If you call someone on the Sprint network, you can press 1 to skip the voicemail greeting and get straight to leaving a message. They are even kind enough to tell you this during the extended “instructional” section of the greeting.
The inability to do this with my friends on Cingular has always annoyed me, and since switching to T-Mobile I have the same frustration with the T-Mobile voicemail as well.
After a bit of searching, I found this which claims that the # key is the magic button on these networks (of course, I also found this that claims it isn’t).
So I tried it out1, and here are the results. The magic button for skipping straight to leaving a voicemail message is:
- T-Mobile = #
- Cingular = #
- Sprint = 1
- Verizon2 = 1
Know the “magic button” for another carrier? Add it in the comments.
THANKS! 🙂
Great info! Now, if we only had a way to store voicemails on the phone instead of on the network 🙁
Anything for Verizon?
I *SO* hope one for Verizon turns up here. My best friend has Verizon server and damnit, I don’t ever see myself faxing his cell phone, I just want to leave a simple message.
I often txt him just so if he’s not available I won’t have do deal with his voicemail.
(In case you haven’t recently called a Verizon customer, you usually have to listen to the recording from the person you’re calling which is often followed by a 2 hour explanation by a Verizon auto-attendant of all the “neato” stuff you can do such as sending a fax, page, etc)
Verizon = 1
[…] alexking.org: Blog > Skipping Voicemail Greetings […]
wow. I’ve been needing this information for months but didn’t think to research it. thanks!
Nextel = # (at least in the Atlanta area)
…all of this assumes we know which cell provider our callee uses.
Thank you, this is a service to humanity. I just updated my voice-mail message to say:
“Please leave a message. You may press pound to skip the rest of this at any time.”
[…] Great tip for skipping over voicemail greetings on mobile phones (via): […]
But how do I know which service provider my friend uses?
you rock!!! thanks!
this is information i wish i knew years ago!
[…] blog post more useful, I will disclose first tips for skipping voicemail greetings. According to a couple of websites, one may simply press the appropriate key (varying by carrier) during a voicemail […]
very helpful info. i find it tough to remember in the split instant that the voicemail message plays, but it would be quite helpful to remember this. those messages waste half of my call time.
In case you’re curious, it’s all about the operator and whether they bill you by the minute or not (mobile operators in the US do, most wireline operators today, at least in the US don’t. In some countries it’s illegal for the operator to charge subscribers airtime to retrieve their voicemail, and they need to warn guest callers about billing to give them a chance to hang up before being charged).
Clearly the operator’s interests in this case are misaligned with those of their subscribers and their guest callers – keep in mind that depending on the billing scheme it’s not the subscriber that gets billed, but rather the guest caller that tried to reach them.
Bottom line: if they can bill someone then they’ll drag out the menu a bit to extend the call. Since they round up the call time it doesn’t take much of a delay to make a voicemail call bill out at 2 minutes..
There’s a bit of history behind these different codes. Octel based voicemail systems (now offered by Alcatel-Lucent and Avaya) used “1” to do the greeting bypass, # to skip the greeting and login as a subscriber, * to disconnect. Of course the original ATT/Lucent has a different incompatible sequence (* to skip the greeting, Sprint deployed different systems with a custom voicemail UI. Nextel used a different vendor (and so on).
Unfortunately there’s little financial incentive for most mobile operators to improve any of this. The industry’s still very fragmented on the supplier side as there are very few, very powerful) customers. So don’t expect innovation on the carrier side for voicemail – they make plenty of money with what they have in place, even if you don’t like it.
There are alot of cool services coming out now from outside of the carrier environment (check out SpinVox, Simulscribe and Jott for speech to text, Grand Central for really cool call forwarding and call control, CallWave for visual voicemail widgets…). The speech to text stuff may actually have a shot at being deployed by operators because they believe they can charge extra for it.
If you happen to be on a GSM based network you have options because you can change the forwarding rules for your phone number. For CDMA (especially Verizon in the US), you’re totally out of luck ). Verizon may have a great network but they’re completely locked down – you work with whatever service configuration they give you period.
also check out this pretty amazing post in WikiPedia
http://en.wikipedia.[...]ki/Voicemail
[…] annoyed me when leaving a voicemail for Amanda that I couldn’t skip her gretting. Thanks to this post, which I should have looked up before, I now know that I can press # to skip the greeting. I added […]
thanks
Please consider updating at the top:
http://csharpcomputi[...]s/lookup.jsp
lets you lookup phone providers by number.
Other sites like fonefinder.net function, but if you’ve ported your number from one provider to another, they don’t get the update.
Given you are THE NUMBER ONE RESULT for my customized, FIND THE ANSWER query of
~skip OR ~bypass voicemail greeting at&t verizon sprint press 1,
…maybe you could update ‘Cingular’ to say AT&T.
And also update that dialing ‘1’ asks for a password (AT&T).
For Verizon, get to the password with a ‘#’
For GrandCentral (Level 3?), you can get to the password DURING THE RING portion with a ‘#’
Finally, for GrandCentral, bypass the Voicemail greeting with a ‘1’
Thank you very much!
If they are on Alltel, 1 will enter the calling number as a numeric page. Use 3 to record a voice message.
Verizon = *
I just tested it out myself
how do I know which carrier it is when the intro begins? Keywords please
I have come to the conclusion that there is no correct answer. I just called a Verizon BB Pearl and pushed *, I also called a Verizon BB 8830 and pushed 7 to skip voicemail. I’ve never pushed 1 for Verizon so this article and responses are a little confusing but I have no doubt that somewhere in the country that 1 works for Verizon.
I have Sprint and 1 works for ALL Spring phones since the beginning of Voicemail (that’s about the only good thing Sprint can claim bragging rights for 🙂
I will have to try # for T-Mobile as I was convinced that the annoying voicelady actually paid T-Mobile to make everyone listen to her voice every time.
Verizon is *, not 1
AT&T = 0 (zero)
The problem is that you have to know what carrier the person you are calling has. I don’t keep track of what carrier my friends have.
If anyone’s on Consumer Cellular the # key works to skip the message…