Mobile with personal greetings, and no prompts. What's the hubub about? You can turn the prompts off on all the networks, it sounds like.
After reading the first article on this a few weeks ago I went into my ATT voicemail menu and turned off all the extra greeting stuff. Now I only have a personal greeting. The first article was nice to build awareness, but there's no reason for a big campaign about something that is not even an issue.
It gives people who love to complain one more thing to gripe about.
Thank god I have visual voicemail, so no such issues for me.
uhh, the issue is when you call someone else, not when you check your own voicemail
Since T-Mobile has Visual Voicemail as well (on Android only), they're probably in the same boat as AT&T.
Verizon also has visual voicemail (at least on Omnia), I use it and it's great.
C'Mon.... Is this really all that important?
i would rather have the crazy $30 a month that My wife and I pay just to be able to text people and not have to worry about ridiculous charges.
I guess the FCC never finished looking into the anti-trust on this huh?
"...we literally have no idea why these carriers haven't gotten together over coffee and at least figured out a unified button for skipping over the messages. It's true madness."
No, it's simple math. The more difficult or cryptic people find skipping voicemail prompts the more minutes they rack up with their carriers waiting for the beep. Those minutes add up to millions of dollars a month for Verizon, AT&T and the rest. Why on earth would they willingly agree to make it easier for customers to give them less money? To make them happy? LOL.
It's unlikely that it adds up to anything in their pocket book. They all charge a minimum 1 minute fee. So when you call somene if they have a really long 15sec message and then you listen to the 15 sec prompt and you still have 30secs to leave you message. If it takes you more than 30secs to leave your message please don't ever call me.
How does having Visual Voicemail shorten the message? Wasn't the initial complaint that when you CALL someone, you have to WAIT and HEAR a message? Visual Voicemail eliminates this how?
Someone please explain. I thought Visual Voicemail was "oh look who left me voicemails, and in this order." Not shortening the greeting/instructions on the voicemail.
Besides, I probably leave 2 or 3 voicemails about every fortnight - and this is using a LAN line for work, leaving messages for people I need to call me back. For personal calls, maybe 2 or 3 a month.
I'm also confused by this. I agree with you.
+1
all VV does is allow you to check your own messages more easily, it has nothing to do with the prompt
I don't know why visual voicemail matters, but it does. On my iPhone, someone calls, they hear me and a beep. On all the other lines on my family plan, you get the voicemail lady as well as the recorded greeting.
I have sprint and have always taken this for granted. Sucks you can't do it with other companies. I like leaving my voicemail at just an instant beep so I know I missed a call when my phone is off.
I understand philosophically that not a moment of life should be wasted, but I'm having a difficult time putting this topic on my "Need to worry" list. What does the voice mail prompt cost you, about 20 seconds? If you get 10 voice mail messages a day, that three minutes out of your day. How much television do you watch in a night? One mindless sitcom wastes 10 times that amount. Maybe it's because I'm a coot and my "Need to worry list" grows shorter as the years accumulate, but I don't see this as a national priority right now.
It's not 15 seconds of your life they're wasting. It's actually over three hours a year (assuming you check or leave voicemail a couple times daily), listening to the same stupid instructions, over and over again.
Meanwhile, you're using up your airtime, helping to feed over $1 billion a year to the coffers of the cellphone companies.
--David Pogue
You know what I did?!!
I called Sprint and cancelled the voice mail totally so, no one can wast time when he/she calls me,....
also that gives me the chance to choose whom I want to call back ;)
I don't even use my carriers voicemail. I use Callwave. When it goes to voicemail, all you hear is "Hi you have reached , please leave a message after the beep.
Once again, Verizon shows its true colors as the least customer-friendly of the bunch.
As for bypassing, why can't their systems start messages with "Bypass this message by pressing the pound (star, 1) key?"
Verizon is evil.
Visual Voice Mail has absolutely no effect on the caller about to leave a message.
I think the confusion about turning the message off on Verizon Wireless phones comes in being able to shut off the message associated with the ringback tones. It will either say, Please enjoy the music while your party is reached or you can shut it off altogether. However, when it gets to Voicemail, I don't know of any way to shut it off. The only thing the person calling can do is hit the * and it goes directly to the beep.
To the other comments on Visual Voicemail, I'll add that despite claims that AT&T iPhone customers don't suffer the extra junk at the end of their outgoing greetings, they actually do. Perhaps less material than with other customers, but extra junk nonetheless. At least, this is true with my plan. When I call myself from another line, I hear my greeting followed by instructions before reaching the actual beep. It's this wasted time that the campaign seeks to eliminate.
I have sprint so I don't have to worry about that stupid voicemail prompt on my phone at least. But when I leave a voicemail with people who have AT&T i'm fairly certain you can either press 1 or 5 to skip over the canned voicemail message. I'm not sure if the same goes for Verizon. I'm pretty sure that AT&T does not prompt you to press 1 to skip to beep right away, but I believe I've done it a few times by pressing 1. Same goes for Sprint if you still have the canned voicemail message active and haven't turned it off, Sprint at least says "Press 1 to leave a message, or just wait for the tone." Hope this helps.
When calling your own phone, you can usually hit * to skip your own greeting to enter the PIN.
T-Mob has visual voicemail too - on Android phones...
T-Mobile has visual voicemail for the Android-based HTC MyTouch so they are making progress.
I won't buy anything with mail in rebate, no exceptions.
LOL sorry, Roboform saved and reposted my comment from several weeks ago.
I meant to comment that YouMail and PhoneTag are much better than regular voice mail anyway. YouMail is free. I promise every one of you would love it.
US Cellular FTW!!!!! C'mon, Engadget, even though it's more of a regional cellular company at the moment, US Cellular outperforms all of the other carriers in the US.
i just press 1 and i dont hear any prompt. just the beep. why is that so hard....
Unfortunately, the "press 1' trick requires you to know in advance which carrier the person you’re calling uses, which is unrealistic!... see my post on the subject here: http://bit.ly/18VWO1
It's 1 for Sprint. But it's * for Verizon, # for AT&T, etc.
Making the instructions optional would be a MUCH superior idea.
dp
uh, duh. The instructions add minutes to the caller's bill. Why would any carrier want to remove them?
I don't care about the how to's, just give me my money back for the last 7 friggen years on 4 phones...