ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Cellphone Technology Takes A Giant Step BACKWARDS

For the last 8 years I had pager alert on my cellphone voice mail .How it worked is when a voice mail was left it would automaticaly alert my pager. It was automatic it worked grate no buttons to press a technological marvel.Now that I am being forced to upgrade my cell service my provider tells me that it is no longered offered or needed . They did not ask me. Where I work and there are places so loud that you cant hear the cell phone or the pager . There are places in my state that cell phones dont work. What amazes me is that you would think with all the bells and whistles on cellphones these days you would think they could put pager alert on cellular voice mail.This WAS a grate system because to reach me if you called the house it would forward to the cell phone and then on to the voice mail an a aleret was sent to the pager or call the cell and it to was forwarded. NO one needed to know my pager number. I did check with all the national providers in my area with no success.

Do the same thing with a cell phone.

I too used to have pager alerts from all my different numbers, and like the privacy that an unknown number can provide. The thing is that if you give out that number once people will pass it out for you, and when people ask for your cell number they get offended that you wont give it to them. If they even see you with a phone they want the number. So what you do, is only give out an office number that has voicemail that alerts the cell via text alert- they still have those. The problem is people dial a number and want you to pick up like they were the only people on the planet - and you are dying to talk to them....

You could also look into "Auto attendant" and "Virtual PBX" sending people who dont know the way through the labrinth to the neither world. "To page this person press one NOW, to tell this person to jump off a bridge press two NOW, this message will self-destruct in three seconds, Thank You Good-bye..." If they press one or two a large expolsion goes off....

I'm probably the only guy on the planet who doesn't carry a cell phone. I have a bag phone hardwired in my car.

I remember them bag phones! they had vacuum tubes in them did they not??
Seriously , I do not have a cellphone either, If someone has to get a hold of me at work, they CALL WORK.. The secretary can get me on the 2-way if its an emergency.. Other than that I don't want to be " found" or disturbed, at work, home or anywhere..

A.D

Gfretwell Here in West Virginia there is one cellphone co that still supports bagphones. The coal mining industry still uses bagphones because they are more powerful and some of the mines are beyond noware.I just happened to find that out by accident in researching my cellphone issues.

I have Alltel here. I suspect any of the "old" companies support them if you have them already but I sure bet they wish I would die (or my phone would). I am just sorry I didn't get this one cloned into one of the two or three other baggers I have laying around here so I could have one in my boat. I will never have both on at the same time. Several years ago everyone knew how to do that. Now it is a lost art. For my usage I can't beat the rate. It is $15 a month and a lot for minutes but I don't use any minutes. With a decent antenna these things do really get out (3 watts vs a half watt for a flip phone)

Are you sure you are asking the question correctly to the cell provider? I have found lately that they use these off-shore tech centers who read answers from a chart, and if you are asking the question in the wrong way, they are incapable of interpretation or extrapolation.

I used to have the exact setup you described. Now I have my cell phone set up exactly as you want it. If I don't answer, it goes to VM, then I get an alert on the cell phone that tells me I have a VM waiting for me. I can program that alert to be either a different ring tone or vibrate or both. If I am out of range when the VM comes in, it waits until I get back in range and tells me how many are waiting to be heard. Even if I turn the phone off and back on, it still tells me. The only thing that resets the alert is when I call the VM number and retrieve them.

I tossed my pager when I went to this system, it works better than the pager ever did becuase the pager would not know that I hadn't retrieved my VMs yet.

You're just now noticing this?

Heck, cell phones have steadily become worthless pieces of dog doodie since it has become "hip" to have your camera/Video Recorder/MP3 player/day planner/dog walker/back scratcher/microwave oven/photo album, etc. in your cell phone!!

Whatever happened to the idea of making a blasted PHONE that actually works more than 50% of the time?! All the extra junk takes away from the battery power and performance of the phone itself!

The providers brag about how great thier networks are, but the best network won't make up for a junk phone!

O.K., I feel better now. Calm soothing place....

I am a former AT&T Wireless customer now Cingular. I have talked to Cimgular locally and they say that it pager alert is not offered anymore. I also talked to Nextel & Sprint .We do not have Verizon in most of WV.

Shoot Greg, I figured you would have had some home brewed blackberry with fine wood veneer with you.

I had a 'transportable' phone in 90-91 it was the best at the time. It did have the higher output power...as it should It was the size of the Yellow pages in mobile mode and weighed as much.