HOW TO: Extend the Ring Time for MessageBank on my mobile
Filed under: how to, MessageBank, Mobile, technology
It is a lazy Sunday night. I’m resting peacefully on the lounge watching the Sunday night movie and the phone rings. UGH the phone is in the kitchen, why on earth did I leave it there? Pulling myself off the lounge and running into the kitchen, meanwhile the call goes to MessageBank. How many times have we all just missed that call?
While I don’t carry a hand bag, I have witnessed another scenario: the lady and the bottomless handbag. Rummaging. Again the call goes to MessageBank. On both these occasions the call may have gone through to MessageBank prematurely.
While MessageBank is such a valuable tool for us all, not getting to the phone before a call is diverted to MessageBank can be most frustrating.
Never fear help is here.
There are three conditional call forwarding settings (Busy, No Answer, No Reply) to Mobile MessageBank. The default ring time for each of these diversions is 15 seconds.
If you would like to extend this default time the following easy steps will assist you in doing so.
Please note there are 4 ring times and they must be in five second increments: 15(default), 20, 25 and 30 seconds.
To extend the ring time simply enter
* * 61 * 1 0 1 * * (number of seconds: 15, 20, 25 or 30) #
and press SEND or CALL.
For example, to set the ring time to 25 seconds before it diverts to MessageBank, you would enter the following key sequence into your phone:
* * 6 1 * 1 0 1 * * 2 5 #
and press SEND or CALL.
If you set the ring time to 30 seconds and find this is too long, you simply repeat the process with the desired length.
If you are wanting to re-set the ring time to default (15 seconds) enter # # 0 0 4 #
Maybe now, with this at hand, there will be just that little less frustration in the world.
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This is a good how to.
Can you now do one explaining how to have the default, non personalised voicemail greeting?
Nobody at telstra seems to know how to do it even after being assured it has been changed when i have called and asked for it be changed.
It is possible, it has been done for me before but was reset when my contract was renewed.
Hi Gaz,
Thanks for your question and sorry on the delay in getting back to you.
I’m not sure if I will do a full “How To” on this. I will seek further advice, however you had me stumped on this for a while. The only means to have the default greeting is by cancelling the existing MessageBank and re-instate it. To do this you will need to call 125111(free call from Telstra Mobile) and when prompted say, MessageBank. You will then be given other options, the option you will need is “consultant” and request this to happen. The approximate turn around time is 3 hours. After the 3 hours have passed it is recommended to turn you phone off and then on and you will have the default greeting. Remember to extend your ring time(see above) if you wish.
Let me know how you go.
Cheers
Larry
Great! Always wondered about that. When my mobile’s in my handbag and rings – I always miss it by 2 seconds
Hi Scott,
I have tried it several times from different computers and worked ok.
Here is the full link for you.
http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/services/?red=/mobile/services/messagebank.html#messagebank
It took a couple of calls, but I’ve managed to have all of the answering services disabled, such that my iPhone now just rings and rings and rings. No message bank, or Voice2txt, or any announcement. The phone just rings, and then after about 70 seconds, it just rings out.
If someone wants to reach me, they can send me a text, an email, or try again.
Thanks very much. This was driving me nuts!
None of the above worked for me. I called telstra and then i had to have my CFO authenticate me before i could change this setting! Apparently i was changing a setting on the account – what a load of crap!
Fact is that everytime I miss a call (due to a 15 sec ring tone -rings twice!) then I have to use message bank and then return the call. So Telstra wins both times.
Why Telstra is prepared to annoy its “customers” to make money in this way is appauling to me.
I now feel better for wasting the 30minutes that i dont have now in my life
The extend ringtime code does not work anymore. How do I get it extended now.
Allan
When you log into my account it should have a link to the help page of message bank telling you how to extend the call forwarding time out period
awsome finally got it . been putting up with short ring time for 2 years
Thanks for the heads up on how to extend the ring time…problem is that its not permanent. each time you turn your phone off, it defaults back to the 15 seconds again, that’s even more frustrating..
Joe that sounds pretty strange.
The reason I say that is because the setting is at the network level which is why you need to type in ** and #
It could be that your phone is sending the command to make it ring for 15 seconds each time you turn it on which would be possible however an odd feature to have.
Does it do it when you set it to “offline” mode?
I have tried this process at least 12 times and have rung the testra help line who told me to do the same thing and I keep getting a voice message that says the number I am trying to call is not connected?? not sure where to go from here/
Hi TMT. Have you tried asking on CrowdSupport? You can click to ‘Ask the Crowd’ in a forum or you can go through to our ’24/7 Facebook page’. There are two options to contact us here as these links get you straight through to people who can help – you’ve come through to our corporate blog site here and I’d highly recommend using one of these new avenues to get directly in touch with Telstra about a specific product issue.
One of my friends was having trouble and with extending ring time on his phone. We rang Telstra mobile faults together and from memory we got Telstra mobile faults to make the setting change. We then had faults stay online whilst we tested that it worked. May I suggest you get Telstra mobile faults to do it for you and test it and don’t let them go until you are confident it has worked. Best of Luck
If you are getting a message saying \the number is not connected\ then you are not typing it into your phone correctly.
* is the button on the left of the zero
# is the button on the right of the zero
On some phones if you push the * button too quickly to get the second * you will get a + which will not work.
Typing anything into your phone which starts with ** and ends in # tells the phone that you want to make a request to the network and not make a phone call so if you are making a phone call (Which you are as you are being told that number is not connected) then you are typing something in wrong.
Thank Nick, I can confirm that the phone does ring for what ever time I ask it to wether it be 20 or 30 seconds no problem when doing the change from my mobile. But when i turn off my mobile or change battries, it resets back to the 15 second default, so it must be at the exchange end if im accessing at network level. My colleagues have tried the same thing, on their phones, which are all different but we all use telstra and have the same problem.