Answering machine with FIOS

Be advised,

After mandatory transition from copper to fiber, your unanswered calls will go to Verizon voicemail before your answering machine can pick up.

If you want to continue using your answering machine, to screen calls for example, you will need to call them and have them disable voicemail.

I learned this the hard way after missing about a months worth of messages.

Accepted answers

lasagna

Curious, did you not get a "stutter tone" when you lifted the receiver after the transition? This is the universal single for "voicemail waiting". Same with the blinking message light if you have caller-ID.

Now, I understand if you've never encountered voicemail previously why you might not have made the connection. But for others benefit, that stutter tone instead of a straight dial tone when you first pickup the receiver means you need to check your voicemail.

All comments

jonjones1

Disabling is an option since you don’t need two answering devices.

however you could set your home answering machine to 3 rings or less and it should pick up the call.

i use the voip service voicemail option at 4 rings, and disabled the answering machine on my phones via just turning the device off. Works like a charm.

need_fios_info

This works in an office environment where phone is right next to you. In our house it can take us more than 5 rings just to get to the phone. Call screening would not work very well if the calling party leaves message before we get to the phone.

need_fios_info

The reason for my post is not to debate Verizon voicemail vs. answering machine but as a public service notice to folks who have this upgrade imposed on them, many of whom probably have answering machines on their copper lines.

It's frustrating to have people mad at you for not returning important messages for weeks, then discover that Verizon has decided to answer your calls for you and you were oblivious to it.

jonjones1

Its not really a debate. The issue here we as customers are responsible to check our own voicemail be it through a separate voicemail system on the phone its self or on the free provided verizon phone service.

my mother in law had verizon voicemail and a answering machine on the phone.

she had an alert tone for one, and on the answering machine it was flashing. But being 80 years old it had to be confusing.

i just ported her out to a service that is way cheaper with more features.

of such voice mail alerts via text message, alerts sent to your email with the recording, alerts sent to a fallover phone like her cell and she is very happy now.

and of course a voicemail alert on her phone, and through the web interface to her phone account. Verizon has nothing like it. Ponder that for a moment, more features and its less costs.

lasagna

need_fios_info

So that's what that was! I did notice that the dial tone was making a weird, stuttering for a few seconds when I went off-hook. I was irritated by it, figured I had to live with it, and certainly had no clue that it actually meant something. Figured it was just a bad design of the ONT.

There are no blinking lights on my phone. There are no lights at all. The only phones I have seen with lights are office phones with the row of buttons on the bottom. My phone is not one of these.

How can verizon change customer's phone functionality in such a fundamental way with informing or getting consent? No pamplet? They expect customers who did not have voicemail previously to recognize the interrupted dial tone as voicemail then go Google how to retrieve them? Took me a long time to figure out what was going on, then even longer to get them to change it back.