The calloer should be able to decide whether to leave a voice message or not

One of the best things ICASA can do for the consumer, is to insist that the caller decides on whether he wants to leave a voice message or not.

If the caller ends the call before the beep, it is clear that he did not want to leave a message and should thus not be charged for it. If he carries on past the beep, then he can be charged normal call charges.

With the current chaos in trying to call MTN numbers, they more often than not put me through to the voicemail when I know that the contact on the other side is not busy on the phone. Thus I have to pay for a service i had no intention of using.

So, let us insist that it is the callers right to decide whether he wants to leave a voicemail message or not. After all he is the person paying for the call. It will also do away with the nilly willy activation of voicemail in Telkom.

One of the best suggestions I have heard in ages.

+1

VoiceMail the Networks CASH COW !

Good day,

I wish to raise a complaint against MTN & Vodacom's abuse of the numbering range allocated to them by ICASA.

I would like to bring to your attention the reason MTN & Vodacom consistently seek new number ranges from the Regulator.

Currently the following number ranges are in use :

Vodacom :

082 000 0000
072 000 0000
076 000 0000
077 000 0000
079 000 0000
071 000 0000

MTN :

083 000 0000
073 000 0000
078 000 0000

Cell-C:

084 000 0000
074 000 0000

Each Number range has the ability to carry almost 10 million numbers. With the current estimated active subscriber numbers being issued by the mobile phone networks,

Vodacom - 25 million
MTN - 15 million
Cell - C - 5 million

That would give us a total of around 45 million mobile phone users in this country. Why would we need almost more than double the number of numbers in circulation, 110 million numbers. Well I concluded that since MTN & Vodacom activate Voicemail by default on all their new sim packs this is a revenue generating service for the mobile phone networks. ICASA needs to stop issuing number ranges to either of the mobile phone networks and encourage the recyclying of numbers that are not active over their respective networks and also declare that all mobile phone sims sold be defaulted without Voicemail and Voicemail should be a service requested for. Under current market conditions if a call is made to a mobile number and the number is out of coverage or the mobile phone turned off, the calling party is billed for the full minute without reaching the person in question. While Voicemail is a handy service to have not many people actually return calls or actually listen to them. In most countries throughout the world Voicemail is a charged for Service, yet in South Africa it is supposedly for FREE. Ironically this is not free at all. The Calling party normally foots the bill for this service. The number range is a scarce resource and should be issued wisely and should not be issued for Revenue Generation. Assumingly Vodacom has about 10 million numbers issued and that are not in use and lets say for argument sake that one call is made per month to every numberand it diverts to Voicemail. 10 million calls mulitplied by R3 = R30 million Rands per month incoming revenue. This equates to R360 million per annum for FREE to the Network. This sort of practice must be stopped now. New Network operators that will be entering the market soon will be limited to number ranges and this will force ICASA to Create a whole new Band of numbers for no apparent reason. The blind eyed approach by ICASA to issue number ranges to the mobile phone operators needs to be stopped. The recycling of numbers needs to start now. ICASA needs to mandate that Voicemail to be a Requested for Service by the customer. The poor are being abused financially by the network operators sly business tactics.


Kind Regards

DxL - mobile

Aren't number ranges pretty useless now that we have number portability?

DXL : as much as part of your posts make sense..

You're starting to sound a bit like a broken record, the number ranges thing has been dealt with previously.... drop it now.