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Voicemail overseas

Y

yg17

macrumors Pentium
Original poster
Aug 1, 2004
15,030
3,009
St. Louis, MO
On a previous trip outside the country when I had a BlackBerry on T-Mobile, I was able to set my phone to forward all calls to voicemail. So if someone called my phone, I didn't get charged for roaming (you get dinged a minute of roaming if your phone rings, even if you don't answer), and I would get a voicemail notification on my phone, without any roaming charges. So, at the end of the day, I could call my voicemail, the call would last a minute or two, so not too expensive, listen to the messages and decide what was important enough for me to pay roaming, to call back, and what could wait until I got home.

Now, with the iPhone, it's my understanding that I can still forward calls to VM and avoid that roaming charge for my phone ringing. But, if I disable data roaming, which I plan to do, then Visual Voicemail doesn't work, and I won't get new VM notifications, and, to retreive my voicemail, I have to turn data roaming back on, and get hit with data roaming charges, which would probably be more than if I made a voice call to get VM, since data roaming is outrageously expensive.

So, what do you other guys do when taking your iPhone overseas? I was thinking about not messing with forwarding (still leaving data roaming off though), and telling people to text me first instead of calling me, since I get free incoming texts overseas (as part of my unlimited text plan), and then I can decide if they're worthy of the $1.29/min roaming charge, but I'm wondering if there's a better way. Thanks
 
yg17 said:
On a previous trip outside the country when I had a BlackBerry on T-Mobile, I was able to set my phone to forward all calls to voicemail. So if someone called my phone, I didn't get charged for roaming (you get dinged a minute of roaming if your phone rings, even if you don't answer), and I would get a voicemail notification on my phone, without any roaming charges. So, at the end of the day, I could call my voicemail, the call would last a minute or two, so not too expensive, listen to the messages and decide what was important enough for me to pay roaming, to call back, and what could wait until I got home.

Now, with the iPhone, it's my understanding that I can still forward calls to VM and avoid that roaming charge for my phone ringing. But, if I disable data roaming, which I plan to do, then Visual Voicemail doesn't work, and I won't get new VM notifications, and, to retreive my voicemail, I have to turn data roaming back on, and get hit with data roaming charges, which would probably be more than if I made a voice call to get VM, since data roaming is outrageously expensive.

So, what do you other guys do when taking your iPhone overseas? I was thinking about not messing with forwarding (still leaving data roaming off though), and telling people to text me first instead of calling me, since I get free incoming texts overseas (as part of my unlimited text plan), and then I can decide if they're worthy of the $1.29/min roaming charge, but I'm wondering if there's a better way. Thanks
Click to expand...

iPhone needs to connect via cell network to obtain the Voice mail as there is no calling VM, only visual.

However, getting a VVM into your phone is much more expensive than letting the phone ring.

Use skype instead (if you plan to take a laptop) or use a local SIM card.
 
Visual voice mail (with data roaming turned off) will tell you that you have voice mail. I am not sure how long it takes to recognize that voice mail is available and it will not tell you how many or who it is from. You could always get a 1 month international data roaming and the use your data sparingly. Before you even ask, I will tell you that connecting via wifi will NOT retrieve your voicemail.
 
yg17 said:
I was thinking about not messing with forwarding (still leaving data roaming off though), and telling people to text me first instead of calling me, since I get free incoming texts overseas (as part of my unlimited text plan), and then I can decide if they're worthy of the $1.29/min roaming charge, but I'm wondering if there's a better way. Thanks
Click to expand...

You may want to check you plan again. As far as I know, there are NO plans that have free international SMS messaging. You can sign up for an international roaming account, I believe its about $5/month, that will lower your voice plane per minute ($.79-$.99 in most of Europe) and make international SMSs about $.25/per message.
 
fedup flyer said:
Visual voice mail (with data roaming turned off) will tell you that you have voice mail. I am not sure how long it takes to recognize that voice mail is available and it will not tell you how many or who it is from.
Click to expand...

If I understand correctly, the iPhone has regular old voicemail like any other cell phone, and it just acts as a backup. For instance, all of us who unlock and use someone else other than the supported carrier in our countries don't get visual voicemail. We just get a voicemail dot like any other phone and then when we press the voicemail button, it rings the phone-based voicemail like any other phone would. So I think if you are ever in a place where VV cannot be used, you get the same.

I'm not that up on how complicated the current iPhone 3G unlock is, but another option might just be to unlock it and use it with a local PAYG SIM....
 
Thanks for the advice. I'll just suck up any VV charges I get. Fortunately, most everyone who would call me knows I'll be out of the country and to not call me

fedup flyer said:
You may want to check you plan again. As far as I know, there are NO plans that have free international SMS messaging. You can sign up for an international roaming account, I believe its about $5/month, that will lower your voice plane per minute ($.79-$.99 in most of Europe) and make international SMSs about $.25/per message.
Click to expand...

Incoming texts come out of your plan (so since I have unlimited texting, they don't cost anything) and outgoing are 50 cents each.
 
fireshot91 said:
Clearly, nobody in this thread tried holding down "1" on the speed dial part of the Phone.
Click to expand...

Soooooo, that direct dials the voice mail for the sim card that is currently in the phone. Still have to pay for it there boy genius.
 
Thanks, I forgot about the dialing 1 thing. I'll just do that.

fedup flyer said:
Soooooo, that direct dials the voice mail for the sim card that is currently in the phone. Still have to pay for it there boy genius.
Click to expand...


No need to be a jerk. The average size of a visual voicemail sound file is probably about 100 kilobytes per minute (and I think I might be being generous here). At AT&T's international data rates at $.0195/kb, that would be $1.95 to download each minute of voicemail. The countries I'm going to (UK and Germany) are $1.29 per minute of voice calls, so I can dial my voicemail and pay $1.29 per minute to listen to each minute of voicemail. Now who's the genius? :rolleyes:
 
yg17 said:
Thanks, I forgot about the dialing 1 thing. I'll just do that.




No need to be a jerk. The average size of a visual voicemail sound file is probably about 100 kilobytes per minute (and I think I might be being generous here). At AT&T's international data rates at $.0195/kb, that would be $1.95 to download each minute of voicemail. The countries I'm going to (UK and Germany) are $1.29 per minute of voice calls, so I can dial my voicemail and pay $1.29 per minute to listen to each minute of voicemail. Now who's the genius? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Or you could just get the data roaming plan for $25 that includes 20 MB. :eek:
I thikn you are being way generous on the size of a voice mail data size. I think it runs in the 5-10kb size. I check the next time I get a voice mail
 
I thought if you held 1 down, it takes you to AT&Ts Voicemail database, and not your phone's. Suppose you canceled all data on your phone and called up AT&T to block your data, then you get a voicemail....what happens? Would it go to your phone's database? I think not.:cool:
 
yg17 said:
No need to be a jerk. The average size of a visual voicemail sound file is probably about 100 kilobytes per minute (and I think I might be being generous here).
Click to expand...

You are generous on your size by more than a factor of 10. Still cheaper to d/l the voice mail via visual voice mail than to call.
 
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