Increase iPhone's Ring Time before It goes to Voice Mail

From my research prior to being made redundant from Telstra (yippee) last year I found that carriers set the ring time to be short so that it goes to message bank earlier. This is deliberate in order to
a) cause the calling party to incur charges by leave a message (should they do so). ie, the call is always answered.
b) to cause the called party to have to interrogate their messages (at a cost) and then if they want to talk to that person who called they then call them back (at a cost).

So rather than the called party being able to get to the phone within 30 seconds, they miss the call. The upshot. 3 series of charges where there may have only been one had the called party been able to get the call in time.

For Telstra the string to extend the call time is:
' *61*101*30# <send> to set diversion to message bank and 30 seconds before diversion
' *61*+61418707111*30# <send> to set diversion to free SMS when call missed.
(ignore the single quotes. I had to use that because the first asterisk was being interpreted as meaning bold).

Chris

Message was edited by: 2point5

Here's how to do it with ATT:

http://www.appleiphonereview.com/iphone-tutorials/how-to-make-your-iphone-ring-l onger-iphone-q-a/

The only time you use minutes on your cell phone is when you make a phone call and it "connects" (either goes to voicemail or the person answers) or someone calls you and you answer. You use absolutely NO minutes when people call you, you don't answer and then it goes to voicemail.

Jeffrey Ellis wrote:
[Change Ring Time| http://www.appleiphonereview.com/iphone-tutorials/how-to-make-your-iphone-ring-l onger-iphone-q-a >

Worked for me with my 3g s. Maybe I'll answer more calls now before going to Voice Mail.

Thanks