Quote:
Originally Posted by Stop It
Ah, that's a bit cheeky. I can avoid calling voicemail while abroad but didn't know that outside the EU that you would be charged for even getting the message in the first place. With my work I only travel in the EU so that didn't cross my mind, apologies to the OP.
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You don't always get charged, it depends on what you set up and how. In short, you get charged if you originate a divert while abroad, because your mobile operator has to pay for the international call there and back. You do
not get charged if the divert originates in the UK.
Firstly, to clarify to those who don't know, 'Voicemail' isn't a special magical black box. Going to voicemail is a normal phone call, handled by the GSM divert system. It is an ordinary phone call, and involves calling an ordinary phone number.
Without going into too much technical nitty gritty detail, the GSM divert system essentially has three modes of operation: Always, Busy/unanswered, and unreachable.
If you set up an 'Always' divert before you leave the UK, you do not get charged. Your home operator sends the call straight to voicemail without it ever going abroad.
If you use a busy/unanswered divert, the call first gets sent abroad to your foreign operator who sends a message to your handset telling it to ring. If you then reject the call, the handset sends a message back to the foreign operator's switchboard, and uses the foreign switchboard to connect the call to your UK voicemail number. This entails a charge because the call is going abroad and you are using the foreign operator's switchboard to set up a call back to your answering machine in the UK. Your network has to pay for this so historically they pass this charge on to the customer. Sometimes, they leave it out as an act of goodwill, or because of more modern interconnects that negate the additional step of sending it abroad and back again.
If you use an 'unreachable' divert, you do not get charged. Your home operator has nowhere to send the call, so it defaults to it going to voicemail, again without going abroad in the first place. Theoretically, if your phone rings, and then you pull out the battery without pressing reject, then the network reverts to this mode of operation. This
used to be an interesting way of avoiding certain charges, many years ago...
---------- Post added at 17:21 ---------- Previous post was at 17:21 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by jb66
If the call is not answered it is not sent to the country you are roaming in, it is sent to your voicemail provider which operates in the UK, I cant see how they justify a roaming charge
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See my above post. If your phone rings, then your call
does get sent abroad. If your phone does not ring, your call does not get sent abroad and there is no charge. At least that's how it used to work and how it's supposed to work, but knowing EE's horrifically retarded and buggy billing systems I would not be surprised if it couldn't make the distinction.