Voicemail and the average Ghanaian: arch-enemies?

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• Sonny 11 years ago

  I beg to differ. In Ghana you pay a fee for your voice mail and that is a put off.

  I beg to differ. In Ghana you pay a fee for your voice mail and that is a put off.

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• Joe Turkey 11 years ago

  Somebody - the phone service provider - has to make that available before consumers can us it. The lame NDC has fixed prices that the service providers should charge, just so they can make their cut through GIFEC. The service ...
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  Somebody - the phone service provider - has to make that available before consumers can us it. The lame NDC has fixed prices that the service providers should charge, just so they can make their cut through GIFEC. The service providers are therefore not in any rush to improve the services they provide. Remember they raised the call rate from US to Ghana from 6 to 24 cents per minute and then siphon a percentage to an NDC account. They call themselves cadres; they are illiterate idiots who know nothing about basic economics.

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• Pumpuni 11 years ago

  Sonny is right. There is a fee for voice mail in Ghana. Ghanaians know the guy on the other side of the phone will surely call back when he sees their number. No worries, bro.

  Sonny is right. There is a fee for voice mail in Ghana. Ghanaians know the guy on the other side of the phone will surely call back when he sees their number. No worries, bro.

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• Kwesi 11 years ago

  By including all electronically preserved voice messages as voice mail, you conflate different things and end up drawing the wrong conclusions. You should have made it completely clear that you are talking only of cell (or mo ...
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  By including all electronically preserved voice messages as voice mail, you conflate different things and end up drawing the wrong conclusions. You should have made it completely clear that you are talking only of cell (or mobile) phones and not land lines. This distinction has implications.
  
  Before cell phones became popular, the only way you could leave a voice message for people you fail to reach on the phone is by talking into their answering machines. This supposses that the land line owner has an answering machine and has put it on to receive messages.
  
  Answering machines were rare in Ghana in the days before cell phones. In those days, many people did not even have a telephone, let alone an answering machine. So many Ghanaians are not used to leaving messages for people they do not reach. They didn't even know something like that existed.
  
  This habit was brought into the cell phone era. Ghanaians started by not being used to voicemails. This fact was not made easier by the cost of listening to voicemails. Even in Europe, you have to pay to listen to a voicemail on your cell phone so many people do not do that. This is not a particularly Ghanaian thing - it affects all. Often, it is cheaper to ring the person back than to call the service provider to listen to the message on their servers.
  
  Then there are also messages that are specifically voice. People record their message as audio and send it to the recipient as a means of communication. This has nothing to do with calling someone and not finding the person and leaving a message. No. The audio is the message. Most social networks have this function for free or for the cost of an ordinarily sent sms. This service is very common with Ghanaians. They use it all the time even with whatsapp which is very popular in Ghana. One reason why this may be common in Ghana is that it is easier to talk than to type out a message. Even the uneducated can do that.
  
  Currently, there is a certain exchange of insults between two Ghanaians making the rounds (like email jokes) and exciting a lot of interest. It is between a girl from Kumasi living in the US and a guy from Suhum living in Toronto, where some very disgraceful insults of a sexual kind took place. The communication there was carried on strictly as voice mail (aka audio mail). And these are among Ghanaians!
  
  Frimpong, if you had carefully distinguised among the various forms of voicemail, you would have come to a different conclusion. But thanks for bringing a topic that is not the usual politics, Akufo-Addo, Ashanti, Ewe, northerners, etc.

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• J.Y. Frimpong 11 years ago

  Thanks for the education

  Thanks for the education

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• Kenkey Warriors!! 11 years ago

  Ghanaians in general don't know how to leave a message. You announcement may say 'I'm not available to take your message please leave a detailed message and I will call you ASAP'. The typical Ghanaian will leave this message ...
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  Ghanaians in general don't know how to leave a message. You announcement may say 'I'm not available to take your message please leave a detailed message and I will call you ASAP'. The typical Ghanaian will leave this message ' hey call me I have something urgent to ask you'. Why can't we just articulate what you have to say so the respondent calls back with relevant info?
  My motto is if you don't say what is on your mind, it is not important'

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• JB Osei-Brown 11 years ago

  Frimpong,
  
  you are making a big msiatke here because no technology can replace conventional telephone: infact all those things like Skype, Vibe, Facebook, WhatsApp name them are BASED on phone: data and speech are digitaliz ...
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  Frimpong,
  
  you are making a big msiatke here because no technology can replace conventional telephone: infact all those things like Skype, Vibe, Facebook, WhatsApp name them are BASED on phone: data and speech are digitalized and sent over conventional lines: . And one thing is clear: all those stuff will passed away but the PHONE will survive. They are like search engines and e-mail clients: they have a life-span. And before you have mastered any on them a newer one has replaced it -the reason why the plain old telephone will always live!

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• Kwesi 11 years ago

  When you say "...but the PHONE will survive", what do you really mean by PHONE? If you mean phone as a concept (a means of talking to people at long distances) then you're right. But if you mean phone as in the old type land ...
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  When you say "...but the PHONE will survive", what do you really mean by PHONE? If you mean phone as a concept (a means of talking to people at long distances) then you're right. But if you mean phone as in the old type land line phone, then that will not survive. It is even on its way out as it is being replaced by mobile phones. In developing countries, people have moved directly from nothing to mobile phones. The traditional phone as we knew it before mobile phones is not surviving. It will disappear in the near future. Whether mobile phones too will disappear in the future for something else is difficult to predict.

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• TEE 11 years ago

  MAHAMA AS A NORTHERNER PEPENI IS JUST A PRIMITIVE LEADER RULING IDIOTS VOTERS

  MAHAMA AS A NORTHERNER PEPENI IS JUST A PRIMITIVE LEADER RULING IDIOTS VOTERS

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