iPhone visual voice mail requires $7/month plan = consumer rip off

[yoyoyoyoyoyo]

Hi,

Visual voice mail functionality is a native iphone function provided by Apple and does not require any special handling by the operator - the voice mail is recorded on the iphone directly (and Apple provides its own servers for the visual voice mail features) and no resources are required from the mobile operator. 

I was a fido customer for many years, and had visual voice mail on my iphone at no additional charge since I had a plan from back when the iphone was first introduced. I had to move to another carrier last year due to of a change of jobs, and just moved back to fido last week. Now in order to get visual voice mail on my iphone I need to sign up for the iphone visual voice mail value pack for $7/mo. This is unacceptable, and is essentially gouging the consumer. 

In the interest of serving your customers better, I would suggest the following:

1. unbundle the visual voice mail for iphone users from all the other extra stuff and make it its own separate stand-alone offering

2. charge a fair amount based on the effort and resources required by fido to provide this service. I would argue that it should be $0/month since the feature is actually provided by Apple and not fido.

[vcgp]

So if that's all visual voicemail does, why is it $7/mo?

[okbye]

I have the same comment about visual voicemail. The $7 fee is exessive and out of touch in this economy.

[Cawtau]

Hello Yoyoyoyoyoyo,

  Welcome to the community!

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@yoyoyoyoyoyo wrote:...Visual voice mail functionality is a native iphone function provided by Apple and does not require any special handling by the operator - the voice mail is recorded on the iphone directly (and Apple provides its own servers for the visual voice mail features) and no resources are required from the mobile operator. ...

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  Where did you find that information? Unfortunately, it's not quite accurate.

  Yes, the visual voicemail was introduced by Apple. No, voicemail are not recorded directly on your iPhone. Most sources suggest that the voicemails are initially stored on the carrier's servers (and not on Apple's servers). For example, this article describes what happens when you receive voicemail. It's true that once the voicemail is pushed to your phone, it is then stored on your phone. That said, the iPhones still need to be in sync with the carrier's servers in order to keep your voicemail up to date.

Hope this helps

Cheers

[FidoPhilippe · Accepted solution]

Hey @yoyoyoyoyoyo! Welcome to the community.

We thank you very much for your suggestions, however, I would like to point out that the actual voicemail part of the visual voicemail is stored on our servers. You can actually still reach your voicemails directly via the audio method by dialing +1 647 839-6178.

All the visual voicemail does is allow you to interact with our voicemail directly on your iPhone's screen instead of having to use the general method of calling your voicemail and interacting with it via your phone's keypad.

You can find more information about the visual voicemail here.

Let us know if you have any more questions.