Although I’m a huge fan of T-Mobile’s $30 “unlimited” data/100 minutes no-contract smartphone data plan, I’m not such a huge fan of T-Mobile’s voice mail service. I’ve used Google Voice for quite a while, and it is the only number that I give out to people. As such, all my voice mails are in Google Voice, something that I prefer to traditional voice mail services. However, a small annoyance when using Google Voice on my LG Nexus 4 with T-Mobile is that even when the actual voice mails go to Google voice, I end up with “voice mails” on T-Mobile’s service that, oddly enough, are recordings of Google Voice saying “The Google Voice subscriber you have called is not available.”
This results in a nearly constant voice mail notification, and a voice mail box filled with identical worthless voice mails. Fortunately, there is a very easy solution for this. If you really don’t need T-Mobile’s voice mail service and use only Google Voice, you can call 611 from your T-Mobile phone, ask for a representative, and tell them to disable T-Mobile voice mail service on your line. It should be fairly straightforward when you call, but you will get an automated response at first. Simply say “service representative” and you should be transferred. From there, you can simply ask the representative to turn off or disable your voice mail, and should need to provide only your PIN.
I called just this morning, and it took no more than five minutes for the representative to process my request. It hasn’t been too long, but since then I haven’t gotten any more T-Mobile voice mails, although I have gotten messages in Google Voice. With my Galaxy Nexus, I used to just deal with the constant voice mail notification. Now that I know how easy it is to solve the problem, my experience with the Nexus 4 and Google Voice will be just that much better.
How did you get the SIM that works with that plan for your N4? They told me I would have to buy one of their phones that comes with it and swap the SIM into an N4.
Thanks!
You may be able to use this http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/phones/cell-phone-detail.aspx?cell-phone=t-mobile-micro-sim-card SIM card, but you will have to choose one of their plans. I’m using a Monthly 4G plan that doesn’t show up when purchasing that SIM, but I was using this http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-phone/T-Mobile-Prepaid-SIM-Activation-Kit SIM card in my Galaxy Nexus. The latter is a regular sized SIM that you will have to cut to fit, but I managed to make it work without much of a problem.
Does this work only if you use Google Voice as your primary number? I ask because I had my own personal number from Sprint ported to T-Mobile prepaid and I use my Google Voice number secondarily for work related calls which get delivered to my Nexus 4; would disabling voice mail remove all primary number messages or would they go to Google Voice VM?
I hope this wasn’t too confusing.
I’ve also used the SIM activation kit, but then went impatient while waiting for the microSIM cutter and actually chatted with a T-Mobile rep. online and asked to move my number to a $1 microSIM activation kit that I had. Took a few mins and I didn’t have to cut anything, worked out of the box after this.
First thanks for the post.
Can you clarify, what happens when someone calls your regular tmobile number, does it forward to google voice?
What’s up, just wanted to tell you, I enjoyed this post. It was inspiring. Keep on posting!