9 ms·

Can I have no voicemail ? That's a feature I really want and it's not easy to do. If you configure a mobile phone line without voicemail, it will not just rin

by rsync 10y ago

Can I have no voicemail ? That's a feature I really want and it's not easy to do. If you configure a mobile phone line without voicemail, it will not just ring and ring and ring (as I hoped it would) - instead, the caller gets a message that "the number you have dialed is not accepting calls at this time" ... or some other message (depending on the carrier) that makes it sound like you don't pay your phonebill or something. I want my phone to ring and ring and ring until the caller gives up. I think I can do this with the twilio API, but man that's a lot of work for something (seemingly) simple. edit: this is the discussion I found that makes me think I could accomplish this with twilio: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22410430/twilio-respond-to-incoming-call-by-ringing-forever http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22410430/twilio-respond-t...

ape4 10y ago
How about forwarding to a landline (that will ring and ring) after a few rings.
- dingaling 10y ago
  In the UK AAISP offers that service but it becomes complicated because it involves an outbound call for the forwarding that has to be billed to the original recipient, not the caller ( since his calling rate was fixed on dialing the first number )
- CamperBob2 10y ago
  Or just record a message that consists of nothing but 5 minutes of a phone ringing.
edwhitesell 10y ago
I think you can do this with Ting, but I am unable to verify at the moment.
- johnhenry 10y ago
  I can confirm that it is very simple to disable voicemail with Ting.
joshbaptiste 10y ago
To get rid of VM notifications, I recorded 2 minute+ of silence as my VM greeting, zero VMs after that.
- rsync 10y ago
  Ok, that's sort of workable ... EDIT: ok, actually not so much - if you are out of coverage area and your phone rings zero times and goes right to voicemail (that's how it works with carriers in the US) then the caller calls you and goes right to silence, and presumably they retry 1-2-3x and get frustrated ... not even sure this is the right number, etc. Whereas if the phone just rang and rang and rang, at least it wouldn't be a bizarre outcome for them ... I would also like the ability to play a message, but then have no ability to leave a message. The lame way to do this is to let your vm inbox fill up, and then everyone gets the "the person you called is too stupid to figure out voicemail" message. What I would like is an option to play a message ("hi you've reached so and so and here is my email address and have a nice day!") and then ... no beep ... no message ... nothing. Maybe just pause a bit and then a fast-busy.[1] How can I do things like this ? I've been meaning for years to self-provide my own dial tone in the same way I self-provide my own email, but I just don't have the time to get it all set up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reorder_tone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reorder_tone
  - cmdr_plx 10y ago
    Well, maybe your voice mail message can be lots of ringing then.
  - anotherevan 10y ago
    This was the message on my voice mail before I had switched to a carrier that made it easy to turn it off (that wasn't the reason I switched, that was a nice surprise): --- Hi, this is Evan. I will never ever ever ever listen to the voice mail you’re about to leave, because voice mail is a pain in the butt. So if you actually want to reach me, you can either send me an SMS, send me e-mail, or try my home number. Feel free to leave a voice message if you want, but remember, I will never ever listen to it. Have a nice day! --- I don't actually give them the email or home number details on the assumption that if they don't have those already, they are probably someone who's call I'm that stressed about receiving. Generally I got positive feedback once people did get in contact with me. I did have a similar one on message bank on the home number, which also mentioned that I keep turning message bank off, and the phone company kept turning it back on again.
JOnAgain 10y ago
I have T-mobile and don't have voicemail. I just called and had it disabled.
stanleydrew 10y ago
Charge CEO here. We can definitely disable voicemail for you. I actually have it disabled myself. Just send us an email to get it removed. We should probably just add a checkbox for it in the management UI though now that I think about it.
- DiabloD3 10y ago
  And this is how you run a company, everyone please take note. User feedback is actually seriously considered and responded to in an acceptable manner.
  - joosters 10y ago
    It's great to see someone from a company pop up in a discussion to help out a user, but this is absolutely not the way to run a company. It leads to the Google approach to support, where you can only get a non-automated reply only if you raise enough stink by on social media, or happen to know someone who works there. Now, each individual case where an employee unexpectedly helps out is great, but this is NOT 'how you run a company'. You should focus on getting your general customer service and support lines to be good. I've never dealt with this company before, or even heard of them until today, so their normal lines of support might be great. This isn't meant to be a specific criticism of Charge. However, it does seem odd to me that a phone company appears to give no contact phone numbers on their web site. That's not a good sign!
