[PARTIAL RESOLUTION - FULL FIX IN PROGRESS] Dropped Calls

[Ck_PM]

[Update as of 3:00PM ET 19/06/2024]: A solution for this issue was successfully implemented earlier this morning that should have resolved this issue for most customers. We understand some customers are still experiencing issues, and the team is working diligently to diagnose and resolve.

Hello Community,

We are aware that some of our subscribers are experiencing intermittent wireless service. We want you to know that our team is actively investigating this issue and is working around the clock to resolve this as quickly as possible.

We understand the importance of staying connected and we will make every effort to keep you, the Community, informed of our progress. We thank you for your patience and we appreciate your understanding during this time. Please continue to check this Community post for the latest updates.

- The Public Mobile Team

[kork]

It was described that as a third tier service, priority is given to upper tier brands. Additionally, Bell and Telus share their networks but for PM, Bell only shaves off a small portion of their frequency for PM customers. Basically, third tier provider = third tier service, right from the mouth of PM tech. Same network, yes. Same quality of service, not even close.

[will13am]

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@congtubot wrote:

I myself have doubts about these explanations as well. But PM already told me the solution for a stable phone service is to move away from PM to a tier-one provider (not necessarily Telus) which is a bit odd to me  (essentially saying their service is not up to par - do not use theirs!).

If the dropping call problem is due to inadequate infrastructure, it will cost PM considerable money to upgrade/expand the capacity. On the other hand, if it's something else like a misconfigured configuration or some change/upgrade going wrong, why they are still not fixing the problem now (or if they are really trying to do anything) is puzzling since it's really going to have an negative impact on their image.

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Public Mobile is just a brand of Telus.  The infrastructure is owned by Telus.  I have my doubts that Telus would spend so much money to maintain this brand only to destroy it by ensuring the service is inferior.  Telling people to move to Telus does not work.  If that is what I need to get a reliable service, I would just keep walking until I reach a real competitor's front door.  

[kork]

Well after having a tech call me from PM and basically tell me that if I'm looking for reliable service to switch to another provider, I'm out. This has been a pretty eye openeing 40 days with PM and I feel bad because I already referred 3 other people who have signed up. I've got my new SIM coming from Fido.

Thanks for a pretty miserable mobile experience PM! BYE!

[congtubot]

I myself have doubts about these explanations as well. But PM already told me the solution for a stable phone service is to move away from PM to a tier-one provider (not necessarily Telus) which is a bit odd to me  (essentially saying their service is not up to par - do not use theirs!).

If the dropping call problem is due to inadequate infrastructure, it will cost PM considerable money to upgrade/expand the capacity. On the other hand, if it's something else like a misconfigured configuration or some change/upgrade going wrong, why they are still not fixing the problem now (or if they are really trying to do anything) is puzzling since it's really going to have an negative impact on their image.

[will13am]

@congtubot , I would love to believe this.  The conspiracy theorist in me thinks this explanation came from marketing.  Telus generally make more from customers that are on the tier 1 brand than tier 3.  The reports of dropped calls in the community come from a variety of customers, those in the big cities and in rural settings.  I can't imagine customer growth in a rural setting saturating the local tower.  If QoS is the cause they could front run this problem by adjusting the bandwidth allocation to Public Mobile customers in proportion to customer growth.  The dropped call problem was first announced at the end of 2023 and did not appear to completely go away, so it doesn't appear to be a known quantity.  I am not saying I am right.  However the facts don't appear to align with the explanation given.  

[funpig1]

@congtubot 

That is interesting.   I had a similar discussion with Telus tech support and they denied that there was any sort of call priority between Telus, Koodo or PM customers. However, they did say that higher congestion could lead to dropped calls and slower data speeds.

[Happy10]

Thank you for fixing this issue!  It has been happening a lot 

[Amped]

 So I'm in a different place where my signal is a little weaker, but here you go:  Band 5 CLR which is 850mhz.

[Amped]

I agree completely with you!  At least where I am that is all xxxxxxxx.  When I specifically disable 5G and LTE it forces my phone to use 3G.  When I do that my phone switches to the 850mhz band (verified from network cell info app) and I get excellent signal at -65dBm.  Even with the 850 band and excellent signal calls still get dropped.  And, as you said, VoLTE consumes very little data.  So when I enable LTE on my phone and can consistently get 250mbps (full throttled speed), that tells me there is plenty of bandwidth to go around for phone calls.  It's not a bandwidth or a signal quality issue.  There is something deeper going on here!

[congtubot]

Those explanations are straight from the mouth of the horse. However, it seems that you know better!

I do question about the drop of customers due to the change in the reward systems. People are frustrated that they said they are going to leave but with all the aggressive promotions for new customers, the base might still grow. That remains to be seen. 

VoLTE uses the same data network as a user accessing the Internet so the overload might be due someone else downloading when the call is happening although they should prioritize VoLTE traffic over other data. 

