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.
