Voicemail records when caller hangs up during greeting

[kjennings]

With most voicemail or answering machines, if someone hangs up while the greeting is playing, the recording does not activate. Since installing the ooma device, the recording still occurs for 30-45 seconds after the caller hangs up while the greeting is still playing. Because of that, it is recording the annoying sounds as if the reciever was left off the hook (constant beeping).
Does anyone else experience this? Is there some setting I have missed that can prevent this from occurring?
Thanks!

[kjennings]

With the lack of response, I'll assume that others don't care or haven't run into the same issue. Just to close out the thread...

I spoke with support today. They said this is a known issue with landline users. I'm porting over to become a broadband-only user, but currently I still have landline. This occurs in a limited number of boxes. Engineering is working on the issue, but it won't be available for a few weeks. Since I'm porting, it won't be an issue to me for long, but I thought I would add this info in case others experience it too.

[Dennis P]

Thanks for following-up. I have experienced this myself on occasion and the problem arises because of interfacing with the landline without a digital signaling channel. If you get a lot of hang-ups (telemarketers and others who don't leave messages), you may experience this more often.

If you transfer your landline number and go pure VoIP, this problem should go away. We are also looking into ways we can tune the voicemail server to better detect when there is no one else on the line anymore.

[Konnerth]

This is a big problem for me, as I have a landline and am 'under the gun' from several telemarketers who call often. This is my biggest complaint about ooma now; the phone service is great but this inability to detect dial tone is a hassle (and a waste of ooma disk space!).

Not only does ooma not detect the dial tone when the caller hangs up, but ooma keeps the line open for about 45 seconds. So I get the phone company's recorded message "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up...", and then the off hook alert tones.

Please let me know if I can help in resolving this. I have two of these saved in my inbox right now.

---Karl

[skellener]

This is a big problem for me, as I have a landline and am 'under the gun' from several telemarketers who call often.

Sign up here:

National Do Not Call Registry
https://www.donotcall.gov

[Dennis P]

After discussing this problem with a couple engineers, we came up with something you could try. Experiment with slightly different Ring No Answer timeouts. If you have chosen a RNA timeout which is a multiple of 6, try increasing it by 1 or 2. If you are using the default value of 24, you can try increasing it to 25 or 26. In general, try a RNA timeout of (6n+1) or (6n+2).

A ring cycle is 6 seconds (ring on for two seconds, ring off for four seconds). The goal is to the have voicemail answer the call in the middle of the ring on period so we maximize the likelihood that the caller is still present on the other side of the call. The problem of voicemail recording dialtone and the "If you'd like to place a call" message is due to the caller hanging up just before voicemail picks up the call. Another approach would be to try and shorten the RNA timeout (if you have it set to 30 or above).

[Konnerth]

I will give this a try. As a matter of fact, the problem got a lot worse after I changed the RNA setting recently to add a few more seconds before ooma picked up. It was the default, and now it's 30 seconds (5 rings). I'll set it to 25.

And thanks for the Do Not Call registry, but we're on that list. These are apparently charities that we have helped in the past that won't take no for an answer.

Thanks!

---Karl

[Konnerth]

So far, 25 seems to have the same result. I'll try 26 seconds now.

---Karl

[Konnerth]

Still no noticeable improvement (at 25, 26 or 30 seconds). I still get these messages where ooma doesn't hang up, all the way to the phone company off hook error message. Can't ooma just detect the dial tone sound, hang up and delete the message?

Alternately, isn't there an automated answering machine alert tone that you can play during the greeting that alerts automated calling machines?

I saw in another message that you don't have much control over the voice mail software, but hope you can fix this at some point.

Thanks,

---Karl

[kjennings]

Just as a final follow-up from my initial post... After porting my number and removing landline completely, I have not had any issues with the voicemail. Now, I only receive actual voicemail messages.