    - spraak 10y ago
      Best advice!
    - MicroBerto 10y ago
      When you have a page advertising "features for nerds", you damn well better be active in the Hacker News conversation about it....
    - stanleydrew 10y ago
      Phone support is a hard thing to do well. And we have a pretty high bar for support. So I know this sounds like a dodge, but we really are waiting until we can confidently roll out strong phone support to push it. For now, whenever a customer has a problem that can't be solved via email, one of the founders will call. Obviously that doesn't scale, so we need to figure out phone support, but we're aiming for what I call "Zappos-level" quality and that's easier said than done.
burfog 10y ago
Back in the 1980s I was taught that callers should always count to 10 rings before giving up. It is rude to give up earlier because you may have interrupted somebody. The phone starts ringing, so they start to put away what they are doing and then go to the phone. By the time they get there, you might have hung up if you don't wait for 10 rings. When getting a call, normally you'd try to get to the phone unless you can't do it within 10 rings. Some reasons for 10 rings: * must wipe butt * must get kids out of swimming pool * must shut down the tractor (there exist loud outside ringers) * must finish... because not Paris Hilton * must put baby into a safe spot (crib, strapped into chair, playpen, etc.) * must remove engine oil from hands That was a world I liked better. Answering machines ruined it. At first they were set to at least 4 rings. This caused people to start hanging up earlier, and assuming that others would do likewise. If you assume this, you won't run for the phone, thereby discouraging people from waiting. It's a feedback loop. Later, answering machines were set to just 2 rings. I guess cell phones were the final nail in the coffin for the old 10-ring standard. Since many people would carry their phone, callers got used to immediate pick-up. Not every phone is a cell phone! Even if that were so, many of the old reasons still apply!
- supercoder 10y ago
  Doesn't matter with caller ID
  - OJFord 10y ago
    I can't be busy if I have caller ID?
    - JeffreyKaine 10y ago
      Of course you can, but you can call them right back when you aren't busy anymore.
      - OJFord 10y ago
        Right, but I don't need caller ID for that.
tuxracer 10y ago
I have t-mobile and just called up support and asked them to disable voicemail. My phone does just ring and ring without any weird messages to the caller. Maybe other phone companies are different but if you have t-mobile just call them up and ask them to turn it off. Very quick and easy.
- LeoPanthera 10y ago
  What happens if your phone is off?
CaptSpify 10y ago
Im curious as to why you want that instead of voicemail?
noyesno 10y ago
I think many phone companies have an incentive to keep the voicemail systems up and running - if your call is forwarded to a voice mail service the call is connected and therefore billed. If you reach the automated messages for failed call setups (busy/terminal cannot be reached etc), they are not billable.
mavhc 10y ago
In UK I just called a special number to disable voicemail. There's also a code you can "call" to set the time between "no-answer" and "divert to this other number that's your voicemail" I almost never call/sms anyone from my phone, so it costs almost $0/year to run
dewiz 10y ago
There are free ways to disable voicemail, e.g. on Android see No More VoiceMail app or http://m.wikihow.com/Disable-Voicemail-on-Android http://m.wikihow.com/Disable-Voicemail-on-Android
MatthewWilkes 10y ago
Sounds like you're disabling the voicemail service, not conditional call forwarding. Try dialling ##004# - it's the GSM standard code to disable all conditional call forwarding rules. More codes at https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4041 https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4041
michalskop 10y ago
Almost nobody is using voicemails, where I know (Czech Rep., Slovakia, Spain, Hungary) - it used to be the default (voicemail is on) to get charged for the calls into it, but I think it is not even so anymore (because it was too annoying for the users that the companies had to change it). It rings for some time and then you get some "the user is not available at the moment". Sometimes I really wonder how the US tech is stuck in the past (while generally is not, of course).
ashitlerferad 10y ago
I always wondered why mobile carriers don't text you "voicemail from ..." and attach an mp3 file of the message.
- ryan-c 10y ago
  PhoneTag[0] can do that via email, though the transcriptions are generally good enough that you don't need to listen to them. I've been using it for years and don't remember the last time I actually had to listen to a transcript. 0. https://www.phonetag.com/ https://www.phonetag.com/
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
drivingmenuts 10y ago
Is it possible to just have my actual phone handle voicemail? I'm walking around with more computing power in my pocket then we used to fly a space shuttle, you would think it would be able to record a simple voice message from a phone line.
rospaya 10y ago
In some European countries voicemail just never caught up. Personally, I don't know anyone who used it more than just a few times to try it out.

