You'd like to believe that, but unfortunately it's not nonsense. If it was roaming (previously visible) on the foreign network and then it was switched off, it remains roaming until you come home and get back on to the Swiss network! That's obvious. I didn't say anybody could see exactly where it was/is, particularly if it is then switched off.
The fact remains you are charged for missed calls, calls received (answered) and calls that you divert purposefully to voicemail or calls that have been diverted to voicemail whilst your phone is switched off and you are still abroad or on the foreign network.
If it wasn't like that, there wouldn't be so many complaints about all of these roaming charges!
Unhappily it is. This is how a lot of money is made sadly.
Unfortunately it's not nonsense. Yes I understand these basics.
It is. See above.
You dismiss the information and explanations given as nonsense, every time, that's easy, anyone can do that, but you don't actually ever provide any information yourself on the matter in question.
If it wasn't like that (the way I have tried to explain in simple terms), I wouldn't have bothered writing it at all, since there would be no reason for me to do so.
I was merely explaining how these sometimes exorbitant charges can appear on Natel invoices.
Well I never got charged for roaming when I switch my Swisscom phone off, only been in CH a few days in the last year so have some real world experience.
Since I turned off voicemail I don't get charged for unanswered calls either.
But these persons were evidently charged as they had had missed calls and/or had calls diverted to voicemail and/or had messages left, most of this possibly occurring whilst the Natel was off. Each situation will be different.
I am merely pointing out why these charges occur.
I personally do 'roam' occasionally, but I don't have any of these charges on my Natel invoices since I don't have any call diverts active nor do I have a voicemail as I removed it from my services on that number/subscription/plan.
Exactly. No voicemail, that is why you were not charged.
Do you mean that you are considered to be connected to the network that you were last connected to? And therefore when they try to find your phone to connect the caller to you, it goes to the foreign network, which then comes back and says "can't find it", but this is sufficient for the voice mail to acquire roaming charges?
Or do you mean that if your phone is off, local mobile towers can still locate you? If so - how does that work?
Who was? Nobody on this thread has claimed that, have they?
(CorsebouTheReturn comes nearest, but he seems to talking generally about getting voicemail when the phone is switched off, rather than having been charged for it).
This happened to me with my Hungarian provider. I switched off my HU phone in Switzerland. I kept it like that until my next visit. To my surprise I was charged with huge roaming costs. I was charged for the voicemail (which I of course did not call at all).
In this case I managed to massage my money out of them (telenor) in about 3-4 months.
I think plumtree refers to the case when the provider registers the last known tower or location. So as long as the phone is switched off any voicemail or voicemail forwarding (?) will be charged as roaming.
The simple question that needs to be answered is: "why are people charged for calls that go to voicemail whilst roaming, even when their phone is switched off"?
No, like you say, you intervened and did the right thing to slash unnecessary charges, you switched voicemail off, so thereafter in theory you should no longer be charged, as the calls are no longer diverted back to Switzerland, where the voicemail is located! I would hope and assume from that moment you weren't charged(?!)
(It's my fault if I write in a convoluted fashion, sorry.)
Of course it is. On or off, if you have voicemail and are roaming, you can be charged by your network provider for use of the other network. The call can't get to your phone if it is off, but it has searched for you phone. The voicemail is in Switzerland and the call is redirected to it, hence the charge.
(Again I am at fault for writing in a convoluted fashion, sorry, I am doing my best.)
It ain't just a walkie-talkie. Originally when GSM access network was conceived voicemail was an add-on; not supported "natively".
When roaming, i.e. phone seen last time in a Visitor Location Register of another network, then each call goes there. Thus roaming charges for receiving a call abroad. When on top of that the call is unanswered or phone out of coverage/power down, then, if set so, a call divert done back to home network's voice mail - additional charges for a call this time from a foreign to home network.
Must have been quite profitable if some haven't fixed it by now, which is astounding given how much of complex signaling is in these networks
Now they showed mercy, they refunded the last month roamings (23 CHF! ) but they were doing this practice since I joined so I asked for the rest as well.
I take it as a rip off, it cannot be that someone is not aware of this practice and ends up with a huge roaming fee for calls that were never picked up.
Such a call was charged to me 2 + 0.80 CHF (the same call as outgoing and incoming call, and I did not even pick up the phone).
Even banned numbers are charged for 2.80 CHF which is absolutely ridiculous.
At least with Swisscom you can keep "Forward when unreachable" (i.e. phone is turned off or in an area with no network coverage) always on and no roaming charges will incur. Don't know about other providers but from a technical point of view there should be no charges either since there is no call being forwarded to the foreign network and back to your voicemail.
However, if you activate "Forward when busy" or "Forward when unanswered" roaming charges will incur if you're on a foreign network.
Unfortunately providers including Swisscom do charge for calls forwarded to the voicemail when the number is not reachable (switched off/no signal), in fact it is the majority of the complaints that people have.
They think by switching off their Natel abroad they won't incur any charges, yet they do insofar as, (as explained in previous posts on the thread), the call searches first for the phone, the phone is abroad so uses the foreign network (whether on or off, no battery, no signal is all irrelevant), the call is then diverted (having not been able to be connected as a voice call) back to the voicemail, which is in Switzerland - this is the charge, it doesn't even matter if no message is left or if the caller hung up after just a couple of seconds after realising it was voicemail, the fact is there was a call connection diverted from another country which has to be paid for.
I am not defending in any way this practice by Swiss network providers, I am merely explaining that they do charge for this occurrence and these are the charges that often cause the complaints, particularly if there have been repeated attempts to reach that phone whilst it was abroad.
Disabling voicemail (removing it from one's plan) and removing all call diverts, should, in theory mean one avoids all of these charges.
...but does not find the phone on any network. Therefore the call is not diverted to the foreign network but goes straight to voicemail and no roaming fees are charged.
In your opinion it is not true. Unhappily though it is true!
The call is diverted back to Switzerland after not having found the phone to be reachable on the foreign network. This diverted call is charged for and is the exact reason why missed calls, whilst the Natel is off/out of reach, but in roaming abroad, are charged for! And it is this that generates the complaints about high Natel roaming charges when people come back from holidays overseas claiming their Natel was off nearly the entire time.
All it knows is the phone was last seen on network X. So it tells the network X - please route this call to this mobile last seen on your network.
Network X happily does it, and in case of redirect to voicemail it is the foreign network doing a call on the behalf on the mobile phone back to its home network.
It used to be so originally and looks like it hasn't changed for many cellular service providers. Could it be done "simpler"? Maybe, but maybe there were other concerns like the call data path was already setup to the foreign network through possibly land-mobile transcoder (different voice encoding and compression systems) to reduce latency, and maybe re-routing the call without dropping it wasn't easy to do. Don't know but that's how it was.
I understand that you haven't been charged, and that is really good. Other people have been charged though and that is not good at all, particularly if they did not ask for voicemail on their plan and weren't aware that is was active by default when the number was put in service and it was this that then caused the charges on their Natel invoice! But you said here Salt charges unjustified roaming fee that you don't get charged for unanswered calls since you turned off voicemail. You may have been charged for some, before you turned off voicemail! It depends what you meant with 'since'.
I have been charged when connected to the network & I did not answer,
I HAVE NEVER IN 20 YEARS been charged if I had turned the phone off when I was last on a foreign network.
The people that have been charged were connected & did not answer but wish to pretend their phone was off. You have made some good posts on other subjects however are talking crap.