Visual Voicemail in the UK
When the iPhone was originally launched in the UK in 2007, it launched on a single mobile network called O2. The other networks which at the time were Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone did not officially support the iPhone.
At the time the iPhone launched, one of the brand new features it included was a function called 'Visual Voicemail'. All other mobile phones used ye olde voicemail which required you to dial a number to access your voicemail, enter a PIN, type a number to access menu choices and listen in full to voicemails in the order they were recorded. (Ugh!)
O2 did from day 1 include support for this new feature. In the USA the networks that sold the iPhone at launch all supported Visual Voicemail.
Later Orange and T-Mobile in the UK merged to form EE and they along with Three and Vodafone did sell the iPhone. However whilst EE supported Visual Voicemail, Three and Vodafone UK did not!
At some point Three and Vodafone did offer their own apps which acted as a poor mans Visual Voicemail and this approach was also the initial Android solution.
For the benefit of everyone Apple have for many years and still do provide the following webpage which lists the capabilities of all mobile networks including the UK.
Wireless network provider support and features for iPhone in Europe – Apple Support (UK)
Whilst there is some cost to the networks to operate the required servers to support Visual Voicemail, anyone who has used it knows it is vastly superior to ye olde voicemail. It has therefore discouraged potential customers i.e. lost sales to networks who fail to provide it.
Recently British Telecom bought EE and moved their BT customers to run over the EE network, they stupidly however initially did not support Visual Voicemail for BT customers. BT claim they now do. Vodafone did offer Visual Voicemail in Portugal and Germany but not the UK, they also now claim to support Visual Voicemail in the UK.
I have recently had the opportunity to see so-called Visual Voicemail on Three and Vodafone connected iPhones. In both cases they did not use a separate app any more and it mostly looks like the full genuine Visual Voicemail I am familiar with from O2. It even supports the new voicemail transcription feature Apple added. However I did notice that in the top-right corner of the Voicemail screen is a 'call' button and it does have the voicemails downloaded to the iPhone. This seems to be as a result of an unpublicised iOS 18 change. Both Three and Vodafone UK are using this new feature.
However…
As mentioned this shows a 'call' button in the top right corner, on Three at least, there was also an additional message about the Three network. I therefore am getting the impression this is not the exact samething as the original Visual Voicemail. Whilst 99% of the features all seem to be there including as mentioned transcription I am concerned it is merely a skin to ye olde voicemail and underneath the iPhone is still invisibly using this old voicemail - meaning it is invisibly dialling the old system and on the iPhone digitising the analogue recording and saving to the iPhone. This could mean that if you are roaming abroad it has to make a mobile phone call and not use 'free' WiFi data to retrieve your voicemail messages.
The muppets working in Three or Vodafone stores or phone support lines will have no idea of what is happening behind the scenes.
For what its worth here is Vodafone UK's article.
https://www.vodafone.co.uk/mobile/visual-voicemail
Remember, the Apple KB article still says Three and Vodafone do not support Visual Voicemail.
Can anyone more familiar with Three and Vodafone UK shed some light on this?
