Embodiments of the present invention provide a network based voice mail
system that includes advantages of traditional answering machines. When a
call comes in that is not answered, a Remote Answering Device may pick up
after a preselected number of rings and play a prerecorded greeting that
is stored locally and then prompt the caller to wait for the beep. The
Remote Answering Device may use three-way calling service to conference
the user's voice mail number into the call. When a conference call is
established it plays the beep and then plays the message which is being
recording live on the speaker. If a call is received by the network based
voice mail system that did not first pass through the Remote Answering
Device, the network based voice mail system may synchronize the Remote
Answering Device with the network based voice mail system.