by rsync 10y ago

ape4 10y ago

How about forwarding to a landline (that will ring and ring) after a few rings.

dingaling 10y ago
In the UK AAISP offers that service but it becomes complicated because it involves an outbound call for the forwarding that has to be billed to the original recipient, not the caller ( since his calling rate was fixed on dialing the first number )
CamperBob2 10y ago
Or just record a message that consists of nothing but 5 minutes of a phone ringing.

edwhitesell 10y ago

I think you can do this with Ting, but I am unable to verify at the moment.

johnhenry 10y ago
I can confirm that it is very simple to disable voicemail with Ting.

joshbaptiste 10y ago

To get rid of VM notifications, I recorded 2 minute+ of silence as my VM greeting, zero VMs after that.

rsync 10y ago
Ok, that's sort of workable ... EDIT: ok, actually not so much - if you are out of coverage area and your phone rings zero times and goes right to voicemail (that's how it works with carriers in the US) then the caller calls you and goes right to silence, and presumably they retry 1-2-3x and get frustrated ... not even sure this is the right number, etc. Whereas if the phone just rang and rang and rang, at least it wouldn't be a bizarre outcome for them ... I would also like the ability to play a message, but then have no ability to leave a message. The lame way to do this is to let your vm inbox fill up, and then everyone gets the "the person you called is too stupid to figure out voicemail" message. What I would like is an option to play a message ("hi you've reached so and so and here is my email address and have a nice day!") and then ... no beep ... no message ... nothing. Maybe just pause a bit and then a fast-busy.[1] How can I do things like this ? I've been meaning for years to self-provide my own dial tone in the same way I self-provide my own email, but I just don't have the time to get it all set up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reorder_tone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reorder_tone
- cmdr_plx 10y ago
  Well, maybe your voice mail message can be lots of ringing then.
- anotherevan 10y ago
  This was the message on my voice mail before I had switched to a carrier that made it easy to turn it off (that wasn't the reason I switched, that was a nice surprise): --- Hi, this is Evan. I will never ever ever ever listen to the voice mail you’re about to leave, because voice mail is a pain in the butt. So if you actually want to reach me, you can either send me an SMS, send me e-mail, or try my home number. Feel free to leave a voice message if you want, but remember, I will never ever listen to it. Have a nice day! --- I don't actually give them the email or home number details on the assumption that if they don't have those already, they are probably someone who's call I'm that stressed about receiving. Generally I got positive feedback once people did get in contact with me. I did have a similar one on message bank on the home number, which also mentioned that I keep turning message bank off, and the phone company kept turning it back on again.

JOnAgain 10y ago

I have T-mobile and don't have voicemail. I just called and had it disabled.

stanleydrew 10y ago

Charge CEO here. We can definitely disable voicemail for you. I actually have it disabled myself. Just send us an email to get it removed. We should probably just add a checkbox for it in the management UI though now that I think about it.

DiabloD3 10y ago
And this is how you run a company, everyone please take note. User feedback is actually seriously considered and responded to in an acceptable manner.
- joosters 10y ago
  It's great to see someone from a company pop up in a discussion to help out a user, but this is absolutely not the way to run a company. It leads to the Google approach to support, where you can only get a non-automated reply only if you raise enough stink by on social media, or happen to know someone who works there. Now, each individual case where an employee unexpectedly helps out is great, but this is NOT 'how you run a company'. You should focus on getting your general customer service and support lines to be good. I've never dealt with this company before, or even heard of them until today, so their normal lines of support might be great. This isn't meant to be a specific criticism of Charge. However, it does seem odd to me that a phone company appears to give no contact phone numbers on their web site. That's not a good sign!
  - spraak 10y ago
    Best advice!
  - MicroBerto 10y ago
    When you have a page advertising "features for nerds", you damn well better be active in the Hacker News conversation about it....
  - stanleydrew 10y ago
    Phone support is a hard thing to do well. And we have a pretty high bar for support. So I know this sounds like a dodge, but we really are waiting until we can confidently roll out strong phone support to push it. For now, whenever a customer has a problem that can't be solved via email, one of the founders will call. Obviously that doesn't scale, so we need to figure out phone support, but we're aiming for what I call "Zappos-level" quality and that's easier said than done.

