Telus flanker brand Koodo raised the cost of its visual voicemail add-on from $5/mo to $8.
The change, first spotted by an iPhone in Canada reader, is live now and also showing up on customers’ bills. MobileSyrup confirmed that the new price is also listed on Koodo’s website. Interestingly, Telus still lists its visual voicemail add-on as $5/mo, so it seems only Koodo is getting the price hike for now.
If you’re a Koodo customer and you have the visual voicemail add-on, you should check your bill to see if the price increase hit you. If you don’t want to pay more for the add-on, you can remove it via Koodo’s self-serve portal.
Visual voicemail, for those unfamiliar, is a feature that allows smartphones to list voicemails in a menu within the phone app. Plus, visual voicemail users can easily manage voicemails right from the menu, including playing and deleting them. It makes interacting with the voicemail service much easier and saves users from having to call their voicemail number and navigate annoying phone menus.
The feature was only available for iPhones in Canada, but Koodo and Telus added support for visual voicemail on Android devices in 2019. The add-on has been $5/mo since then. Fido and Virgin Plus also offer visual voicemail, but seemingly just for iPhones (Virgin’s visual voicemail description notes it also works with BlackBerry devices).
Fido charges $7/mo for its visual voicemail add-on. Virgin, on the other hand, charges $5/mo but requires customers get the ‘Voicemail 25’ package as well. However, I wasn’t able to verify the cost of Voicemail 25 since it isn’t listed on the Virgin website, nor could I find it in the company’s self-serve portal.
Ultimately, it’s quite frustrating to see the price of this add-on increase, especially since it should just be the default way people interact with voicemails at this point. Nearly every smartphone supports visual voicemail and it’s crazy that Canadian carriers still charge people a monthly fee just so for the convenience of not having to dial a number.
However, iOS 17’s Live Voicemail feature arguably serves as a decent alternative and works independently of carriers, meaning they can’t hold it hostage and charge customers another fee to use the feature. The downside is Live Voicemail only works on iPhone and only when the iPhone is powered on and reachable. Still, I’d rather use Live Voicemail for free than pay for visual voicemail.
Via: iPhone in Canada
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