How is voicemail supposed to work ?

Apparently I don't know.

Just got a Nexus 6 and when checking voice mail it dials into my "voicemail service". My old windows phone recorded the voice mail directly to the phone and didn't dial in. Does Android not have this option?

Thanks

Typically voicemail service is provided by your carrier/cellular provider on their end of your service connection, not "local" on the phone(s) themselves, so, you typically set it up after you get service by dialing into customer service from the cell phone (probably 611 for most carriers) and then go through the steps to set it up in that manner.

I have no idea which carrier you have or how that would work for your carrier, I'm just stating that in all my years of using cell phones (since the mid to late 1980s) the voicemail aspect has always been provided by the carrier/cellular provider.

And yes, when you go to check voicemail it will dial into your carrier's number for such a service and that's how you get started - if you haven't set things up previously that's how it's done. And for the record: if you pay by the minute for talk time (as some prepaid plans still do), calling to check voicemail is a phone call and you'll be charged for it if your plan charges you for airtime calling minutes. If you have some unlimited type thing then you should be good to go.

If you have any issues, contact your carrier's customer service or their website - they may have explicit instructions on how to get everything working as expected.

Previous phone was Nokia Luma 928. To access voice mail I would swipe to the right from the call history screen and there would be a list of my voice mails. when I clicked on one it would start to play instantly. It never dialed in and it never asked me for a pin or password.

I'm confused.

It sounds like it has to do whether visual voicemail is enabled and compatible with your phone.

I never got it to work with my Nexus 4 on ATT, so had to dial in. Not sure how the N6 handles it on your carrier, may have to reach out to them and check.

On my Note5 with T-Mobile, you have to pay a subscription fee for Visual Voicemail. But other than that, regular voicemail has always been handled through the carrier.

So what I describe my Luma 928 doing was visual voicemail? Nev er set it up so not sure how it came to be.

Deadjasper said:

So what I describe my Luma 928 doing was visual voicemail? Nev er set it up so not sure how it came to be.

Click to expand...

that's what it sounds like to me.
All of my AT&T branded Androids have had the AT&T Visual Voicemail app out of the box

Ah, found an ATT Visual Voicemail app in the Google store and now it's working just like it did on the WP. Still didn't have to put in a PIN or password.

Thanks guys for the help. I really appreciate it.

Glad to see you enabled Visual Voice mail.

AT&T also provides access to your voice mailbox by holding down the number "1" key on your telephone dial pad.
If you want to assign a voice mail PIN or modify your greeting follow these instructions.

all carrier information is stored on the SIM so make sure that you use the proper SIM configuration utility.

I cut my SIM down to nano size and it worked like a charm. I didn't change carriers, just phones. I never could get pop3 email working on the Windows Phone. imap worked but pop3 did not. This a major reason why I dumped the Windows Phone. pop3 works without a hitch on the Nexus 6.