I recently went overseas for a couple weeks vacation. To avoid the $2/min (?!) roaming fees, and to stay in psychological vacation mode, I avoided replying to voice-mails (and almost all emails). Besides, with the time difference, it would have been very difficult to return calls during North American business hours.
I did periodically check for messages if I found a WiFi on which the 3CXPhone VOIP app on my iPhone was able to successfully make outgoing SIP calls (a lot of public WiFi connections are limited to basic web browsing or throttle a user to too low a speed).
Now, finally getting to today’s topic. I’ve been burned by automatic voice message deletes by Fido. There was at least one voice mail to which I intended to respond when I returned to Vancouver. However, that message has been lost.
Here are the storage rules for the current Fido webpage for “Enhanced” voicemail:
New messages: 10 days from the day you received the message. (After this period, it will be automatically deleted).
Saved messages: 10 days from the day you first saved the message. (After this period, it can’t be saved again).
So… if you leave town for a working week (5 days) plus the two surrounding weekends (2+2 days), you can barely avoid losing a voicemail to the auto-delete if you check as soon as you get home. Isn’t this rather inadequate on Fido’s part? How much storage space do a few voicemails really consume in a world where storage prices have dropped 40% year over year for, well, years?
I hate to say bad things about Fido since I’m on a very good contract with them for my voice and data, and I’m generally satisfied.
There was a time when I considered 3rd party voicemail to save a few dollars per month, but before I could pull the trigger on that, Fido removed free call forwarding from their contract accounts!
The moral of this post? If you use Fido cellphone service, check your voicemail when you travel, and write down the relevant call-return information!
P.S. If you left me a voicemail while I was out of town, and I haven’t responded, the above is the reason why. Fido simply deleted your voicemail to me.
