Are you fucking kidding me? The Phone Company

[Dookus]

My voicemail system, which've I've overpaid for for at least ten years, is fucked. The phone gives me the beep-beep-beep dial tone that indicates I have a voicemail. But I don't. It causes the base unit of my portable phone to cause the light to blink saying I have a message But I dont.

I want to fix it, and I've done all I can on my end. I so I went online to figure out who to call to reset my mailbox. The office is open from 8:00am to 5:00pm.

For the fucking PHONE COMPANY! I can't call them at night!

Sorry, I'm not a big fan of monopolies, but I believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic phone company. One that has a customer service number after 5:00pm.

So...

[LoZoccolo]

1. Leave yourself a message and then delete it.

That worked when my cell service thought I had a message and didn't.

[Dookus]

4. sigh

tried that. Didn't work.

[physioex]

2. There is no need for this service...

Buy a digital answering machine, it is not very expensive. Also make sure it has a battery backup, so the message doesn't get erased....

[Don_G]

3. Sounds Like A Software Problem

Delete everything, start from scratch and maybe invest the money you were paying for "service" for 10 years to a digital cordless phone that will do all that and more for you.

Let's see here...$2.50 a month for 12 months times 10 years not counting rate increases plus taxes.....

[loveable liberal]

5. all utility companies should be public, the reason being......

gas electric and phone are all necessities....ok gas and electric are. deregulating the gas and electric companies is going to result in higher rates and more pollution as the quest for cheaper coal prices means cheap coal. everyone now, take a nice deep breath of mercury vapor filled atmosphere... nuclear is a good route to take if the waste could be dealt with properly, unfortunately our federal govt wont take a stand on that either. Bush would probably have citizens bury spent fuel rods in everyones front yard and tell us it would be an excellent means to rid the turf of creeping charlie.....

[Interrobang]

6. Telco is *infrastructure,* dammit, *and* a natural monopoly...

If we can't do state telephone (renationalise NOW!) then it should be a monopoly with the government's foot firmly on its jugular...

Interrobang's in a hard-ass mood tonight, I guess...

[LibertyorDeath]

7. We're The Phone Company

Our Mission Statement


We Don't Give a Shit Cause We Don't Have To. :)

[lpbk2713]

16. How true, how true.

I retired after 35 years with the nation's now largest RBOC and I can tell you that if you were to take a consensus among lower and middle management (assuming they had it in them to give an honest answer) this would be the answer you would get. Of course they all talk one game and play another.

[patriotvoice]

8. vonage

www.vonage.com

[NoPasaran]

9. Ma Bell was greedy, cruel and arrogant

But by god the phones worked!

I miss her callow indifference.

[Dookus]

11. Exactly....

I don't see how we're any better off with a variety of phone companies.

[TexasProgresive]

10. The server is sick

no one know how to cure it. They will have to call the vendor who is only available 8 to 5 on the other coast. Welcome to deregulated utilities. It will get worse before it gets better. Just wait until Voice over IP gets running. You will get spamed by single point to multiple boxes and the whole system will shut down. We've come a long way from, "Watson come here."

[soothsayer]

12. are you sure you don't have multiple mailboxes?

cuz it could be on a different mailbox. Press 9 for other options, or whatnot, and see if you maybe have another mailbox in there.

[Dookus]

13. nah...

one mailbox.

I had one saved message (which is very unusual for me - I either delete 'em or write down the message). Anyway, I had an unusually busy day with the phone - a number of calls, a couple of messages left, and a few attempts to check messages.

It's just a software glitch - my mailbox needs to be "reset".


But still:

Hail MaBell, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art though amonst utilities, Blessed is the fruit of they womb, service. Holy utility, mother of voicemail, pray for us customers now and in the hour of our billing cycle, amen.

Repeat as necessary.

[radwriter0555]

14. I never understood paying $6.00 a month for something, over and over

again, when I could pay $20 for something -- ONCE.

Not a frugal use of money. You've paid for an answering machines like 10 times!

[tarheel]

15. In response to your poll

"Diversity is good"

I am in the Telecommunications industry and very familiar with voice mail systems.

Most voice mail systems have two interfaces to the telephone companies switching system. One interface is several analog lines.
These "trunks" carry the voice transmission for leaving messages, replaying messages, maintaining your mailbox, etc...

The second interface is an SMDI link (Simplified Message Desk Interface). This link is the data link between the switching equipment and the voice mail system.

This link carries the call setup information from the switch to the voice mail system and it also carries the messages from the voice mail system to the switch teling the switch to activate or de-activate the message waiting indicator. This is the stutter dial tone you hear telling you that you have a message.

The lost likely cause of your problem is that this SMDI link is down and therefore the switch never receives the message from the voice mail system telling it to de-activate the message waiting indicator for you phone when you retrieve your messages.

The Telephone company is most likely aware of the problem but may be waiting for some piece of hardware to replace the faulty one to resolve it.