Belong's 10 Second Limit on Message2Txt Really Sucks

peterpeterpumpkin on 15/05/2019 - 12:11

I was always a bit hesitant to switch to a mobile service that only offered Message2Txt as the only answering service. The technology is not capable of accuracy without human review, so is not fit for such a purpose.

It simply can't handle uncommon proper nouns, different accents or words with foreign origins.

But to make the experimental technology even more useless, they impose a 10 second limit on the soon-to-be-garbled-anyway text. Here's a little sample of some recent messages I received from a switchboard number:

"Hi beater beater pumpkin. This is tundra (?) from polymer (?) grass (?). We'd like to offer you a position of employment. Due to a high volume of applicants we need confirmation by close of business. Please call me o".

Like they say, "buy nice or buy twice as many SIM cards to save some money on 4g data and stay unemployed you cheapskate loser". They're not very nice.

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Comments

  • kerfuffle on 15/05/2019 - 12:24
    +3

    Telstra has the same thing so it's not just for cheaper services (and yes I hate them too; I need longer than 10 seconds to convey my message)

    • peterpeterpumpkin on 15/05/2019 - 12:36
      +1

      I think before I switched last year, someone on OzBargain said they were told that Belong might be getting a Voicemail option like Telstra and Boost this year? Or maybe that was international roaming?

      • finbar on 16/05/2019 - 15:40

        They said Voicemail was coming about a year ago but everyone is still waiting lol. References to Belong saying it was coming early 2019 have now been deleted from their Twitter account. So who knows if its still planned.

    • [Deactivated] on 22/06/2022 - 18:05

      I think its optional with telstra.

  • realfancyman on 15/05/2019 - 12:36
    +2

    Does Belong not offer MessageBank? Telstra is msg2txt by default but can be changed to messagebank. What happens when you call 101?

  • thatonethere on 15/05/2019 - 12:41

    Just put that in your voice mail greeting. "Hi - you have reached PeterPeterPumpkins mobile. I'm not here - please leave a 10 second message after the tone or text me".

    • realfancyman on 15/05/2019 - 12:44

      Not able to change the greeting for msg2txt

    • peterpeterpumpkin on 15/05/2019 - 12:48
      +2

      The default message actually specifies the 10 second limit: "Hi. The person you have called is not available. Please leave a short 10 second message and we'll send the message as a text". I'm not actually sure if I can personalise the greeting?

  • Quantumcat on 15/05/2019 - 12:48
    +3

    It tells you the phone number so you can call back. You really only need it to find out who is calling and the general reason why they are calling (so you can say something intelligent when you call them back). You don't need the service to dictate novels.

    • peterpeterpumpkin on 15/05/2019 - 13:03
      +1

      Yeah. I think because Message2Txt is relatively uncommon, people don't know how to react concisely (especially when it comes to formal calls, where speech is generally slower and articulate). I've never received a legible or complete message.

      My primary issue is dealing with private numbers or switchboard numbers (like in the example above). When I have a number but I can't get through I try Truecaller to get an idea of who called.

      • Quantumcat on 15/05/2019 - 13:09

        Oh that's true, private numbers would be a pain :-/ In your example I guess you'd have to go through every place you applied to until you found one that sounded similar. But if you couldn't find it, it would be very upsetting and I can understand your reaction!

  • spackbace on 15/05/2019 - 13:08
    +2

    If I ever reach this, I hang up. I don't even bother because if something gets translated wrong it could be a whole thing (on a professional level).

    At least now there's audio messages, no need for voicemail it just gets sent as an mms :)

    • Quantumcat on 15/05/2019 - 13:12
      +1

      Oh that's interesting, what providers do that? Something I don't like about voice mail that message2txt solves is having a permanent record of messages - I hate when you delete a message and then later you need to refer to it. But being sent mms would solve that as you are storing on your own device and can decide how much space you want to dedicate to message storage and not get told be someone external you have to delete some.

      • spackbace on 15/05/2019 - 13:21
        +4

        I'm with Telstra, all my voicemails come through as MMS so I can just hit play and listen through the phone without stupid prompts or anything

    • peterpeterpumpkin on 15/05/2019 - 13:36
      +1

      I'm not a fan of voicemail in general. Or really any form of uni-ditectional communication such as non-interactive presentations.

      I think evolutionarily it is unsettling to communicate at length without a reaction from the listening party. We rely on voice tone and mirroring as an element of communication so to remove that aspect makes us lose the sense of a connection.

      Saying that, an MMS would be handy. With other companies I used voice recording software on my phone to store important voice messages for later reference.

      • spackbace on 15/05/2019 - 13:38
        +1

        I'm not a fan of voicemail in general.

        It's a part of life. People screen calls, or they could be too busy to talk at the time

      • abb on 15/05/2019 - 14:05

        I hate voicemail too. Can you turn it off? An SMS that says "you missed a call from xyz" is an option with some providers.

  • nfr on 15/05/2019 - 15:26

    I actually like the feature, saves me a lot of time, but I can see it's a problem in your situation.

  • WreckTangle on 16/05/2019 - 15:52

    Is it translated by machine or person?

    • finbar on 16/05/2019 - 16:02
      +1

      Most likely machine

  • peter on 03/01/2021 - 10:58

    I have just activated my first Belong SIM and it's working well but I am surprised that there is no ability to add or remove Message2Txt or even to vary the number of rings before Message2Txt starts, in fact on the Belong web site there is no description of how the service works at all, it's only referred to in passing by way of reference to Voicemail: https://www.belong.com.au/support/mobile/manage-service/call…

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