Why is ringless voicemail supported?
mjbraun
Newbie

As far as I can tell, ringless voicemail (used by telemarketers to leave a prerecorded voicemail without ringing the phone) is a practice that could be trivially detected or disabled. Unlike voice calls that are ultimately useful but can be abused by spammers, ringless voicemail drops have no legitimate use and yet Verizon's backbone seems to allow it. I'm curious: why?

Given that there is no reason for an entity to use a ringless voicemail other than to attempt to skirt Do-Not-Call rules, why not just disable the functionality entirely at the network level?

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Re: Why is ringless voicemail supported?
RepresentativePointOf

I would recommend blocking those numbers that's leaving the ringless voicemails, or blocking your voicemail feature altogether, do understand, All other Carriers do not have a way to block ringless voicemails either, its not solely Verizon.

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Re: Why is ringless voicemail supported?
mjbraun
Newbie

To your point "All other Carriers do not have a way to block ringless voicemails either", that's part of my question for the network engineers at Verizon: what about the infrastructure design makes this sort of thing a) possible and b) unblockable? I'm actually looking for technical information, even if only a pointer to architectural docs (FWIW, I work in a technical field so I'm comfortable reading networking standards docs and such).

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Re: Why is ringless voicemail supported?
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

mjbraun, I know from experience that those robo calls are annoying. I'd like to help get them to stop. I've included a link that'll provide a few more details to help further. https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/caller-name-id-faqs/#spam-types Please refer to the Spam management section. 

VanetrisC_VZW
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If my response answered your question please click the "Correct Answer" button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

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Re: Why is ringless voicemail supported?
rando99
Newbie

Verizon and other carriers must be incredibly greedy in order to support this function.   It is abusive by definition, since the ones I get don't even leave a phone number to respond to.   I've had one leaving messages multiple times a day for weeks now---and I can't do anything about it.   This is why people hate cellular providers, and with good reason. 

 

 

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Re: Why is ringless voicemail supported?
Jsch10463a
Enthusiast - Level 1

In my 25 years with phone companies and telecommunications equipment manufacturers, I have never heard of ring-less voicemail (except as an Urban legend).  The calling switch does not know whether the called party has voicemail capability.  There is no “do not ring” triggers in Signal System 7, Session Initiation Protocol or ISDN similar to the trigger that blocks the display of caller ID from the called party.

As for documentation, I cannot refer you to something I have never seen.  If you want to investigate further contact the manufacturers; Lucent, Avaya/Nortel, Cisco, Erickson, etc.; the International Telecommunications Union; or North American Numbering Plan Administration.

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Re: Why is ringless voicemail supported?
KH-Michael
Moderator Emeritus

Due to the age of this thread, it will be locked in order to keep discussions current. If you have the same or a similar question/issue we invite you to start a new thread on the topic.

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Re: Why is ringless voicemail supported?
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

rando99, we are concerned to hear you are having issues with your device or service and are happy to assist in any way possible. To clarify, you are receiving voicemails even when your phone is not ringing? May we ask what type of phone do you have?

 

JoshuaC_VZW

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