Recently, the practice of wireless carriers of intentionally keeping voicemail messages too long to generate higher ARPU (Average Rvenue Per User) was uncovered by New York Times’ David Pogue. He urged people to retaliate against this by voicing their complaints to their respective network operators. Now, a few carriers have provided instructions on how to disable their voicemail messages.
According to Engadget, for Sprint, users have to follow the following steps. First call the voicemail and once at the menu, press 3 for personal options. Then they have to press 2 for greeting, followed by 1 to change the greeting. Finally, to enable or disable the voicemail message, users have to press 3.
Some AT&T customers have a “cut through paging” option on their voicemail which lops a small section of the voicemail instructions. However, the end product is unclear and inconsistent. Users have to call their voicemail, go to personal options, then go to administrative options, select “cut through paging” and finally select off.
Verizon voicemail instructions can vary by region. Users have to first select personal options, then press administrative options and go to general options. Further, three options will be provided: Auto Play On or Off, Call Back Number Prompt On or Off and Rapid Prompt or Standard Prompt. Verizon enables users to speed up talking on the voicemail message.
There is no information about how to disable T-Mobile’s voicemail message.