David Pogue and his 'Take Back the Beep' campaign

David Pogue, who writes on tech for the New York Times had an interesting and thoughtful column yesterday. He's been complaining about the ridiculously long messages the cellular carriers stick on to the end of your voicemail message. He's right, too. But what I hadn't realized was that these incessant and long messages add to your air time and are bringing in millions of dollars of extra, and unearned revenue to the cellphone providers.

Here's a sample from the column of how, instead of a simple beep, the phone companies game the system to add to your minutes:

* Sprint: "[Phone number] is not available right now. Please leave a detailed message after the tone. When you have finished recording, you may hang up, or press pound for more options."

* Verizon: "At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up, or press 1 for more options. To leave a callback number, press 5. (Beep)"

* AT&T: "To page this person, press five now. At the tone, please record your message. When you are finished, you may hang up, or press one for more options."

* T-Mobile: "Record your message after the tone. To send a numeric page, press five. When you are finished recording, hang up, or for delivery options, press pound."

It would be nice to be able to turn this stuff off, but it really isn't possible. There is one nice surprise in all this bad news. When Apple made the deal with AT&T, Apple insisted these messages not be on iPhone voice mail. When you call me you get MY message, and a beep. Just like that. No "dial 2 for the temperature in Des Moines" or "touch the pound key three times quickly, pause and one more click to get customer service if you are north of latitude 40 degrees." This is an example of something Apple and AT&T did that actually benefited iPhone owners, especially given all the latest circus with Skype, SlingPlayer, and Google.

Pogue has this exactly right. Cellphone users should complain to high heaven about these rather egregious violations of common sense and just plain smart customer relations. iPhone owners got off easy with voice mail. But we're bearing a heavy load as Apple and AT&T try to outdo each other in alienating their customers.

There oughta be a law.

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Source: http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/the-mandatory-15-s…

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David Pogue, who writes on tech for the New York Times had an interesting and thoughtful column yesterday. He's been complaining about the...

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Sam

youmail.com

August 01 2009 at 12:56 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Larry

This is just one more reason why I love Google Voice--they don't do this. Since getting GV, I would no more use my wireless carrier's voicemail than use the email address my ISP gives me. Sweet freedom!

July 31 2009 at 8:32 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

pcmofo

for ATT do this.
Dial ##002#
Problem solved

Took me a while to find this info.

July 31 2009 at 4:41 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

it's possible to turn this function on with most carries.... the trouble is, it's buried into confusing administrative menus and given somewhat abstract names so the casual user with never work through it.

on the iphone, it's easy to change because it's built into the voicemail options.

that's the only difference really.

July 31 2009 at 4:25 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Andrew

I, too, have an iPhone in the US on AT&T. My voicemail carrier prompts are turned on. I cannot find a way to turn them off after going through every option in the voicemail settings.

July 31 2009 at 4:19 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

alansky

"... we're bearing a heavy load as Apple and AT&T try to outdo each other in alienating their customers."

I say it's no contest: AT&T's business practices are far more offensive than Apple's.

July 31 2009 at 4:12 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Greg

Just used my work line to call my iPhone.. says my message AND the AT&T "At the tone, please record your message. When you are finished, you may hang up, or press one for more options."

How do I "call in" to my voicemail? I've only used the iPhone VVM.

July 31 2009 at 2:44 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Greg's comment

Greg

Hmm. Played around some more. Discovered you can call in to your voicemail by using your phone to dial your own number. But no option to get the AT&T prerecorded voice to stop. So I went with just using my recorded name and letting the AT&T voice tell callers what to do.

July 31 2009 at 3:09 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Ian

I have an iPhone on AT&T and they still have the voicemail training wheel prompts.

July 31 2009 at 2:40 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

perk

My ATT iPhone came out if box ready for just my message and a beep. Also I never call into voicemail. I use the iPhones cool visual voicemail to go straight to the message I want to hear and that's all I hear. Are none if you using visual voicemail either? I thought everybody did. The single greatest invention, to me, on voicemail ever. I used to let voicemails stack up and up because I couldn't stand being forced to endure the line they made you go through.

Love it. Happy camper

July 31 2009 at 2:13 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to perk's comment

JHenley01

It has nothing to do with checking your own voicemail, the complaint is that you have to listen to the instructions when you are leaving a message for someone else.

July 31 2009 at 6:14 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Damian Vines

Scott R: I think David was intending to mean that these messages are taking up the min. that you have available to you with your plan. In one way this is bringing you closer and closer to going over your min. because of this constant extra few seconds during the month. This could lead to more money.

I see people have eluded as to how to turn off this feature on Sprint and AT&T, what about Verizon? I haven't found any way to do it yet. I've called many times and they say it's not possible. Anyone on Verizon been able to turn the extra instructions off?

July 31 2009 at 1:46 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Damian Vines's comment

jonathan

per engadget:

Verizon
Instructions are a little conflicting, but here's what we've gleaned from the tips. As far as we can tell, Verizon methods can vary by region, so let us know what works for you.Here's what kchinth recommends.
Personal options
Administrative options
General options
Then you will have these three options:
Auto Play On or Off
Call Back Number Prompt On or Off
Rapid Prompt or Standard Prompt

July 31 2009 at 6:05 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply