Hey all,
When I got my first iPhone with Fido in Canada, Visual voicemail was included in my iPhone plan and worked like a dream. It seemed so logical to have I assumed that any carrier who offered iPhones would have this feature.
When my contract expired I had my phone unlocked and switched to Koodo. I thought that they would have visual voicemail but it turns out they didn't! Without it I found I was missing my voicemails because the notifications got buried in with all the other notifications I had. I searched on the web and found an support article where Koodo said they were working on it. However that article was over a year old! I went to a Koodo outlet and the rep said that they weren't going to implement it but they might come out with a special voicemail app. No thanks.
I started looking at other carriers and on the apple website they listed which Canadian carriers support visual voicemail:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1937
Bell mobility was one of the carriers so after comparing plans I looked into joining them. When I was at Best Buy, I confirmed with the salesman that this service is supported. So I signed up with Bell and paid extra $5 to have the option. Great!
Long story short, it turns out that Bell only partially supports visual voicemail. When someone leaves a message, you can play it from the phone, but the phone does not show who left the message, nor does it allow you to change the greeting from the phone, or delete messages. When you attempt to delete the message it causes the phone app to crash and boot you to the home screen! What? I must have set something up wrong.
I called Bell and they said that it was normal for this to happen and that they're "working on it". I thought it was rediculous for them and Apple to claim Bell supported visual voicemail when in fact, it's not properly implemented. Having to call the voicemail line to delete your messages is kind of redundant and almost defeats the purpose of having it since you have to review your mail anyway before you can delete the message.
The purpose of this post is to warn anyone shopping for a carrier to make sure that visual voicemail is properly integrated and not to trust apple's support article, nor the carrier, nor sales people. Hopefully anyone searching online will now know that BELL MOBILITY DOES NOT PROPERLY SUPPORT VISUAL VOICEMAIL.
When I got my first iPhone with Fido in Canada, Visual voicemail was included in my iPhone plan and worked like a dream. It seemed so logical to have I assumed that any carrier who offered iPhones would have this feature.
When my contract expired I had my phone unlocked and switched to Koodo. I thought that they would have visual voicemail but it turns out they didn't! Without it I found I was missing my voicemails because the notifications got buried in with all the other notifications I had. I searched on the web and found an support article where Koodo said they were working on it. However that article was over a year old! I went to a Koodo outlet and the rep said that they weren't going to implement it but they might come out with a special voicemail app. No thanks.
I started looking at other carriers and on the apple website they listed which Canadian carriers support visual voicemail:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1937
Bell mobility was one of the carriers so after comparing plans I looked into joining them. When I was at Best Buy, I confirmed with the salesman that this service is supported. So I signed up with Bell and paid extra $5 to have the option. Great!
Long story short, it turns out that Bell only partially supports visual voicemail. When someone leaves a message, you can play it from the phone, but the phone does not show who left the message, nor does it allow you to change the greeting from the phone, or delete messages. When you attempt to delete the message it causes the phone app to crash and boot you to the home screen! What? I must have set something up wrong.
I called Bell and they said that it was normal for this to happen and that they're "working on it". I thought it was rediculous for them and Apple to claim Bell supported visual voicemail when in fact, it's not properly implemented. Having to call the voicemail line to delete your messages is kind of redundant and almost defeats the purpose of having it since you have to review your mail anyway before you can delete the message.
The purpose of this post is to warn anyone shopping for a carrier to make sure that visual voicemail is properly integrated and not to trust apple's support article, nor the carrier, nor sales people. Hopefully anyone searching online will now know that BELL MOBILITY DOES NOT PROPERLY SUPPORT VISUAL VOICEMAIL.
