Some AT&T and iPhone customers are angry over delayed delivery of voicemail messages. Sometimes, they say, a voicemail message may not appear in their inbox for several days after it was recorded.
“I have had this happen on a number of occasions,” wrote one AT&T customer in response to my item posted yesterday. “I’ve been growing tired of AT&T’s issues for quite a while now. I look forward to the iPhone being available through Verizon sometime in the not-so-distant future.
Another wrote: “AT&T’s Voice mail on iPhone 3G is sometimes slower than snail mail. If they didn’t have a strangle hold monopoly on the iPhone in the USA – they couldn’t get away with such poor service!”
I cannot independently confirm the reports, but have had similar experiences on my iPhone, when old messages appeared in visual voicemail days after they’d been left for me.
According to the user who first reported the trouble, AT&T says it is aware of the situation, but offers no cure. The best workaround being for users to manually check their voice messages by calling themselves, which pretty much negates the usefulness of a visual display of voicemail messages, an important iPhone feature.
But, even manual checks may not work if messages are remaining in limbo before late delivery, as some have suggested.
It is not clear how common or widespread the problem is, though it could easily go unnoticed by average users. It also appears to include more than just iPhones and to not be a totally new problem.
“I can tell you from experience, this has been a problem since the beginning,” wrote another user. “I had the original iPhone and would get delayed voicemails from days before, seriously affecting work and personal issues. It’s just one of the reasons I left AT&T to go to Verizon. (Even though I’m returning to AT&T for the new iPhone. How pathetic?)”
This is only the latest in a string of mishaps involving AT&T, exclusive iPhone carrier in the U.S. The company has been widely lambasted by customers for everything from pricing and coverage to customer service.
The company also appeared to have been snubbed by Apple for not quickly adopting the tethering and multimedia messaging features included with the new iPhone 3GS and iPhone OS 3.0.
David Coursey now has a new excuse for being late returning phone calls. Except, sometimes it’s not an excuse. He tweets as techinciter and can be contacted directly using from www.coursey.com/contact.