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Carrier Verizon: why is the voicemail capacity so small?

riverfreak

riverfreak

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jan 10, 2005
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Thonglor, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon
I barely use my phone at all. My voicemail is constantly full in part because I let most calls route there and call people back if necessary. The capacity is RIDICULOUSLY small — I’m guessing maybe five minutes of messages.

It seems to me that capacity should (or at least) could be limited to the capacity of your phone.

Is there any way to get around the voicemail capacity limit?
 
riverfreak said:
It seems to me that capacity should (or at least) could be limited to the capacity of your phone.
Click to expand...
There's zero relationship between phone capacity and voicemail storage capacity. One has nothing to do with the other. Do you realize that voicemails are NOT stored on your phone / do you think they're stored there ?
 
BigMcGuire said:
Who.... Why..... am I the only one that uses Google Voice for my voicemail?
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Not only one. Friends and family get the cell number, everyone else gets the Google Voice number (which has Do Not Disturb set full-time).

ADD: oh and: Hiya app on iPhone to block 99% of all spam calls.
 
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I used to use Google Voice. The number I was assigned it still linked to my account so I could easily set it back up. Back when I did use it, it wasn't very "mature" yet.
 
HallStevenson said:
There's zero relationship between phone capacity and voicemail storage capacity. One has nothing to do with the other. Do you realize that voicemails are NOT stored on your phone / do you think they're stored there ?
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Yes of course I realize that. But aside from traveling internationally and out of area, there is no technical reason they shouldn’t be. The current set up on Verizon sux.
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NoBoMac said:
Not only one. Friends and family get the cell number, everyone else gets the Google Voice number (which has Do Not Disturb set full-time).

ADD: oh and: Hiya app on iPhone to block 99% of all spam calls.
Click to expand...

Yeah I use google voice too, as a fungible number I give out publicly. For the most part, they only people who know my personal number are family and friends.

Using Google Voice as a forwarding number like this has stabilized over the years. It was a little rough at first.

And thanks for the tip on Hiya!
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NoBoMac said:
40 messages, per Verizon:

https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/voice-mail-comparison/

ADD: looks like ATT is also 40 messages for their voicemail, 60 if you buy their plus vm package.
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That’s a nice round, non-sensical number. :)
 
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maflynn said:
40 seems more then enough for me. I think you just need to keep on top of deleting the old VMs
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I think I got a total of about 11 voicemails in all of 2016. This year I'm even lower. I must not be that important. :(

Everyone I know communicates with me via IM or email. I rarely use my phone as a .... phone.
 
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Yeah you can attach Google Voice to replace your voicemail for your personal cellphone. You just dial a key combination on your phone (what Google Voice tells you) and anyone calling your cellphone gets sent to your Google Voice voicemail. Free voice to text translations, etc... It is great.
 
BigMcGuire said:
Free voice to text translations, etc... It is great.
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Free voice-to-text isn't such a big deal now that the iPhone does that on its own. I found GV to be hilariously inaccurate back when I used it for that, has it gotten any better? Not that Apple's any better at it, either.
 
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posguy99 said:
Free voice-to-text isn't such a big deal now that the iPhone does that on its own. I found GV to be hilariously inaccurate back when I used it for that, has it gotten any better? Not that Apple's any better at it, either.
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A little - lol. It isn't great. Still gives me a good enough idea of what was said I know what to do. But yeah, I used GV back in the beta days and some of it just made me laugh so hard. lol. -- I've used GV voicemail so long I didn't know that the iPhone does that on its own. Cool!

From July 2014 - my friend:

Google Voice to Text Translation:
"Hey, it's me. I just want to let you know. It's a broken leg, so. I should be up there at about that message. Manager, So. So I didn't want to give you heads up, about that. Options all the way got the All My Way. So I'm using."

What was actually said:
hey its me, I just wanted to let you know that I hit some traffic so I should be up there in say about 15 minutes or so so I just wanted to give you heads up about that, I'll be a little late, but I'm on my way, so I'll see you soon.


I've got a dozen or more saved - some not safe for work, lol, just funny as heck.
 
