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May 10, 2002

Cell phones: they allow instant communication and seamless mobility, saving everyone time, right? Well, yes—when the other person is available to talk.

But when the other person is not available to talk, you are dumped into voicemail—a phenomenon that seems to have become even more annoying in the context of mobile phone systems.

When you call someone at home and reach a home answering machine, you hear a greeting and then a beep—and are immediately allowed to leave a message. That’s the way it should be. It’s direct, and fast. And the default option is to leave a message, requiring the caller to do nothing.

From the perspective of the caller who gets voicemail, simply leaving a message should be the default, automatic option—and the option should be put forth as quickly as possible. But the voicemail systems of at least three mobile phone carriers are set up in ways that unnecessarily engage or delay the caller, making what should be the simple task of leaving a message into an exercise in patience.

For example, if you call a customer of Sprint PCS, after hearing the customer’s voicemail greeting, you have to press “1” to leave a message immediately. You can also do nothing, but then you have to wait for the system to recite other options that you probably don’t want.

Pressing “1” may not seem that difficult. But because cell phone technology is not perfect, sometimes the “1” tone does not register immediately. Also, this requirement forces the caller to expose his or her fingers in cold temperatures.

But more importantly, this requirement is offensive in principle. I don’t want to have to press “1” to do something that should be automatic. If I want other options, I should have to interact with the voicemail system—but not for simply doing something for which the voicemail system is principally designed.

It gets worse.

When you call a customer of Verizon Wireless, you can just wait—but that wait seems to last forever, while the system describes other options available to you. One of those very important options: “To record a fax message, press 8.”

“Record a fax message?”

I would like to know Verizon’s assessment of just how many cell phone customers require their callers to record a fax message. I would also like to know what exactly it means to record a fax message. And where is it faxed, anyway? A cell phone is not a fax machine.

As a result of having to endure announcements of marginal, irrelevant or simply implausible options, leaving a simple 10-second voicemail message can actually precipitate a call length of over one minute. Which appears on your bill as two minutes. Maybe this is a conspiracy by the cell phone carriers to inflate the number of minutes used.

These unnecessary delays are one of the reasons I’m generally happy with AT&T Wireless. When people call me, they simply hear my greeting and can immediately leave a message after the beep—no labor, no hassle, no nonsense.

Except in this case, AT&T seems to have gone a bit overboard in the other direction. When I am in my own voicemail system, either hearing messages or changing the greeting, it is brought to my attention that I may dial “star” to hang up.

For fun, I actually did dial star. At least the system was friendly. It said, “Goodbye.”