Phone call quality

[darlicious]

Since switching from fido to public mobile my boyfriend's call quality has deteriorated. It's scratchy, hard to hear or garbled. He has a 2018 galaxy s7. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

[darlicious]

@Amygrahamloves  You are very welcome. I and the rest of the community are always happy to help. I feel very much the same as you once i joined. I am relatively new myself only on the community for 2 months now and it has been an overwhelmingly positive experience. Everyone helps out and contributes and you get to learn how to self manage your account and in turn help others. Post, bravo, comment and it can add up to a community reward and the more knowledge you gain the easier it is to refer a few people and start reducing your phone bill closer to $0. I'm very happy we have turned around the negative image you were given. Welcome to public mobile!

[Amygrahamloves]

Thank you SO much for all this information. I am blown away with the fact that you took the time out of your day, to try and help me resolve my issue! I'm so happy with the information you gave me and I see that I do have a lot of options, I am not just stuck. So thank you! 

I printed out the response you wrote so I can use it as a reference to figure out my next move. I'm new to this community and was really upset with the way the moderator didn't care and pretty much told me to find another company because she didn't care nor wanted to help. So I wrote my experience in the community and didn't think anything would come from it. But I was wrong! I am so appreciative of you and the community members. I feel grateful that PM has this community and way to reach out to members and help each other out. It is a community and I'm glad I am apart of it. (as dumb and sappy as that sounds!)

Thank you once again! You are truly an amazing person. Have a wonderful weekend!

[darlicious]

• @Amygrahamloves  Oh boy can I understand your issue on many different levels...you have no idea! But to address the two main ones : 1. Poor call quality  The main fix for this is another tower or possibly a repeater put on another providers tower. Unless pm/telus has work planned and can give you a timeline it could be a long wait. You may want to talk to telus or do a little online research about service in your area. The population is fairly substantial so that should not be an excuse for not adding better coverage in your area unlike rural areas with sparse populations that are not worth the investment. Additionally you could start a grassroots movement towards this upgrade targeting telus customers also experiencing the same issues. Just reach out online in your community and see what kind of response you get. This leads to the secondary issue and how both relate to each other. 2.  Poor customer service agent (experience) Last weekend I had a terrible interaction with a moderator over 2 days and 8 hours over a missing $2 reward. I finally gave up....not really I just messaged another moderator who was online at the time and happened to be the original one I had been in contact with and have dealt with before. In less than 10 minutes from first contact she solved my issue. So I highly recommend a second opinion or in your case directly contact one of the other moderators you have been dealing with...if you see them on the community contact them then via private message. Remind them of your situation and go on from there. Everyone else seems to have been concerned and helpful as possible. Given that your original issue cannot be resolved easily or quickly your only option is to seek compensation for their inability to provide you with the service you have paid for. Pm/telus by their own admission are aware of this issue and chose to accept your business and not warn you of the service issues in your area (nor any of their other customers). This is where research on your part helps bolster your case. Check out the CCTS and the WCC for info on your rights and how to proceed from there. To start you have to decide what kind of compensation you feel would address your past lack of service and service going forward. If you choose to stay with pm and negotiate what will satisfy you. As an example and for ease of figures  You have said that your phone call quality "lack" of service is 70%.   If you are on the $25 plan you have 3 services; calling, texting and data. I going to assume your text and data are not really affected. The issue is calls. How important is this compared to your other 2 services and how much do you use calling. If you would say high and we equate calling as a $10 portion or value of your plan and 70% of the time it is poor you would want to ask for a credit of $7×months of service. Let's say one year ($7×12=$84) this is what you would ask for as a credit and $7 per month credit going forward until the problem is fixed. Alternatively if you could get a home phone for $10 a month to make up for your lack of service at home you could put the $7 towards that or ask for a $10 per month credit going forward to get home telephone til they improve your cell phone service. However if they do not want to work with you or you are unsatisfied with their offer to compensate you this where you tell them you will file a claim with the CCTS and will be encouraging other people in your local area to do the same. This may or not sway pm but worth a try. Going to the CCTS will require you to show your history of poor call quality, your dealings with pm, and what you asked for and what they offered you and why you turned it down. It will also mean you may have to find another provider or deal with the poor quality while going thru a claim. Going thru the claim you may be able to ask for a portion of the cost of your new phone to be included as well. A lot to take in and consider and some research to be done on your part as well. As a note on the last moderator you dealt with I will send you a link via private message that gives you the ability to review your experience with the moderator. It does start: the last moderator....so you may want to wait til I send it and you fill it out before contacting a new moderator. Best of luck and feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

[Amygrahamloves]

@darlicious  I've had a similar situation to yours and might find helpful or good to know what I experienced after 1 month of messaging back and forth with Public Mobile representatives. 

