Internet protocol enabled multimedia mail system with reduced bandwidth requirements

In a multimedia communications system, a multimedia-based answering system lowers the amount of air interface bandwidth used to send multimedia mail messages. When a called party is unavailable, a user of a user terminal is given an option to send a multimedia mail message for the unavailable called party. If the user wants to send a multimedia mail message, the bandwidth requirements for the call are renegotiated to reduce bandwidth for sending the multimedia mail message. The multimedia mail message is then transmitted over-the-air to a multimedia mail system, where the multimedia mail message is buffered, transcoded (if necessary) and stored until the called party retrieves it.