If you don't work for Telus or Public Mobile, what kind of inside info do you have to claim that PB customers are able to use lower frequency bands or do you have a printout of CellMapper or other tools  showing your phone connecting to a low-frequency band?

Regardless, that is the bottom line and there is nothing else Public Mobile is going to do to fix the problem for me.

[computergeek541]

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@congtubot wrote:

I've just had a long conversation with a person from the Telus/Public Mobile Technical Team. He has been working on the ticket that the CS agent escalated to the Technical Team for me regarding this "dropped call" issue  for the last two weeks (and that is after insisting that they escalated since it's going nowhere). After analyzing all the dropped calls, it has come down to this and I appreciate the person for his honesty.

Essentially, in the last few months Public Mobile has grown the customer base but without expanding the capacity to match. Public Mobile is only allocated the higher band on a tower not like Telus which has access to other bands on the tower. Higher frequency bands cannot penetrate indoors environment as good as lower bands and might result in dropped calls. However, I pointed out the fact that my phone always gets 5-bar signal  even thought I am inside. Then he said the other reason is that since Public Mobile is a third-tier provider, they are only given limited space on the tower so when the band get congested, the Public Mobile customers are the first one to  be kicked off to give room to other customers of higher-tier providers (Telus, Bell).

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I don't believe any of the above explanation to be correct.  If anything, Public Mobile would have experienced a drop in the number of customers due to the change from rewards to points.  Also, voice doesn't use anywhere near the capacity that data does. As for Public Mobile customers not being able to use lower frequencies, I'll dare say that there is zero truth to that.  As for the argument about lower priority be given by the network to Public Mobile customers, that would not explain complaints that I have been reading by customers at the other Telus brands.

[congtubot]

I've just had a long conversation with a person from the Telus/Public Mobile Technical Team. He has been working on the ticket that the CS agent escalated to the Technical Team for me regarding this "dropped call" issue  for the last two weeks (and that is after insisting that they escalated since it's going nowhere). After analyzing all the dropped calls, it has come down to this and I appreciate the person for his honesty.

Essentially, in the last few months Public Mobile has grown the customer base but without expanding the capacity to match. Public Mobile is only allocated the higher band on a tower not like Telus which has access to other bands on the tower. Higher frequency bands cannot penetrate indoors environment as good as lower bands and might result in dropped calls. However, I pointed out the fact that my phone always gets 5-bar signal  even thought I am inside. Then he said the other reason is that since Public Mobile is a third-tier provider, they are only given limited space on the tower so when the band get congested, the Public Mobile customers are the first one to  be kicked off to give room to other customers of higher-tier providers (Telus, Bell).

So it is suggested there is not much else that can be done (since PB does not support WiFi calling) beside going back to a postpaid plan with a a tier-one provider such as Telus or back to a landline if I want reliable phone service!

I guess I got what I paid for but when I switched to Public Mobile, I thought the limitation is more on the lack of phone support and the reliance on the self-serve model to justify the lower cost and other bells-and-whistles but something like calling is very basic and should be solid.

Now I don't know if I switch to other third-tier providers like PC Mobile, Lucky Mobile or noname, I will have this same problem or not.

[MF67]

Still having problems on an iPhone 15 and have completed all troubleshooting measures. I’m in Toronto centre.

[will13am]

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@radiance wrote:

Hello, I also am experiencing calling issues with a Pixel 8. I can hear the other party fine but they say I'm choppy and cutting out plus Internet is slow. I've contacted Google's customer service all they had me do was reset all networks which didn't seem to help. Trying to find out if this is a device problem or service. Public mobile seems to be declining..Durham region area.

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@radiance , the problem is not with your phone, it is the ongoing calling problem.  There is nothing you can do to fix things, just need to be patient and let Public Mobile do all the heavy lifting.  

[slusagm]

thanks @funpig1  for explaining what you have gone through, that might be too much work for me for the $10 then

[radiance]

Hello, I also am experiencing calling issues with a Pixel 8. I can hear the other party fine but they say I'm choppy and cutting out plus Internet is slow. I've contacted Google's customer service all they had me do was reset all networks which didn't seem to help. Trying to find out if this is a device problem or service. Public mobile seems to be declining..Durham region area.

[will13am]

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@funpig1 wrote:

@slusagm 

I tried everything advised by the agent and Telus tech support; took screenshots of speed tests, provided screenshot of Telus coverage map and cell tower location map, set phone to to LTE, disabled auto select network, refreshed network, reset, reboot, etc. I posted details in other threads, but this community interface caused those threads to drop out of sight even though there were a lot of views and posts in the same thread.

After my telephone call with tech support, I received a Telus sms text saying that there is a "known issue" and that Telus would let me know when it is resolved. When I followed up to find out what was the nature of the known issue, the tech support told me that the SMS text was a mistake and that my dropped calls were only due to my local coverage issue and Telus was not sure when they would upgrade the infrastructure in my local area. So, the weak signal at my home remains unresolved. That is when I got the modest service issue credit for my troubles. I figured that mine was isolated issue and there was nothing else that could be done.

