MessageBank® Plus – a new way to dial up voicemail on Apple iPhone
Filed under: consumer, iphone, iPhone 4, lifestyle, MessageBank Plus, mobile phone
From today, customers with a compatible Apple® iPhone™ on a Telstra mobile plan can access a new and convenient way to manage their voicemail. It’s called MessageBank Plus and it allows you to quickly access the voice messages that matter to you most.
Here’s how it works. By linking up with the iPhone’s voicemail interface, MessageBank plus serves up all of your voice messages (in date order) as a list on your phone. To play back a message, you can simply browse through your list of voicemail and tap on the item you’d like to hear. There’s even a handy ‘Call Back’ button so you can return calls with a single touch.
It’s a real-time saver as you can select the voicemail that’s important to you without having to call 101 MessageBank or play through all of your messages.
We know many of you have been asking for this feature for some time, so we’re really pleased that we’ve been able to design, test and now offer this to customers.
MessageBank Plus requires an Apple iPhone running iOS4.3 or later, connected to a Telstra Post-Paid mobile voice service.
The service is charged at $5 per month and includes the delivery of voice messages to your iPhone within Australia which you can then playback at your leisure. Normal charges apply for calls made using the Call Back function and for call diversion to MessageBank and retrieval from MessageBank by calling +61101. International data roaming charges apply for delivery of messages to your iPhone using MessageBank Plus while overseas.
We hope it makes managing voicemail that little bit easier.
How to set up and use MessageBank Plus
- Contact Telstra to have MessageBank Plus activated on your mobile service
- Touch the Phone icon on your home screen and select Voicemail.
- To record your personal greeting (that the caller will hear), select Greeting and record your message and then touch Save. If you have an existing personal greeting, you don’t need to re-record your greeting.
- Touch the message you want to listen to from the list of voicemails:
- A blue dot indicates a new message.
- Use the Play/Pause button or drag the progress slider to control the playback.
- Press Delete to remove the message from both your iPhone and MessageBank.
- Press Call Back to return the call with a single touch (standard call charges apply).
MessageBank Plus is already included under Everyday Connect Plans starting from the $80 plan. Not only that, if you signed up before 31st Of October for an $80 and up everyday connect plan you’ll get an extra 1GB for free for 12 months.
What is the android equivalent? Using a S3 Galaxy.
ive change from apple to samsung i really like the message bank plus is this feature coming on the samsung phones ??????
Hi Brent. No word yet on this feature coming to Android phones yet, but you might be interested in Voice2text in the meantime…
Dose MessageBank plus work over wifi with no 3g or mobile conection?
Hi Bob. I believe you’ll need a cellular (mobile) connection to our network to initially receive the MessageBank Plus (visual voicemail) messages, but they’re then stored locally on your iPhone. Our customer service team can assist further if you have queries.
Still not free? I have committed to Telstra for my home phone, mobile and Internet, he least they could do is take the $5 from m cap.
Is message back plus charged to your phone plan or its additional on top of your plan.?
It would be additional to your plan Anjalee
anyone know if on samsungs yet ?????
I’m paying 130 a month and I still have to pay $5…?
Ripping us off telstra.
highway robbery for something built into the iPhone that should just be free – guess someone has to pay for the committee at Telstra sitting around trying to work out ways of surrupticiously extracting easy money from unsuspecting customers. I object to the default setting, especially when I asked for it to be switched off months ago and having trouble getting them to do that.
$5 like everyone before me has said is a bit rich for something that the iPhone already has the ability to do and other carriers around the world already offer for free. Telstra this should be free.
It’s been nearly two years, and Telstra you’re still not listening to your customers! My contract expires this year, I will definitely be reviewing what’s available…
I’m told that Voda provide this service free!
We took out an $84 plan last week and it states that, unlimited messageBank retrieval.
Can someone advise whether this means only free retrieval of messages or does it mean free setup and retrieval of messages and we don’t have to pay an extra $5 per month
Hi Everyone,
I have the same question as Barry, Signed up 10/May/2013, for iPhone 5 plan on $80 plan. Does it include free access to MessageBank service?
The critical facts only states free retrieval but does not say anything about monthly service fee.
Hi Barry,
Found the answer here: http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/mobile-plans/every-day-connect/
It is free.
Come on Telstra, reward your loyal customers by providing this service free or as part of our cap! Not a difficult decision and everyone wins..
>Come on Telstra, reward your loyal customers by providing this service free or as part of our cap! Not a difficult decision and everyone wins..
It is free on higher level caps, as is normal voicemail.
It is not free on the lower end caps, neither is normal voicemail.
If telstra made voicemail plus free to all iphone users regardless of the plan they are on then this would be unfair to non iphone users who would still need to pay for voicemail access.
Just because it is built into the phone does not mean it needs to be free.
The messages still need to get into your phone which uses the network so there is a cost involved for telstra
Plus telstra likely needs to pay Apple for each user using the service.
“Plus telstra likely needs to pay Apple for each user using the service.”
I don’t think they do. And the cost involved is minimal, as it uses data, of which it’s already sending to your device.
The difference between normal Voicemail and the Visual Voicemail is that the normal Voicemail on the cheaper plans are charged for the time you use them. It’s not a fixed price like the VVM.
But this isn’t even the issue. Telstra’s competitors offer the same service on all their plans without the extra charge. Telstra is simply using it to try and get their customers to step up to a higher plan which they probably don’t need.