burfog 10y ago

Back in the 1980s I was taught that callers should always count to 10 rings before giving up. It is rude to give up earlier because you may have interrupted somebody. The phone starts ringing, so they start to put away what they are doing and then go to the phone. By the time they get there, you might have hung up if you don't wait for 10 rings. When getting a call, normally you'd try to get to the phone unless you can't do it within 10 rings. Some reasons for 10 rings: * must wipe butt * must get kids out of swimming pool * must shut down the tractor (there exist loud outside ringers) * must finish... because not Paris Hilton * must put baby into a safe spot (crib, strapped into chair, playpen, etc.) * must remove engine oil from hands That was a world I liked better. Answering machines ruined it. At first they were set to at least 4 rings. This caused people to start hanging up earlier, and assuming that others would do likewise. If you assume this, you won't run for the phone, thereby discouraging people from waiting. It's a feedback loop. Later, answering machines were set to just 2 rings. I guess cell phones were the final nail in the coffin for the old 10-ring standard. Since many people would carry their phone, callers got used to immediate pick-up. Not every phone is a cell phone! Even if that were so, many of the old reasons still apply!

supercoder 10y ago
Doesn't matter with caller ID
- OJFord 10y ago
  I can't be busy if I have caller ID?
  - JeffreyKaine 10y ago
    Of course you can, but you can call them right back when you aren't busy anymore.
    - OJFord 10y ago
      Right, but I don't need caller ID for that.

tuxracer 10y ago

I have t-mobile and just called up support and asked them to disable voicemail. My phone does just ring and ring without any weird messages to the caller. Maybe other phone companies are different but if you have t-mobile just call them up and ask them to turn it off. Very quick and easy.

LeoPanthera 10y ago
What happens if your phone is off?

CaptSpify 10y ago

Im curious as to why you want that instead of voicemail?

noyesno 10y ago

I think many phone companies have an incentive to keep the voicemail systems up and running - if your call is forwarded to a voice mail service the call is connected and therefore billed. If you reach the automated messages for failed call setups (busy/terminal cannot be reached etc), they are not billable.

mavhc 10y ago

In UK I just called a special number to disable voicemail. There's also a code you can "call" to set the time between "no-answer" and "divert to this other number that's your voicemail" I almost never call/sms anyone from my phone, so it costs almost $0/year to run

dewiz 10y ago

There are free ways to disable voicemail, e.g. on Android see No More VoiceMail app or http://m.wikihow.com/Disable-Voicemail-on-Android http://m.wikihow.com/Disable-Voicemail-on-Android

MatthewWilkes 10y ago

Sounds like you're disabling the voicemail service, not conditional call forwarding. Try dialling ##004# - it's the GSM standard code to disable all conditional call forwarding rules. More codes at https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4041 https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4041

michalskop 10y ago

Almost nobody is using voicemails, where I know (Czech Rep., Slovakia, Spain, Hungary) - it used to be the default (voicemail is on) to get charged for the calls into it, but I think it is not even so anymore (because it was too annoying for the users that the companies had to change it). It rings for some time and then you get some "the user is not available at the moment". Sometimes I really wonder how the US tech is stuck in the past (while generally is not, of course).

ashitlerferad 10y ago

I always wondered why mobile carriers don't text you "voicemail from ..." and attach an mp3 file of the message.

ryan-c 10y ago
PhoneTag[0] can do that via email, though the transcriptions are generally good enough that you don't need to listen to them. I've been using it for years and don't remember the last time I actually had to listen to a transcript. 0. https://www.phonetag.com/ https://www.phonetag.com/
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

drivingmenuts 10y ago

Is it possible to just have my actual phone handle voicemail? I'm walking around with more computing power in my pocket then we used to fly a space shuttle, you would think it would be able to record a simple voice message from a phone line.

rospaya 10y ago

In some European countries voicemail just never caught up. Personally, I don't know anyone who used it more than just a few times to try it out.