Missing your Cell Phone Voice Mail?

The issue: Your cell phone has 1 bar or just barely a connection to the voice network. Your Data connection is Edge to no connection. This happens when your in a basement or in a building with re-enforcing metal. Some have seen it even in the open when there is no close cell tower. Under these conditions your phone has a connection to the network, so far as it knows. However, the Network / Service provider is dropping and marks the connection as unreliable. In this state someone calls you. The network forwards the call to voice mail as it is unable to contact you. The caller leaves a message. Back at your phone, the phone has never dropped from the network, so there is no need to send a reconnect voice mail query command. The effect is that you never hear your phone ring, yet you have a message! And your phone does not show a missed call! About a week or more later you had to power off your phone as your watching a movie in a theater or because your wife said to turn it off. When you power it back on, the phone reconnects to all the services, and suddenly you get a notification that there is a unread voice mail.

The longest I've heard of is a month later. This issue is cross service provider and happens on both old voice only phones and new data phones. I called and spoke to customer service and tech support for each provider. What they recommend to combat this issue is interesting.

T-Mobile
1-877-453-1304
While the customer service representative assured me that this kind of thing happens to all providers, T-mobile personnel have invented a term for it called "Stale Dating." Note to self: If there is a term for it, it must be happening often enough to have a need for a name. I was forwarded to Technical support. They had no current solution for this issue other than powering off the phone. They recommend powering off your phone at least one time a week.

AT&T:
1-800-331-0500
Customer service was very friendly and said that they had not heard of this issue, that they would forward me to Tech support. The Tech support staff was happy to help me with information. Tech support had heard of this issue as it relates to visual voice mail on the iphone. After some quick research (put me on hold) they said that it happens to both regular voicemail and the new data plan voice mail. There is no solution to this issue except powering off and back on your phone. The recommendation is to power off your phone 1 to 2 times a week to insure that you pickup messages with out too much time passing.

Verizon:
1-800-922-0204
Called Customer service and they would not talk to me as I didn't have a Verizon phone. After some discussion (17 minutes on the phone) She could not comment on any issues with me. Naturally, I called back. I got a customer service agent who was a Technical refugee from the economic slowdown, who had worked and owned a systems support business. He provided much better customer service! He knew of the issue and that there is no solution currently for it. However, he said that support is working on fixes all the time. He recommended powering off your phone at least 1 time per month. The issue is not just the missing voicemail but phone updates, roaming updates, new tower updates, service contract updates, and bug fixes to the phones OS. He explained that the network is always improving service, so if you have dropped calls or lockups on your phone etc, power off and back on. The updates will come down to your phone and may resolve your issues.

Sprint / Nextel:
1-888-211-4727 / 1-800-639-6111
The phone system hung up on me more than once! I called from a land line and was able to get through. The customer service agent was friendly. He was also a tech support agent. He heard the issue and asked some fallow-up questions. "Where is this happening?" I said that it has happened to me at home and at work. He recommended that at home I get a cell signal boost product they offered. This would resolve the issue while I was at home. At work there was no solution. He recommended powering off your phone every day. This way I didn't miss any messages.

Conclusion:
So How often do you power off your phone? I've gone weeks with out fully powering it off. I've found that a warm reset on my Google phone works to get voice mail, and it makes sense that it would be nearly as good as a power off. As the OS reloads. The only difference might be in updates from the network as the power to the antenna on the phone is never cut. The recommendation on average would be to power-off your phone about 1 time a week. If your concerned that you missed a call, then power-off and check there seems to be no limit to power-off and back on other than the hassle of doing it.

The bottom line, this issue is UNRESOLVED! So I'll revisit this post when more information is available. Please post your comments.


Other notes and postings on this issue:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/12794-37-voicemail-message-later
http://forums.t-mobile.com/t5/BlackBerry-Bold-9700/messages-on-my-voice-mail-comin-in-4-days-later/m-p/403421/highlight/true