by Charlie Schick

Unified messaging services provide a centralized location to receive and manage e-mail, voice mail, and fax messages. Callers can use your personal unified messaging number to leave voice messages or faxes, which can then be accessed in various ways such as via telephone or the web. But, how does one integrate other telephone numbers, such as a cell phone or a home phone, into the unified messaging service? As an example, I will demonstrate how I was able to integrate one of my home voice lines with my unified messaging account. Doing this, I was able to save a few bucks and avoid the phone company's voice mail.

Why avoid the phone company's voice mail? The phone company's voice mail is accessed through a single local phone number, cannot accept faxes, and cannot be accessed over the web. It can cost about $6.00 per month for decent voice mail service compared to a bit over $2.00 per month for a forwarding service and a free unified messaging account.

How to Ditch Your Phone Company's Voice Mail Service
Switching over to use your unified messaging account as your voice mail service is actually quite easy to do. All you need to do is to ask for a service called "Busy/No Answer Call Forwarding" (also known as Busy/Delay Call Forwarding). All this means is that when your phone is busy or rings with no answer, your calls will be diverted to another number of your choosing, which in this case is the phone number assigned to you by your unified messaging service. For example:

1. If you answer the phone within 4 rings (or however many rings you designate), you are connected to the caller.
2. If you do not answer the phone within 4 rings (or however many rings you designate), the call is forwarded to your unified messaging account.
3. If you are already on the line (busy), the call is forwarded to your unified messaging account.

Step One
The first step is to create a unified messaging account ( click here for Review: Web-based Unified Messaging). Two important points to consider:

1. Make sure the unified messaging account has a personal number, not a number with an extension number. The extension number would just complicate matters.
2. Choose a local phone number, since you end up paying for the forwarded call.

Step Two
The second step is to place the call forwarding order with your phone company. This will work for regular phone lines, and for cellular phones. When you request the call forwarding service, be sure to specify that you want Busy/No Answer Call Forwarding, NOT permanent call forwarding (where all calls are forwarded immediately).

Bell Atlantic example

• I set my forwarding through Bell Atlantic when I signed up for service.
• It is free to set the forwarding at signup. To sign up on an existing line will cost an extra $7.60.
• There are three forwarding services offered by Bell Atlantic:
  1. Forwarding 1 - the user sets the forwarding. This forwarding forwards ALL calls to the forward number. You do NOT want this.
  2. Forwarding 2 - the telco sets the forwarding numbers (2). One number is for the busy line, the other number is for the no answer. You can set it to forward after 2 to 7 rings (I like 4). This is the service you DO want. I set both numbers to my unified messaging account. The forwarding numbers can be changed at no charge at any time by calling the Bell Atlantic customer service representative.
  3. Ultra-forward - not available in all areas. This service allows the subscriber to change both of the Forwarding 2 numbers remotely via the phone.

Step Three
That's it!

Test the Service
Once this order is placed, within a few minutes, your calls will flow over to your unified messaging mailbox, which will be able to accept both voice and incoming fax messages. A good way to test that the call forwarding instructions have been entered correctly is to place a couple of test calls to yourself:

1. Call the unified messaging number directly, verify that you are calling the correct number, and that the system answers your incoming calls. If not, double-check that you took this information down correctly.
2. Call yourself from the same phone line you placed the forwarding order for. The telephone company should see your line as busy and will immediately forward the call to your unified messaging mailbox number. You should hear the voice mail service pick up in no more than 4 rings (or however many you choose).
3. Go to another phone and dial the line that you placed the forwarding order for. The phone should ring the number of times specified, and then forward to the unified messaging mailbox phone number.

If all calls go to the unified messaging mailbox, regardless of whether the phone line is in use or not, the phone company probably put fixed call forwarding (Forwarding 1) on your line, not Busy/No Answer Call Forwarding (Forwarding 2). Call the telephone company customer service number to have them correct this.

If the phone rings indefinitely without forwarding, or forwards to an unanswered number, then the telephone company either did not process the order, or is forwarding your calls to the incorrect location. Once again, call the phone company to correct the situation.

Cell Phone Users
You can use this same approach with cell phones, with one caveat. Some cellular companies provide pretty lousy call forwarding when you are roaming (this will affect their voice mail service as well as third party services). This generally happens when you are traveling in areas covered by not-so-capable local cellular companies. There is no way to fix this unfortunately. For the most part, this is no longer a big problem outside of the major markets, but there are a few (Las Vegas is one) where the local cellular network is not up to snuff.

My wireless provider, AT&T, allows me to manage call forwarding from my own phone. AT&T has two types of forwarding— Immediate Call Forwarding, and Conditional Call Forwarding. Conditional Call Forwarding will forward if your phone is unavailable or after a few rings, just like Bell Atlantic's Forwarding 2. Here's how to set it up:

1. Make sure the call forwarding feature is activated for your phone. With AT&T, this was done through their automated support system.
2. From your phone, dial *72, the forwarding number (1+ area code + phone number), press SEND, listen for a confirmation tone, and press END.
3. That's it! To deactivate, enter *720, press SEND, listen for confirmation tone, and press END.

Alternately, you could set Immediate Call Forwarding the same way. Instead, the code is *71 to activate and *710 to deactivate. Remember, you pay air time for the forwarded call.

Cost Implications
If you are currently using the phone company as your voice mail service, using a free unified messaging service with Call Forwarding will cost less (at least in the Bell Atlantic area) if the forwarded call is local. Telephone companies charge a higher monthly fee for business versus residential phone lines. So, business users may find greater savings.

Summary
By adding Call Forwarding on Busy/No Answer to your voice lines, you can route all messages to your unified messaging mailbox. In many ways a unified messaging mailbox is better than the phone company's messaging product, so if you use voice mail a lot, or travel a lot, we highly recommend looking into this solution. Overall, it's a great solution, both for small businesses and individual users.

Brian McConnell, from Hello Direct contributed to this article.
Linda, from Bell Atlantic's Andover, MA call center, was quite helpful in explaining and setting up my forwarding options.