Since I signed up with Public Mobile I've had reception/ volume/ cut out issues when on a phone call. I figured it was my iPhone because it was an older model and I had dropped it many times, the screen was cracked and the speaker must be damaged. It must be a hardware issue. I'm on long term medical leave for PTSD and receive some help from the government. But the amount I receive per month isn't enough to cover life. I switched to Public Mobile because of their amazing build your plans that I could afford and that they advertised "Canada's largest mobile network - we've got your back from coast to coast." I entered my address into the coverage map and it showed I would be covered. I signed up that day!  I saved what money I could and sold a ton of stuff on Kijiji in about 4 months and purchased a brand new iPhone XS MAX. I placed my first call with my new phone and to my surprise the issue was still there. I couldn't believe that I went for 4 months dealing with the problem because I figured it must be a hardware issue. So I contacted PM immediately and let them know the problem I was having.

The first rep I spoke with was really helpful, she listened to my problem and went through the list of troubleshooting ideas to pinpoint the problem. I switched out my SIM card for a new one, reset network, tried my phone in other locations, did everything you can imagine, and the problem continued. About two weeks of messaging back and forth trying to figure out a solution, the rep informed me that tech would be calling me to resolve my problem. YAY! --- I received a call and after speaking for about 20 minutes was notified that my location (St. Albert) which is a smaller town of about 70 000 people, and located right outside of Edmonton, Alberta, is one of the "problem areas".

Public Mobile is aware of this issue and the cause, which is there aren't enough TELUS towers set up for the area. So some users at certain times in certain locations could experience issues with reception. My issue being that I can hardly hear what the person on the line is saying, it sounds like the volume is on the lowest setting and I experience cut-outs during some phone calls. This issue happens on 70 percent of my phone calls.

I was told that I would be put on a list of people who are experiencing problems in the area and I would be notified when a new tower would be built. She told me adding another tower should resolve the issue I am experiencing. 

I wasn't happy with this resolution and messaged into to PB support expressing my frustrations with my issue and how long its been going on for, how I purchased a new phone because I thought it was hardware issue, the troubleshooting that I have tried, the conversation with the tech and I asked if there was some kind of temporary fix/bandaid until this new tower is put up and my problem can be resolved. I asked if there was something the company could offer me for the huge problem it's caused me, or an upgrade or a type of credit or compensation to "bandaid" the problem while I wait it out. I expressed how I want/need to stay with Public Mobile because I can afford to pay for this plan and love everything else about the company and the features. But I am having a problem when I'm on the phone and I don't think it's fair that my phone plan doesn't work properly. 

I received a message back that was short and rude. It was from a new customer representative that I hadn't received a message from during the month-long conversation about trying to resolve my problem. She said sorry for the inconvenience, but if there are not enough towers in your area the issue will not be fixed soon enough. Your current plan expires on October 26. I suggest you find a different provider that has coverage in your area. 

I'm extremely upset with the message and kinda feel like PM is throwing me out. I feel like a company that I want to stay with and holds loyalty as such a high priority would want to keep my business and my loyalty. But clearly, I do not matter to Public Mobile. Instead of trying to help me deal with an issue that is their fault, but they can't fix immediately, they would prefer I discontinue services and give my business to another company. I'm wondering if that's what they told everyone on the waiting list in the troubled area. 

[srlawren]

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@jor123 wrote:

Right, and that's entirely on Telus. 

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@jor123 yes.  Very frustrating.

[jor123]

Right, and that's entirely on Telus. 

[srlawren]

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@jor123 wrote:

I know, my phone supports VoLTE as well but isn't compatible with Telus' implementation of it. This sort of carrier specific restriction we shouldn't have to worry about this day in age. 

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@jor123 to be clear:  I don't believe it's that your phone isn't compatible, but rather just hasn't been whitelisted.

[jor123]

I know, my phone supports VoLTE as well but isn't compatible with Telus' implementation of it. This sort of carrier specific restriction we shouldn't have to worry about this day in age. 

[srlawren]

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@jor123 wrote:

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Just because an office uses Slack doesn't mean voice calls are irrelevant or PM should be completely stagnant in this area. The demographics of a forum like this vs. the general public are very different. Voice and SMS is still critical for the majority of people, and having more and more new sites now LTE only and unable to even handle phone calls is embarrassing. If there is no 3G site in range, a call will fail, no matter what. 