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40 must be adequate for most or Verizon would see a cash grab and sell you more space. I don't get very many but I generally answer calls I identify and know and the rest are spam and seldom leave a voice mail. Trucaller dumps those to VM.
I understand people running businesses with their cell phones could need more space but it would seem to me better business practice would be to deal with messages pretty timely. This 40 VM limit is probably a non issue for most.
 
cbreze said:
40 must be adequate for most or Verizon would see a cash grab and sell you more space. I don't get very many but I generally answer calls I identify and know and the rest are spam and seldom leave a voice mail. Trucaller dumps those to VM.
I understand people running businesses with their cell phones could need more space but it would seem to me better business practice would be to deal with messages pretty timely. This 40 VM limit is probably a non issue for most.
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Yeah sure. I realize that most people communicate by text and — shudder — email. I personally prefer post-email solution myself.

Still, there is a time and a place for voice calls. And sometimes I want to save VMs so it’s really easy to exceed 40 messages. It has nothing to do with good business practices.

Regardless of whatever your use case or usage is, I’m just surprised that voice mails remain on-carrier instead of delivering them to your phone. I guess it’s just another way for personal data to be mined.
 
Yeah, I get what you're saying. For those who need it, it would be a good option to be able to move them over to phone storage.
Side note: also, don't they get auto erased after a certain amount of time?
 
Does Google Voice offer an option to email a transcribed text version or an audio version of a message ? I know that many business phone systems do.
 
I have Verizon. The base plan is 20 messages, not 40. And for me, blocked numbers voicemails also count towards this 20. I get a few of those voicemails a week, so basically I have to remember to delete those blocked voicemails once a week. Pretty dumb system.
 
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bravos45 said:
I have Verizon. The base plan is 20 messages, not 40. And for me, blocked numbers voicemails also count towards this 20. I get a few of those voicemails a week, so basically I have to remember to delete those blocked voicemails once a week. Pretty dumb system.
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My account has 40 messages limit and is ridiculously small when you are running demanding projects. Even more ridiculous is that is based on 'number of messages ' not total storage used - in total, my 40 messages are 5-10 min of compressed audio... apparently other users coujd have 40 messages with hours of storage....

Verizon sucks, they don't sell ice cream they sell technology and that's truly limiting nowadays. I feel they are running on 90s hardaware ...

I'll move to AT&T and get 60, still ridiculous, but better
 
Today is 4/21/2020...I just got off the phone, and website, with Verizon.
Here's the latest and most accurate intel.

~~ Perhaps it was different in the "past" but as of an hour ago, Verizon now allows for only 20 voicemails and a limit of 3 minutes per voicemail. BUT that said, they do now offer options.

~~ WHY do they do this?? Here's why. They want you to spend more money. You can have 60 voicemails (you can "save" 20 and have 40 others...I'm not quite sure what that looks like, but that's what the representative said)

~~ HOW MUCH? $2.99 per month. They call it "visual voicemail" which means that the voicemails are "transcribed" and you can read the text of the message...that does NOT mean that you will receive a "text message" but rather that the words will show up when you go to see the voicemail....which I think is pretty stupid. It's not stupid to have that feature, but on an iPhone this happens automatically, at no extra charge; however, I don't know about
"non-Apple" products. It's just typical Verizon. They make you pay extra for everything. God help you if you have a low "tiered" plan and need to go to Mexico or Canada...at $2/minute and 50cents a text...quite literally.

~~ WHAT ABOUT other carriers? I just switched from AT&T. I think that there was "some limit" but I very RARELY hit it and I'm on my phone CONSTANTLY! I can't speak to Sprint, Spectrum, and the others.

~~ VERIZON IS A MESS. From a customer service standpoint, I found that Verizon SUCKS. Now I'm sure that others will disagree; but, the real question that I would ask them is, "How long have you had Verizon". I'm guessing most answers would be in "more than a year" or more range. In the last 6 months I have had ATT, Spectrum, and Verizon. About 2 years ago, I had Sprint. Why so many? I have multiple phone lines sometimes on multiple devices, but sometimes just on one iPhone. By far the very worst, most horrible, lowest of the low was Sprint. It was a disaster. By far, like by a lot, the best was AT&T. Again, I'm sure that some are going to disagree but in my experience within the last 6 month, this was the case.

~~ Hopefully this helps. I'm so happy to be a "Mac-guy"
 
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