Visual Voicemail
Hi guys, after two tiring days of fruitless communication with the customer support, I decided to ask my question here.
I have been using the Fizz most basic plan for 6 years, which does not include mobile Internet, only calls, SMS and voicemail.
About a year ago, I noticed that the familiar Visual Voicemail stopped displaying and now I decided to restore it.
The support service, transferring me from one agent to another, asked me to restart the phone, reset the network settings, to check my SIM card with another phone and etc.
In the end, they advised me to download some application that I couldn't find.
My question is - how can I get back the visual voicemail? I hope at least someone knowledgeable will come across here.
Best Answer
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Good morning
Thanks for the question as it lead me to some very interesting reading about the history and technical aspects of visual voice mail!
Visual voice mail systems are said to be a complicated system of hardware and software.
Visual voice mail was first introduced (but not invented) by Apple on the release of their iPhone product in 2007 which used 2G/Edge for data.
From what I can tell, visual voicemail mail has always required data to work.
My best guess here is that Fizz previously had their network set up to permit customers with visual voicemail mail but no data plan to use the feature even though they didn’t have a data plan. It just used data in the background without the requirement for a data “plan” to be part of the plan.
Somewhere along the line, that changed, so now a data plan must be in place in order for visual voice mail to work. (as noted in the Fizz FAQ.)
I hope this helps understand why it used to work and no longer does.
Cheers,
Brad1
Answers
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Hi @Michael P. 18848
What phone are you using?
Is your phone updated?
Android phones need to have the app downloaded from the store, your store configuration must be for Canada and your phone must have a recent update
The iPhone use the one from the iOSGive us a bit more informations
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If I understand it correctly, the Visual voicemail is working with mobile data. Taking into account that you don't have a data plan, this is probably the root cause.
PS.
Not sure how it was working previously.1 -
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Check your Fizz Rewards Upgrades. Usually, everyone gets a 250 MB data upgrade, just for joining Fizz. Aka, Fizz Rewards Level 1. So, no Fizz account is truly without data, unless you have multiple plans in one account.
Also, to find the app in the Play Store, you have to have a Google account either registered to Canada or not registered to any country at all. In the latter case, your Internet address needs to geolocate in Canada to get access to the Canada-only store apps. The app is called Fizz | Visual voicemail.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.streamwide.fizz.vvm
In your Play Store app, check Settings -> General -> Account and device perferences -> Country and profiles. It has to say either "Canada" or have a single entry of "Switch to Canada" without listing any other country.
There are some comments that the app can be used or at least initialized only on mobile data, not on WiFi. That's most likely so Fizz can identify and authenticate you and give you access to the right voicemail account.
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Thank everybody for attention and replies, appreciated.
1. I never had data in my plan.
2. here some info from my conversation with one of the customer service agents:
Can you make calls?
Yes.
Can you send or receive messages?
Yes.Can you use your mobile data?
My contract has no data.
Have you tested the SIM card on another phone?
Just finished checking with my old Iphone 8. It allows me to rewrite a gritting after about a minute showing the circulated star on the right side of the screen, but I still can't see my messages on the voicemail page.
Tell me which phone model you use.
Iphone 13 mini IOS 18.6.2
Have you restarted your device to see if the issue persists?
Yes, no resultI also did reset network settings.
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If voice messages are displayed on the page in the phone only due to the data , then my question can be considered closed. It is not clear how this worked before.
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@Michael P. 18848 said:
If voice messages are displayed on the page in the phone only due to the data , then my question can be considered closed. It is not clear how this worked before.
Activate the free perks and force the app to use the mobile data, you can find in the app section on the iPhone preferences
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Hello @Michael P. 18848,
Thanks for contacting us.
Verifying your account, your mobile plan does not include mobile data. Your mobile plan must include the Voicemail option, as well as data to be able to use the Visual voicemail option.
You can check this information on our FAQ:https://fizz.ca/en/faq/whats-visual-voicemail-and-how-does-it-work
If it worked before, it must be because of a glitch of the system.
We appreciate your cooperation.
Have a great day!
-Simona, Community Moderator.0
