Callwave Okay a bit of quick history. I used to be on Verizon, aside from their excellent customer service, in hindsight the only other thing I've missed was the ability to use callwave, the service that turns your voicemail into emails delivered to you on your mobile. There are a few more out there like Simulscribe, but they all cost. Callwave is free and it works.

I've written a few post on the subject including an open letter to Sprint, because Sprint is the only U.S. carrier that doesn't work with Callwave or any other visual voicemail service.

In the last post prior to this one on the subject, MP reader Matt wrote: Sprint does allow it. I am using Simulscribe through sprint and it works fine. Simulscribe basically knows the Sprint backdoor. I had seen this in some of the Sprint forums, but I avoid Sprint customer service like the plague, and Simulscribe charges for a certain amount a messages. I hate talking on the phone, I'll go broke with them.

Then MP reader Matt F wrote: I had the same experience as Matt. Sprint does allow it. You have to call in and have a customer service rep set the forwarding rules. When I called it took about half an hour for her to do, and even when she was done she still didn't understand what I was trying to do, but she did it and it worked. The thing that angers me is that sprint charges 10 cents a minute for every call that gets forwarded to Simulscribe or Callwave. That blows, especially since they don't have a competing product. This intrigued me, so I checked it out.

I am happy to report that it works. But, I went through absolute phone hell until my 4th call lead me to Phillip in the Fortworth call center. The first three all gave me different codes that did not work. Phillip took his time and really investigated the matter. By the time (and it took time) it was all over, my callwave service was up and running like a charm.

Note to Matt F: You shouldn't be getting charged. You have to make sure the customer service rep understands that you want "No Answer Call Forwarding (No Reply Forwarding)" not simply "Call Forwarding". No Answer Call Forwarding (No Reply Forwarding) is free the other is not. Also have the rep do it for you, there are three things that need to be changed:

No Answer Call Forwarding (No Reply Forwarding)
Busy Call Forwarding (Busy Call Transfer)
Unreachable Call Forwarding (Phone Off Forwarding)

The rep can do this for over the phone, even if you don't have another phone to call them from. They can do it while you are on with them. But, make sure you have cleared out your Sprint messages first, this will turn off your Sprint mailbox and all of your messages will be lost. I know, I made that mistake. Which by the way wasn't the case with Verizon. When I switched to Callwave, all of the messages in my Verizon mailbox immediately showed up in my email box.

Hey Sprint, in my view, you're a much better company than Verizon, you can do better than this, let's step it up huh.

So there you have it, at long last I'm enoying Callwave Vtxt on my treo again. If you're a Sprint user, give it try. There is a widget, a desktop app, and the ability to get your messages via sms or email.

Thanks to the readers you made me deal with this!

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