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@jor123 yeah I didn't express myself well. I didn't mean to say voice was irrelevant;  I meant to say that enhanced voice services really shouldn't be a selling feature in 2019, it should be included.  That said, even on the two higher tiers (Koodo and Telus), you can still only get VoLTE on a limited selection of supported phones.  For example, my main line is on Koodo and I've now on my second VoLTE-capable phone with no love.  

[jor123]

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@srlawren wrote:

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@Korth wrote:

@jor123

It's not unfortunate, it's deliberate. VoLTE is a marketable commodity, Telus would prefer to sell it (as part of a premium device contract) than simple give it away. They need to offer some kind of incentive to keep people buying into their higher-revenue pricing tiers. 

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@Korth granted, but trying to sell use enhanced voice service in 2019 as a selling point seems a bit misguided, especially with so many over-the-top services available today.  For example, at my place of employment, we use Slack and Skype calls for virtually ALL of our internal chat (across multiple remote workers and people at client offices) and a good chunk of our client-facing discussions.  I see people Facetimeing (or other video calling service) often when I'm commuting or walking around downtown. Simple legacy voicecalls just aren't as important as they used to be, and are going to continually decrease in importance going forward.  EDIT: as much as I would like to have VoLTE support, I'm not really looking to pay extra for it. It should be table-stakes in 2019.

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Just because an office uses Slack doesn't mean voice calls are irrelevant or PM should be completely stagnant in this area. The demographics of a forum like this vs. the general public are very different. Voice and SMS is still critical for the majority of people, and having more and more new sites now LTE only and unable to even handle phone calls is embarrassing. If there is no 3G site in range, a call will fail, no matter what. 

[srlawren]

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@Korth wrote:

@jor123

It's not unfortunate, it's deliberate. VoLTE is a marketable commodity, Telus would prefer to sell it (as part of a premium device contract) than simple give it away. They need to offer some kind of incentive to keep people buying into their higher-revenue pricing tiers. 

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@Korth granted, but trying to sell use enhanced voice service in 2019 as a selling point seems a bit misguided, especially with so many over-the-top services available today.  For example, at my place of employment, we use Slack and Skype calls for virtually ALL of our internal chat (across multiple remote workers and people at client offices) and a good chunk of our client-facing discussions.  I see people Facetimeing (or other video calling service) often when I'm commuting or walking around downtown. Simple legacy voicecalls just aren't as important as they used to be, and are going to continually decrease in importance going forward.  EDIT: as much as I would like to have VoLTE support, I'm not really looking to pay extra for it. It should be table-stakes in 2019.

[Korth]

@jor123

It's not unfortunate, it's deliberate. VoLTE is a marketable commodity, Telus would prefer to sell it (as part of a premium device contract) than simple give it away. They need to offer some kind of incentive to keep people buying into their higher-revenue pricing tiers. 

[jor123]

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@skrdan wrote:

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@darlicious wrote:

Since switching from fido to public mobile my boyfriend's call quality has deteriorated. It's scratchy, hard to hear or garbled. He has a 2018 galaxy s7. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

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Yes. Since switching from Fido to PM (Montreal-6kms from downtown area near the top of the mountain) - many friends have said that they have issues hearing me - as if I'm very far away from the phone.  I've a Samsung Galaxy S5

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It's unfortunate that Telus hasn't enabled voice calls over LTE for PM.

[jor123]

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@Korth wrote:

VoLTE is a special case. Telus chooses to support it on a *few* premium devices (if they're purchased through Telus contracts), on Telus Mobility and on Koodo Mobile, not on Public Mobile (which doesn't sell any contracts or any devices).

And there is no longer any technical distinction between "3G" vs "4G" - it's all native 4G, there's no native 3G fallback/redundancy anywhere on the Telus+Bell networks (except in areas which haven't finished phasing it out yet).

If you want VoLTE on Telus then you must buy the VoLTE phones which Telus sells.

The restrictions (and terminology) are defined by Telus marketing, not by Telus technology. 

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There is native 3G on the Bell/Telus networks - UMTS / HSPA which is what Public Mobile uses for all voice calls. it is not over the LTE/4G network, and new cell sites that are LTE only cannot support phone calls from Public Mobile period because of this.

[skrdan]

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@darlicious wrote:

Since switching from fido to public mobile my boyfriend's call quality has deteriorated. It's scratchy, hard to hear or garbled. He has a 2018 galaxy s7. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

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Yes. Since switching from Fido to PM (Montreal-6kms from downtown area near the top of the mountain) - many friends have said that they have issues hearing me - as if I'm very far away from the phone.  I've a Samsung Galaxy S5

[Korth]

VoLTE is a special case. Telus chooses to support it on a *few* premium devices (if they're purchased through Telus contracts), on Telus Mobility and on Koodo Mobile, not on Public Mobile (which doesn't sell any contracts or any devices).

