topic Re: All bars, then no bars? in Get Support

All bars, then no bars?

Thranduilien — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 09:46:23 GMT

I have been with Telus Mobility for about three years. Since my home (house + yard) has poor reception I've stuck with the $5 prepaid texting package. I get x to 0 bars inside and 1 or maaaaybe 2 bars outside in the yard. However I've been wanting to use data when out and Telus is too expensive so I switched to PM. I popped the sim in and the bars stayed the same, however I've made some calls/texts outside so that side of things worked. My data did not when I was in town. Thanks to some previous posts and some lovely users help I was able to get data all set up by changing the apn settings. Now when I'm inside I see my phone almost always has between 3 and 4 bars. As soon as I attempt to place a call my bars drop to 1 or 0, even on the rare occassion that they only drop down to two bars, my phone is just stuck on dialing until I get frustrated and hang up.

I have an Asus Zenfone 3 Max that I bought at Staples for under $200 two years ago, but I really don't think that it's the phone. I mean when I'm connected to Telus in the APN it shows X bars, when connected to PM it's like it just won't admit it? I really don't know what the problem could be. Anyone have any ideas?

Re: All bars, then no bars?

Luddite — Sun, 13 May 2018 21:40:42 GMT

Telus and PM use the same towers. Try setting the phone to 3G rather than LTE/Auto; that service is often more stable.

If your phone has better LTE than 3G, "bars" will drop making a call as all calls use the 3G network.

Re: All bars, then no bars?

will13am — Sun, 13 May 2018 22:10:26 GMT

@Luddite wrote:
Telus and PM use the same towers. Try setting the phone to 3G rather than LTE/Auto; that service is often more stable.
If your phone has better LTE than 3G, "bars" will drop making a call as all calls use the 3G network.

The problem as described seems the other way around where the phone is idling with good reception but drops off when making a call. This says the 3G tower is not well situated, the LTE tower seems fine. When reception is a problem at a particular location, there is little a customer can do.

Re: All bars, then no bars?

smp99 — Mon, 14 May 2018 00:27:42 GMT

Just for fun try making a call with Google Hangouts. Not the solution but it might be a temp solution