Voicemails delayed on iPhone

I am also having the same exact issue. I’m using an iPhone 13 Pro Max with the current iOS 17.3. All other settings and updates are installed. I am running on AT&T. This started around iOS 17.2 for me. The call will come in and then a voicemail will show up randomly. It could show up right away as it is supposed to (while transcribing and allowing me to answer if I choose) or it may show up hours or even days later. I have tried everything up to resetting the entire phone. I’ve spent hours on the phone with AT&T to get nowhere. This has to be an issue with the iOS. The blame trying to be placed on the carriers with ALL of the carriers having the exact same issue, leads me to believe this is a problem in the iOS. I’m reading threads going back a few years about people having this problem and no fixes have come for it yet.

Just got home from flight where I had just left my 86 yo father who was recently hospitalized. When I arrived home I checked and no texts or messages. Next AM I called and he was again hospitalized. He said he had called and left VM. I see where he called but i was flying but no Voice mails. Now - a full 16 hours later they are showing up. (Two separate vms). This is after restarting phone earlier today. Dangerous - when so reliant on timely messaging.

I've had a mobile phone, in many formats over more than 30 years, with multiple vendors, telcos and in different countries. One thing is for sure, voicemail delivery has only got a lot worse over the last ten years. I am currently using an iPhone 12 on the Telstra network in Australia and frequently go through periods where voicemail delivery is near instantaneous and periods where it can take several days for delivery.

As with all asynchronous message delivery systems, there are multiple different points of failure that can cause messages to be delayed and even lost. I imagine the majority of these message delay issues are going to be related to message queueing and delivery retry issues in the infrastructure of the telcos, combined with message handling failures in the design of the underlying voicemail delivery technologies. But, the depths of these underlying systems are beyond my ken. Perhaps there might be a telco messaging boffin on here who could be kind enough to elucidate on this for us?

However, there is clearly a more fundamental, non-technical, issue at play here; with the way in which both telcos and the hardware/software vendors (Apple, Google and all the rest) have let the handling of voicemails stagnate and start to smell a bit rotten. We are obviously able to handle real or near real-time messaging systems that handle multimedia these days, in the form of the many messaging apps out there. With all the other messaging technologies competing and winning over voice calls and voicemails we are, no doubt, witnessing a period of pain that will either be a prelude to a major paradigm shift in voicemail handling or the death of telco based voicemail all together. Either way, this has and will continue to be a painful transition for some time to come.

I've had a mobile phone, in many formats over more than 30 years, with multiple vendors, telcos and in different countries. One thing is for sure, voicemail delivery has only got a lot worse over the last ten years. I am currently using an iPhone 12 on the Telstra network in Australia and frequently go through periods where voicemail delivery is near instantaneous and periods where it can take several days for delivery.

As with all asynchronous message delivery systems, there are multiple different points of failure that can cause messages to be delayed and even lost. I imagine the majority of these message delay issues are going to be related to message queueing and delivery retry issues in the infrastructure of the telcos, combined with message handling failures in the design of the underlying voicemail delivery technologies. But, the depths of these underlying systems are beyond my ken. Perhaps there might be a telco messaging boffin on here who could be kind enough to elucidate on this for us?

However, there is clearly a more fundamental, non-technical, issue at play here; with the way in which both telcos and the hardware/software vendors (Apple, Google and all the rest) have let the handling of voicemails stagnate and start to smell a bit rotten. We are obviously able to handle real or near real-time messaging systems that handle multimedia these days, in the form of the many messaging apps out there. With all the other messaging technologies competing and winning over telco based voice calls and voicemails we are, no doubt, witnessing a period of pain that will either be a prelude to a major paradigm shift in telco voice handling or the death of telco based voice handling all together. Either way, this has and will continue to be a painful transition for some time to come.

One thing is for sure, we seem to have been subject to these issues for long enough. It's time for the industry to get this resolved.

I am starting to think about how much missing the more valuable voicemails is costing my business, in terms of reputational damage. Large enterprises must be blissfully unaware of the damage this could be causing them.

People have reset network settings and deleted old voicemails a plenty, including me. Only for the issue to happen again.

It is more likely that the back end systems issue that was causing the delays has been cleared and it is only a matter of time before the delays start happening again, when the same back end issue start again.

I have the same problem and I'm on Consumer Cellular (which uses the AT&T network). Voicemails can take up to two days to appear. Quite irritating. So, consider the forum flooded.

I am wondering if it's related to some push notification settings on the iPhone, since as you point out, it uses an internet connection. (I have a reliable home internet connection and I work from home. So it's not lack of connectivity.)

I have my own opinions of Consumer Cellular and they are not positive. The big carriers can certainly be difficult but, generally, they do seem to know what they're doing.

Sorry I have no better suggestions (other than to switch carriers).

forum83 wrote:

I am on Verizon not a MVNO. So unfortunately that is not the reason. This issue has been reported on every major carrier in the US.

With all the millions of people who have cell phones, I'd be surprised if it wasn't reported on every carrier. Unfortunately, that doesn't tell us anything. Delayed notifications can be caused by many different things. It's like saying, "I have a fever." That doesn't tell you much about what is making me feel ill.

I have AT&T and my voicemails are ALWAYS delayed, sometimes by as much as several hours. I just now received a VM at 5:30 pm that was left at 1:00. Running iOS 17 on iPhone 15 pro, but I’ve had the issue as far back as iPhone 11. If it’s not a bug in the OS, I’ll eat my hat. Otherwise all carriers s**k and need to get with the program.

I’ve been having the same issue on T-Mobile for a few years now. I 100% know I have some voicemails that will show up in a few days. It is incredibly annoying. I’m also struggling to believe that it is the carrier since in this thread I saw issues (at least) with Verizon and AT&T as well as my carrier.

It’s happening to me. I have AT&T. I’m on an IPhone 13 Pro Max. Version 17.0.3

It may be happening when voicemail messages are coming in when I’m on airplane mode. Messages are showing up several days late.