Tuesday, March 31, 2009

New Life for Voice Mail Numbers

Those secret "back door' voice mail numbers are taking on a new popularity. For years, many of the numbers were being retired, and re-assigned to unsuspecting new customers. Lately, we have been making additons to the list instead of deletions. Part of the attraction of these numbers was that they also qualified as "mobile to mobile" numbers which were a free call to subscribers with the proper plan.

The new life being experienced with the numbers came with the advent of the "My Circle", "My Favs" and now Verizon's new "Friends and Family" plans. Users are adding their local voice mail number to their group of free calls, and can leave messages for their co-carrier friends without charge, even if they no longer qualify as Mobile to Mobile calls.

This also hints of the possibilities with those who have Grand Central, Google Voice or similar forwarding services. The carriers are keeping these plans under control by giving them a premium price, but with clever use of these and the "back door" numbers, we'll find a way to approach Unlimited calling whether the carriers offer it or not. Yay.

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