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> VVM works by fetching voicemail messages from an IMAP server maintained by the device’s carrier. The server URL and credentials for this server are provided t
by mrgalaxy 7y ago
> VVM works by fetching voicemail messages from an IMAP server maintained by the device’s carrier. The server URL and credentials for this server are provided to the device by the carrier over SMS.
Visual voicemail is just IMAP and SMS? Wow, for some reason I assumed there would be some distinct protocol for that. It's pretty interesting that it's implemented using the existing software the phone already runs on.
- josho 7y agoAnd frustrating to learn that an open protocol with free implementations is locked behind a carrier that often requires significant fees for this feature.
- jtl999 7y agoand AFAIK clients for said implementation of this protocol don't exist for other platforms (Android)
- fragmede 7y agoT-Mobile, at least, has a VVM app for Android.
- todd3834 7y agoHow much does visual voicemail cost? I've never really noticed any significant fees on my bill related to it.
- Falling3 7y ago$2.99 for me. Not a huge cost, but certainly frustrating considering the non-existent burden to the provider.
- rizwank 7y agoWho charges for VVM?
- sysbin 7y agoBell.ca charges for it.
- radicaldreamer 7y agoMan.. Canadian telecoms really suck
- cdmckay 7y agoNickel and dime’ing is easier than innovating.
- Falling3 7y agoVerizon
- eswat 7y agoWhen I first added it to my account years ago it was $2CAD/mo through my carrier. Now they charge $5CAD/mo to add it to new plans. Ruthless.
- ubermonkey 7y agoTelcos -- or, at least, American ones, which are the only ones I have experience with -- are 100% all about this kind of rent-seeking behavior.
- o-__-o 7y agoI dunno, but here's a way to visual voicemail your own mail (this is how I have been doing it since 2015): 1. sign up with a voip provider that either terminates on your own pbx (e.g. asterisk/freepbx) or provides voicemail with emailed audio files. setup said service with voicemail. 2. setup your favorite container system and let systemd manage the service 3. create a container that watches for new audio voicemails , when it finds a new voicemail push it to your favorite cloud provider (s3, gcp bucket, azure etc) then trigger that providers speech-to-text function on the audio file in the related cloud storage. store the resulting text message and metadata in a db. 4. create another container that simply watches that db for new messages and push out alerts however you see fit. you have many paths here. i went with a web-based ui that pulled the data ala google voice. 3 years ago mozilla dropped deepspeech which changed everything - https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech i have since replaced step 3 with my own deepspeech server. none of my data goes to any of the major privacy violators with this setup.
- josho 7y agoThat’s brilliant. Now if there was only some way to get your iPhone to connect to your own imap server and we can avoid that telco fee.
- chillydawg 7y agoYou can! Read the article, there's a cheeky hack to allow you to overwrite the phones IMAP config via SMS, fully remotely :D
- yardie 7y agoI know I’m the late 2000s, if you had a smartphone there was a line item charge $10-15 for smartphones. If you had a blackberry you got BES, if you had Apple you got VVM. The excuse the carriers used for charging for it was always bullshit. But like hotel WiFi, if you had one of these smartphones you didn’t care because work was paying for it.
- ksec 7y agoI remember reading Visual VoiceMail was a patent feature ( Not by Apple ) and require some software and patents fees before being offered to customer, and hence the cost. Otherwise I love VMM, and it really should be a standard on all iPhone and Carriers.
- yegle 7y agoA very popular chat app, WeChat, was initially implemented over IMAP protocol.
- draw_down 7y agoEverything is hacked together.