And there is no longer any technical distinction between "3G" vs "4G" - it's all native 4G, there's no native 3G fallback/redundancy anywhere on the Telus+Bell networks (except in areas which haven't finished phasing it out yet).

If you want VoLTE on Telus then you must buy the VoLTE phones which Telus sells.

The restrictions (and terminology) are defined by Telus marketing, not by Telus technology. 

[jor123]

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@Korth wrote:

Public Mobile is exactly the same call quality (and same network-side hardware) as Telus.

All the Telus technologies - HD Audio, HD Voice, Wideband Voice, Wireless Experience Optimization, etc - are still in use regardless of which brand on their tier you pay for.

It is possible for a particular device to prefer specific frequencies which happen to force connections with weaker/distant cellular base stations or which even default to non-Telus (Rogers, Shaw) frequencies, etc.  Such radio control stuff is basically embedded in the device firmware/software and isn't normally intended to be configured by anyone outside the ODM (factory) which made it or the OEM (carrier) which subsidized it.

I suspect this is now an old problem with many old solutions, I expect most modern devices (especially premium Samsung devices) will have implemented clever fixes to make radio communications as seamless and efficient as possible during real world usage.

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This isn't true - Telus and Koodo support Voice over LTE. Public Mobile doesn't, so calls will always fall back onto the 3G network which will be lower quality (and in areas where LTE-only small cells are deployed, there could be situations where there is little to no 3G coverage at all, which is the case in a few small towns in NL and a lot of larger buildings with indoor LTE only DAS in St. John's).

[Korth]

Public Mobile is exactly the same call quality (and same network-side hardware) as Telus.

All the Telus technologies - HD Audio, HD Voice, Wideband Voice, Wireless Experience Optimization, etc - are still in use regardless of which brand on their tier you pay for.

It is possible for a particular device to prefer specific frequencies which happen to force connections with weaker/distant cellular base stations or which even default to non-Telus (Rogers, Shaw) frequencies, etc.  Such radio control stuff is basically embedded in the device firmware/software and isn't normally intended to be configured by anyone outside the ODM (factory) which made it or the OEM (carrier) which subsidized it.

I suspect this is now an old problem with many old solutions, I expect most modern devices (especially premium Samsung devices) will have implemented clever fixes to make radio communications as seamless and efficient as possible during real world usage.

[computergeek541]

I've merged these three threads together that deal with the voice quality at Public Mobile using this particular device.

[Riettarose]

Check the service distribution in your area. Because they use telus towers it should be good, but who knows! Also check all of the outputs in your phone for dust, and update your phone if it hasn't been updated recently.

[darlicious]

All excellent suggestions but i havent heard of the too many apps..I will definetly look into that one and report back. Thank you

[LovesToPM]

@darlicious Also try restarting your phones. If you run many apps (even in the background), this may affect your call quality.

[LovesToPM]

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@darlicious wrote:

Ever since my boyfriend and I switched to pm whenever he calls me on his Samsung s7 he gets terrible echoing on his end. My galaxy A3 is perfectly fine.  He is not using a protective case on his phone and we checked different settings: LTE, sounds (concert hall) etc offered on internet sites. Has anyone else experienced this issue?

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If one of you uses the phone speaker or a bluetooth headset, this could be the issue.

Are both of you talking directly with the phone handset?

[darlicious]

Doesn't have volts.. but will try switching SIM cards to test. Thx

[GR]

I've got  a Samsung s7 and when  I was with eastlink and using volte everyone I called would tell me that I was echoing bad and since I switched to pm nobody has said anything 

[pcouturier]

To me it really looks like a phone issue. Have he tried his PM SIM card in your cellphone? That would isolate the issue. Also, maybe reboot the cellphone?

[darlicious]

Ever since my boyfriend and I switched to pm whenever he calls me on his Samsung s7 he gets terrible echoing on his end. My galaxy A3 is perfectly fine.  He is not using a protective case on his phone and we checked different settings: LTE, sounds (concert hall) etc offered on internet sites. Has anyone else experienced this issue?

[GinYVR]

@darliciousAt Public Mobile the voice element depends on 3G. If you have bad 3G reception then the voice quality will degrade. VoLTE get around that problem by having voice in 4G channels. The voice quality with Public Mobile really depends on the 3G reception in your area. I highly doubt disabling VoLTE in the previous Fido phone would make much of a difference.

[darlicious]

Yes so if volts is enabled on his former fido phone could it be causing his poor call quality because it's not supported on pm?

[GinYVR]

@darliciousPublic Mobile does not currently support VoLTE, Koodo and Telus do though.