Voicemail Sounds Weird

Very aggressive compression algorithm? WHAT??? Can you please elaborate for the not so edumicated, lol?

Thanks

Do you want fast delivery of VMs or high quality?

VVM is basically an MP3 that's been emailed to you, so its being compressed a lot to make the file small. Before you say you want high quality, can you imagine a 1 minute+ VM delivered over edge?

Sorry bout the big words, I'll talk slower. 😉

Basically, they take the voicemail and turn it into an MP3. Instead of using some good compression like 192k, 160k, or even 128k (what most MP3s are compressed at), it sounds like it's using a 32k compression, which is basically less than radio quality. They do this so that it can be downloaded onto the iPhone as quickly as possible, plus, since it's spoken word (most of the time), the quality really doesn't matter.

The more compression that is used, the worse the quality is of the output, and that's why you might hear some weird stuff. I personally don't hear a buzz, but you might want to go to an Apple Store and compare your phone to one they have there.

This is an edumacated guess, but AT&T (or any carrier for that matter) will attempt to whittle down your minutes as much as they can. You shouldn't be charged for airtime when using Visual VM because it is using data to transfer the VM to your phone, where it lives until you delete it. You can listen to it as many times as you want since it's on your phone...you can even listen to it when in airplane mode or out of signal. The only time you should get charged for minutes is when you actually call the interactive VM system (the one where you type in commands) from your cell phone.

There was a discussion on here a while ago where someone claimed that AT&T was charging you minutes when someone left a VM, but that turned out to be bunk.

No you won't be charged minutes for listening to your visual voicemail multiple times. You can listen to messages that have been downloaded to your phone even when you have the phone in "airplane mode" (i.e. the phone part is off).

I find the audio quality on the Visual Voicemail to be unacceptable. I am an Audiologist with excellent hearing and I work with digital hearing aids. The sound on the iPhone overall (other than the earbuds) has been a disappointment (which has been sent to the Feedback page and discussed in other posts -- I digress).

I know that I will be charged minutes for checking my voicemail via the traditional method, but will I at least be able to understand what the caller is saying? In other words, will the recording stored in the VoiceMail system be that same unintelligible gobbledygook, or will I actually be able to recognize voices and understand the words?

I read this on another thread and don't have a link [sorry, I've read a bunch of threads over the past three weeks 😉 ]

You are charged minutes retrieving the VVM. Once it's on the iPhone, you can listen to your heart's content at no extra cost.

[with my previous phone (Treo & Verizon) you would be charged minutes (& roaming if applicable) for retrieving voice mail. AT&T is no different]

Noticed it too. I think they are "digitizing" the messages. And have you noticed it also takes about a minute from the time someone leaves a message to the time your phone says it has new voicemail?

I have noticed the "zzzzzzzzzz" digital sound, but havent had any dificulty understanding messages left.

And as far as message alerts, I receive these alerts within seconds.

They are using a very aggressive compression algorithm on the voicemail which is why the quality is not that great. I don't notice a buzz or hum, but some might notice it more than I.

when lookin at plans for iphones, visual voicemail is under the data plan so im pretty sure it shouldnt use minutes.