Verizon wireless users, anyone know if this is possible?

[dumpy]

Can you turn off not just voicemail, but the other message that plays (w/ voicemail off) if you don't answer or are out of range? Basically I just want my phone to ring, ring, ring and never stop.

Reason being, @ work my landline and cell ring simultaneously. After a certain number of rings, calls bounce to one of my colleague's landlines, who will then either assist if they can or find a way to hunt me down. Most of my calls are in "emergency" situations, so it's important that the caller talk to someone.

This would all work great, except I am typically in the basement of a very large brick building with thick floors and a fair amount of marble and metal. Verizon has the best service of any carrier (hence why I have it), but there are a lot of dead zones.
If I'm in a dead zone, whomever is calling gets kicked right to voicemail and I typically don't get the message until much later. It's pissing a lot of people off.

We've tried using network extenders, but they didn't really work. Too much other traffic, not enough range and issues with getting the required (for 911) GPS signal.

[fez]

my wife is a cs rep with verizon, i'll ask her and let you know. she may want to know what model phone you have.

[dumpy]

my wife is a cs rep with verizon, i'll ask her and let you know. she may want to know what model phone you have.

Sweet, thanks man. It's a Samsung SCH-U640/


We are so desperate that now we are even looking at convoluted set up using Google Voice and a WiFi Skype phone (all of the places I don't have cell service, I've got rock solid WiFi)

[fez]

my wife says

The answer is no. They could forward the # to a landline w/o vm. But as for the vzw cell, nope. Sorry.


But you could look at google voice and have it forward to any number of phones that would all ring (i think, i use google voice but only have one phone). so if your coworkers know you are out of cell service they could pick up?

[DoWork]

my wife says

The answer is no.

Wow, she really DOES work for Verizon!

[Todds]

my friend reassigned his cell phone number to google voice and lets google route it to home, work, etc... landlines. I don't know if google voice will do the ring, ring, ring thing.

[dumpy]

Well, since we can't make Verizon go into eternal ring mode, here is what we are hopefully doing, just tested it and it seems to work.

My landline and Google Voice will ring at the same time

Google voice will ring to my cell and an as of yet undetermined device (most likely ipod touch) running Skype w/ an external
number (Wifi coverage is essentially 100% in my building)
Google Voice appears to be smarter than my employer's phone system and can differentiate between Verizon voicemail and someone answering. If voicemail kicks in, it will continue to ring my Skype device

After the set number of rings (IIRC 6), if I do not answer, the call will forward via our phone system to my colleagues who are actually in another building and often don't know if I'm getting service or not.

[fez]

Wow, she really DOES work for Verizon!

nah, if she said 'sure you can do that if you upgrade to this plan and buy this accessory and extend your contract two more years' then later tell you it won't work, that would be a typical verizon answer.

[jgb@etree]

You can't change the number of rings before it goes to voicemail (anymore), but if you'd like the calls to go somwhere else (besides your VZ voicemail) you can use *71+[forwarding #]. You can cancel it with *72. The feature is called conditional call forwarding.

[jgb@etree]

Another possibility (test it first) is to temporarily shut off voicemail with *78 (*780 re-enables). Haven't used the feature in years, so I don't know if it still works.

[dumpy]

You can't change the number of rings before it goes to voicemail (anymore), but if you'd like the calls to go somwhere else (besides your VZ voicemail) you can use *71+[forwarding #]. You can cancel it with *72. The feature is called conditional call forwarding.

Not doing it on my cell, even if I could do that, it wouldn't work as the problem is created when I don't have service and Verizon sends it right to voicemail.

I'm talking about our internal phone system, which has two different forwarding systems. One rings cell phones in unison with the landline that was dialed, this is what will be dialing Google Voice. The other waits for a set number of rings, which can be changed and then forwards the call to another landline on our system.

I'm pretty sure when you don't have voicemail, a generic message is played. I either need to be reached our have it ring long enough to bounce to another number. It's only tricky because I'm often without service.

I actually made a flow chart of my solution to explain it to some coworkers, maybe I'll take a screen shot and put it on here. It's a total Rube Goldberg set up, but it should work.

[jgb@etree]

I understand - what I was thinking was that you'd *71[coworkers#]your cellphone. If you're in a dead area (ie not at your desk) and someone calls, instead of sending the call to voicemail, it will send it to your coworkers desk, which ultimately would have been the destination for the call if you're unavailable (which you are, because you are in a dead zone).

Sounds like a logical plan w/ Google Voice, although I tried screwing around with it a few months ago and stopped because of the way it handled voicemail. I had it configured to ALWAYS go to a non-Google Voice voicemail, but every now and then a call would go into the GV voicemail.

Since you've got solid WiFi coverage (if having calls goto voicemail as long as you respond quickly is an option) you could also configure the voicemail system to send you an email with the voicemail attached. If your phone system is modern (or old & quality) enough to be able to ring an internal & external port simultaneously, the voicemail system is likely capable of unified messaging as well. What kind of phone & voicemail system do you use?

[cascadianwarrior]

I'd love to see that diagram