since a few weeks, I noticed that, many times, I cannot establish voice calls nor have my SMS received in time. For some reason, even when I know my correspondent is expecting my call and we both have all of our reception bars, my call tries to connect for 30 secs to a minute (an abnormally long time) then drops straight to voicemail without ringing. Repeat-calling leads to the exact same result. Of course, much time is wasted trying to re-establish the connection.
At first I suspected the old phone to be somehow dying, switched to a less-old iPhone, but the problem persisted. The phone isn't the culprit here. Since we now both use iPhones, trying the same call over audio FaceTime works almost every time, but I'd rather not burn my precious data on what used to be an easy, cellular voice connection.
SMS aren't received in a timely many either: I may send a message at 21:45 (far from peak time), and only have it received around midnight. Same goes if I send an iMessage instead.
In fact, it has become so pervasive that I am surprised each time a call goes through without first trying 6 or 7 times, or a SMS.
What is going wrong on PM's network? Given the lack of reliability, I am considering switching to a more reliable provider.
Force your phones to use 3G only. There are tower upgrades going on as telus/bell switch equipment from Huawei to Ericsson, Samsung etc.... which is causing issues for pm customers as their phones switch from 4G LTE to 3G for voice calls. This shouldn't last more than a week to 10 days in your local area. Periodically switch back to 4G LTE/3G/2G autoconnect to see if the issue has resolved itself.
I and my family on pm experienced more issues lately with voice calls not connecting under near perfect cell signal conditions on several phones and accounts. I mean conditions where you have line of sight to the tower, -100 dbm LTE band 2/4 and around -70dbm on 3G when or if the phone drops down to it for a voice call. Something has to be going on with the network or with prioritization. It has never been this bad
There are some places downtown that recurringly have low signal strength, but this connection issue occurs whare I do have 3 bars out of 4 (sorry, no dB reading as I don't know exactly how to access those numbers on iPhone)
Since switching from ltedata.apn to sp.mb.com, I cannot even establish a data connection anymore. So, no FaceTime.
It recently occurred late at night (circa 2AM): first call yielded voicemail, second was successful. The lowest reception phone had 2 bars out of 4.
As for the Telus towers / antennas, Adonis is close to P&A, and that's one place where the signal is reliably crappy.
You're getting some really good details from @hTideGnow. Signal propagation (ie. how the cell signal bounces around to reach your phone) is extremely complex and complicated. Interference and other issues can create a mess even in straight-forward situations.
I definitely support the idea of asking around + walking around to see how signal is. Let us know how it goes - we're all learning here too! 🙂
@baz1 I am looking at the map again, in fact, there are quiet many towers around P&A if my location is correct:
Was it every working in those area and just getting bad lately or never work well for you?
Again, as I said earlier, try to ask any friends with Telus and see what they say. If you find Telus/Koodo stores in these area, go in and ask the sales there about the reception there. Maybe it is a know issue.
Downtown areas usually have good signal but it could also be interference problem. For example, there are couple known spots I am aware of that never got Rogers signal because of the interference issue from CN Tower
I was serious - I think your idea of setting the phone to 3G only is a legitimately good idea. There could be many reasons why it could fix the problem - switching back-and-forth, different frequencies/interference, general network strength/signal, etc. 🙂
haha.. you were not laughing at me, right? Yes, voice use 3G and by leaving it 3G only, the phone doesn't have to switch back and forth between LTE and 3G and that delay could caused drop calls.
I do have a technically reason , I know some people are using this to solve other issue unrelated to voice 🙂
I love the suggestions people mention about forcing your phone on the 3G network and trying that. That has often fixed similar problems. (Try a reboot too!)
Are you able to check, then post what your signal levels are (dB and ASU)? That could give us a clue too. If you're out in a different urban location, do you notice less issues?
As for my location, this usually occurs in Montreal downtown close to Lionel-Groulx, as well as Cote des Neiges area.This doesn't appear to be a one-off outage as this connection failure happens pretty much every time I go to these places (The P&A supermarket is one place where I can *never* get a voice connection), no matter the time of the day. The iPhone was fully reset when I switched from the Android handset.
In fact, I first turned on LTE because I couldn't get a reliable connection on 3G either (ironically). I seldom use data (this is a grandfathered plan which originally had NO data, PM simply thrown in 1GB), but if LTE was less reliable, I would have equal trouble with FaceTime.
As for the APN settings for data: originally, the iPhone got ltedata.apn. I changed it to sp.mb.com as shown in the help page, but will that help for a voice connection? I didn't have much problems with data-using services like
If your issue is very localized, that means there are problems with signal strength in those areas, not network outage. Could be some buildings or structural "shields" that affect reception.
As for my location, this usually occurs in Montreal downtown close to Lionel-Groulx, as well as Cote des Neiges area.This doesn't appear to be a one-off outage as this connection failure happens pretty much every time I go to these places (The P&A supermarket is one place where I can *never* get a voice connection), no matter the time of the day. The iPhone was fully reset when I switched from the Android handset.
In fact, I first turned on LTE because I couldn't get a reliable connection on 3G either (ironically). I seldom use data (this is a grandfathered plan which originally had NO data, PM simply thrown in 1GB), but if LTE was less reliable, I would have equal trouble with FaceTime.
As for the APN settings for data: originally, the iPhone got ltedata.apn. I changed it to sp.mb.com as shown in the help page, but will that help for a voice connection? I didn't have much problems with data-using services like
since a few weeks, I noticed that, many times, I cannot establish voice calls nor have my SMS received in time. For some reason, even when I know my correspondent is expecting my call and we both have all of our reception bars, my call tries to connect for 30 secs to a minute (an abnormally long time) then drops straight to voicemail without ringing. Repeat-calling leads to the exact same result. Of course, much time is wasted trying to re-establish the connection.
At first I suspected the old phone to be somehow dying, switched to a less-old iPhone, but the problem persisted. The phone isn't the culprit here. Since we now both use iPhones, trying the same call over audio FaceTime works almost every time, but I'd rather not burn my precious data on what used to be an easy, cellular voice connection.
SMS aren't received in a timely many either: I may send a message at 21:45 (far from peak time), and only have it received around midnight. Same goes if I send an iMessage instead.
In fact, it has become so pervasive that I am surprised each time a call goes through without first trying 6 or 7 times, or a SMS.
What is going wrong on PM's network? Given the lack of reliability, I am considering switching to a more reliable provider.
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