One of the original selling points of the original 2G iPhone was the promise of visual voicemail, a way of accessing your voicemail messages on your own terms. In Australia, the only carrier to launch the feature was Vodafone, but it was quite often criticised for messages arriving late or disappearing altogether. But now, according to some online chatter, Telstra is launching the service for NextG iPhones… for just $5 a month.
UPDATE: Telstra have confirmed the service. It’s called MessageBank Plus, and will cost $5 a month. If you want to sign up, here’s how.
It’s worth noting that the service is free on Vodafone, so Telstra’s decision to start charging for it isn’t going to win it any adulation.
Reports say that the service is due to officially launch today, but we haven’t actually received official word from Telstra about it yet – we’ll update with confirmation when we do.
In the meantime the question has to be asked – would you pay $5 a month for visual voicemail?
[Whirlpool and Lifehacker]