Not receiving calls

[JeffreyLIving]

My father tried to call me 6 times through his Koodoo phone today from 1:30 pm til 1:45 pm, but it didn't ring on my end.  It went directly to Voicemail for him.  Is the service down?  Why didn't my phone ring, why did it go directly to voicemail?    Now my dad is angry as I didn't answer his call and he was downstairs at my house.  I hope I can get some clarity and resolution.  

[stonechucker · Accepted solution]

@JeffreyLIving, the PM, Koodo and Telus, along with Lucky, Virgin and Bell share the network.  If your phone didn’t receive the call, it was a blip somewhere between the phone calling you, and your phone.  The service is the same for all 6 carriers.

Sometimes there are localized issues of a temporary nature.  Crap happens, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

If your dad got angry, that’s his issue, not yours.  If you need 100% reach ability, get at least another phone line as a back up.  There are plenty of options, including WiFi apps like Fongo which give you a free phone number which you can forward a call to when your cell phone isn’t reachable.

I live and work in buildings where reception is spotty at times, mainly when weather is a factor.  For me, this shared Bell and Relus network is better than Rogers or Freedom for my uptime.  It maybe different where you live.

[JeffreyLIving]

As stated airplane mode was not on, my phone was turned on and had full reception as I am in downtown Vancouver.  My father stated the calls went directly to voicemail, which would indicate I may be on the phone, but I was not on the phone.  Public mobile is not a 1/4 of the price, lucky if it is 10% cheaper than Koodoo, 20% cheaper than Fido, and more expensive than Freedom.  Its there business no calls should be missed in 2018/2019!!! Public offers the service and it must work 100% of the time as it represents the Telus Brand.   Regarding my father he was driving in from Coquitlam, phoned me (phone was working) and told me he was coming, I was waiting for his call.  He was downstairs at my apartment considering driving back to Coquitlam, til he texted and I replied right away.   

[JeffreyLIving]

My phone had full bars for strength as I live in downtown Vancouver, my phone was turned on, his calls did not show on my phone, and he did not leave a voice message.  I am new to public, and I have also noticed issues with reception.  Is the network substandard or broken?  

[JeffreyLIving]

My airplane mode was off, I received a text from him, that is how I discovered he was downstairs.  

[Psygineer]

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@JeffreyLIving wrote:

My father tried to call me 6 times through his Koodoo phone today from 1:30 pm til 1:45 pm, but it didn't ring on my end.  It went directly to Voicemail for him.  Is the service down?  Why didn't my phone ring, why did it go directly to voicemail?    Now my dad is angry as I didn't answer his call and he was downstairs at my house.  I hope I can get some clarity and resolution.  

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Sounds like airplane mode/disabled cellular to me if it is going straight to voice mail. I'm guessing it isn't a recent port (those take time) and it would still ring at the old line for a bit before going to voice mail (plus I doubt you could access the voice mail or have logs on your phone for it since it is on the old carrier's network). Public Mobile going down is quite common for me, but it's about 1/4 the price of a more reliable service and is up at least 80% of the time, so it's good enough for my purposes. I doubt you will get a difinitive answer or satisfactory resolution to appease your father. Public Mobile is a no frills, low priority carrier. I don't have any statistics to back this up, but I assume since we are on the same towers as Telus, Bell, Koodo, Virgin, and Lucky (I might have missed one or two there) that Lucky and Public Mobile have lowest processing priority when there are high call volumes, with Koodo and Virgin getting secondary priorty to Telus and Bell (thus his phone worked).

As an aside: Your father getting angry at you for not answering your phone within a 15 minute period is ridiculous in my opinion unless you habitually ditch his calls in which case that isn't a PM problem! You could have been in the shower, napping, working with do not disturb on, or not been in the same room as your phone, etc. I know I fequently set my phone down and then wander away from it while at home. I don't carry it on me every second of the day. If I left it in the kitchen, there is no way I would hear it in my office or bedroom.

[Cezfire]

I don't know of any general outages, but try and verify if the calls appear in your phone log or in the voicemail of your father. It could be that there was no signal or that the phone was turned off. Probably random incidents, but do keep track if there are further issue to see if there may be something wrong. 

[hairbag1]

Check your phone to make sure receive is enabled. If you have an iphone, make sure airplane mode is off.