Travelling to Cuba/Calls to voicemail

[SimonWilding]

Hi,

I am flying to Cuba on Thursday and this isn't one of the countrys covered by VFs new roaming tariffs, as such I will be charged £2.00pm for making a call and £1.50pm for receiving one. My question is if someone calls me and I let the call ring out until it goes to voicemail does this count as receiving a call or is only if I answer the call am I charged?

Cheers

[AnnS]

Hi @SimonWilding

If you leave your voicemail turned on when you are abroad, any missed calls you receive will be diverted to your voicemail.  With your voicemail service being located in the UK, this will generate an international call back to the UK and incur a roaming charge for the diverted part of the call.

To avoid any unexpected charges, and if you do not need voicemail whilst you are away, it is advisable to turn off voicemail.  You can find how this can be done from the link below.  You can also dial ##002# followed by call to turn off all diverts.

Voicemail Support

[Alex]

Thanks for the advice @AnnS :smileyhappy:

@SimonWilding Cuba is a lovely place, I've been on holiday there three times in the past and really enjoyed myself!

I hope you have a great time. :smileytongue:

[gb22]

"If you leave your voicemail turned on when you are abroad, any missed calls you receive will be diverted to your voicemail.  With your voicemail service being located in the UK, this will generate an international call back to the UK and incur a roaming charge for the diverted part of the call."

I have come accross a similar claim by EE, in fact I recall T-Mobile used to try to bill you twice (once for the outgoing channel and once for the return channel to VM).

In reality I do not believe what you describe actually happens. The call rings out (or encounters busy) and clears back to your local network with cause 19 (for no answer) or 17 (user busy). Your local network then enacts which ever diverts are in place, in this case to voicemail.

The outgoing channel to Cuba is NEVER opened (hence not billed to Vodafone by the terminating carrier), let alone another channel being seized to return the call to the UK. In effect this is no different to a call that you dont answer whilst roaming from the perspective of Vodafone, yet they appear to try to bill you for it if you have a divert to VM in place.

[donnyguy]

I don't know enough about how calls being diverted to roaming network then being diverted back to a UK based voicemail works. 

All I do know is all networks used to charge for the call hitting voicemail even within the European Union. I remember a few years ago this charge was removed for intra EU roaming but still exists if you roam outside the EU.

AnnS has given the best advice here, deactivate your voicemail. That way if someone does call you, it'll just ring and ring and ring till they hang up or you pick up. 

Either way, you're in control.

[gb22]

I'm not disputing the advice and as you say its important the OP and others take it on board.. Given charges are punitive and uncontrollable it's clearly advisable to deactivate voicemail.

I'm simply disputing the reasoning given. Having worked in the industry on the switching side I have a decent grasp of how it works in practice. I recall colleagues at TMO were surprised the network made that claim at the time.

Also it's not true all networks have charged for calls diverted to VM whilst roaming. All networks have charged for calls made to retrieve voicemail, perhaps thats where the confusion arises. That is understandable as a billable call has been made on the roaming partners network. Only some networks charge for diverts to voicemail, as in reality there's no difference (wrt what happens on the roaming partners network) to an unanswered call that doesnt divert to voicemail.

The following article for example highlights which networks used to charge for calls diverted to voicemail at the time such charges were banned withing the EEA: 

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/phones/2015/01/travelling-outside-europe-you-could-incur-hefty...

[SimonWilding]

Thanks for your replies all. I deactivated my voicemail before I flew out but when I did turn my phone on to send a text while I was there I could not connect to the preferred (only) network anyway. Turns out I did not have worldwide roaming on anyway!