A few weeks later, PM posted this thread which acknowledged a widespread network problem (which was specifically denied in my conversation with tech support). At the same time, I also experienced dropped calls in a different coverage area in a different city; my weak signal in my home location was not to blame.

If PM refuses to compensate you (which is clearly possible based upon my experience), my advice for everybody is to file a claim with CCTS which is specifically set up to deal with this sort of thing. Forget about lawsuits or news publicity.  You have a PM written admission that there is something wrong. Take some screenshots to prove that you are dealing with dropped calls. The CCTS claim should be a no-brainer. IMO, you should not be paying full price if you are not receiving full service. You are not going to get a huge amount of compensation. But if further precedents can be established, it will help all customers and make it easier to claim compensation for other service issues.  IMO, that would do more to speed up Telus' efforts to resolve these type of issues.

PS  Porting out is another way to deal with this, especially when PM makes it so difficult for its existing customer to downgrade to more affordable and better plans. IMO, there's no point paying for more service that can't be used.  However, the last agent encouraged this, so that I would lose my referrals.

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Public Mobile specifies in the terms of service that there are no warranties.  To the extent provided by applicable statutes, they are not liable for anything.  What you received was a goodwill gesture.  I would suggest goodwill might be a discussion at a future date when the extent of this issue is known.  

[funpig1]

@slusagm 

I tried everything advised by the agent and Telus tech support; took screenshots of speed tests, provided screenshot of Telus coverage map and cell tower location map, set phone to to LTE, disabled auto select network, refreshed network, reset, reboot, etc. I posted details in other threads, but this community interface caused those threads to drop out of sight even though there were a lot of views and posts in the same thread.

After my telephone call with tech support, I received a Telus sms text saying that there is a "known issue" and that Telus would let me know when it is resolved. When I followed up to find out what was the nature of the known issue, the tech support told me that the SMS text was a mistake and that my dropped calls were only due to my local coverage issue and Telus was not sure when they would upgrade the infrastructure in my local area. So, the weak signal at my home remains unresolved. That is when I got the modest service issue credit for my troubles. I figured that mine was isolated issue and there was nothing else that could be done.

A few weeks later, PM posted this thread which acknowledged a widespread network problem (which was specifically denied in my conversation with tech support). At the same time, I also experienced dropped calls in a different coverage area in a different city; my weak signal in my home location was not to blame.

If PM refuses to compensate you (which is clearly possible based upon my experience), my advice for everybody is to file a claim with CCTS which is specifically set up to deal with this sort of thing. Forget about lawsuits or news publicity.  You have a PM written admission that there is something wrong. Take some screenshots to prove that you are dealing with dropped calls. The CCTS claim should be a no-brainer. IMO, you should not be paying full price if you are not receiving full service. You are not going to get a huge amount of compensation. But if further precedents can be established, it will help all customers and make it easier to claim compensation for other service issues.  IMO, that would do more to speed up Telus' efforts to resolve these type of issues.

PS  Porting out is another way to deal with this, especially when PM makes it so difficult for its existing customer to downgrade to more affordable and better plans. IMO, there's no point paying for more service that can't be used.  However, the last agent encouraged this, so that I would lose my referrals.

[jor123]

Seems a bit better for me in the last day or so, had a couple longer calls with no issue 

[slusagm]

@funpig1 

I tried to do the same, ask for some money back, but the agent keep asking me to perform some troubleshooting steps.  Did you have to do that? what troubleshoot they need?

[ayomtov]

Also still having dropped calls. Ever since I got my s24 ultra.

[Asifk]

I also am still having issues with dropped calls as of yesterday June the 20th.

[slusagm]

I still have dropped calls just now

[rs97ap]

It's still very hit and miss. My first call dropped at 11 minutes but then I called back and it remained ok during the full conversation (23 mins)

[jor123]

I find volte to oddly be a little less reliable in low signal areas - oftentimes you can hear the other person perfectly but they can't hear you at all. Happens to a couple other people I know with Pm or Koodo as well. 

[jor123]

We definitely should have wifi calling. No idea why there's been such a long holdout for prepaid/tier 3 

[MrWrightGuy]

On the good news side, I was able to have a 45 minute conversation on June 19th without a dropped call. 

[will13am]

One of the contacts that could not reach me last night called back just now.  The call was only 19 minutes, we were able to complete the call with no drops.  

[hTideGnow]

hi @rs97ap 

i think the issue is not fixed then.  The drop off time is random.  Some got as many as 20 mins

[Amped]

It's definitely some kind of back end issue, but I don't think it has anything to do with LTE, as I've tried disabling LTE and using only 3g HSPA and calls still drop.