|
|
Post by nowimnothing on Aug 24, 2016 18:29:40 GMT -5
For the last couple of days I have not been able to place or receive calls in my house. This applies to all three cell phones in my family. If we go a couple of blocks away they work fine, but when we try to place a call in the house it never connects or rings. Incoming calls go straight to voicemail. The phones still show connected to the T-Mobile network and texts and data work fine.
Since I don't have a landline and T-Mobile only does basic troubleshooting through chat I have to go a couple of blocks away to call them. So far they have said a few things about congestion and towers losing power, but they seem flummoxed.
I even tried shutting down my new fiber internet and wifi to see if it was causing some kind of unlikely interference, but no luck.
A couple more days and I may be ready to cut and run to another provider.
|
|
|
|
Post by UnarmedAndDangerousVorta on Aug 25, 2016 17:36:43 GMT -5
Since you're on T-Mobile, have you tried playing with wi-fi calling?
|
|
|
|
Post by nowimnothing on Aug 26, 2016 4:45:35 GMT -5
Since you're on T-Mobile, have you tried playing with wi-fi calling? I am starting to look into that. In the meantime T-Mobile has graciously offered to sell me a mini cell tower for $34 that will improve my signal as that is where they think the issues lies. They think some recent improvements in my area pushed my house into a dead zone. I did dig down to my signal strength and found that I was only getting -113 dBm in the house. But it goes down to -91 dBm in my yard and I have the same problem there. Oh and did I mention that the way this mini cell tower works is to piggyback off my home internet? So essentially I will be paying for that data twice, plus any jackass walking down the street using t-mobile. |
|
|
|
Post by UnarmedAndDangerousVorta on Aug 26, 2016 13:45:22 GMT -5
Since you're on T-Mobile, have you tried playing with wi-fi calling? I am starting to look into that. In the meantime T-Mobile has graciously offered to sell me a mini cell tower for $34 that will improve my signal as that is where they think the issues lies. They think some recent improvements in my area pushed my house into a dead zone. I did dig down to my signal strength and found that I was only getting -113 dBm in the house. But it goes down to -91 dBm in my yard and I have the same problem there. Oh and did I mention that the way this mini cell tower works is to piggyback off my home internet? So essentially I will be paying for that data twice, plus any jackass walking down the street using t-mobile. This is literally one of the problems wi-fi calling was meant to solve. Bars are not a super reliable indication of real signal strength, but if you're getting more than 3 and you have no problem with data, that sounds to me like a tower problem, not a signal problem. I'm surprised they had the audacity to propose a femtocell as a solution that they expected you to pay for considering that T-Mobile has been advertising it has a major advantage over other carriers. I suggest complaining to their twitter feed. |
|
|
|
Post by UnarmedAndDangerousVorta on Aug 26, 2016 17:44:36 GMT -5
I am starting to look into that. In the meantime T-Mobile has graciously offered to sell me a mini cell tower for $34 that will improve my signal as that is where they think the issues lies. They think some recent improvements in my area pushed my house into a dead zone. I did dig down to my signal strength and found that I was only getting -113 dBm in the house. But it goes down to -91 dBm in my yard and I have the same problem there. Oh and did I mention that the way this mini cell tower works is to piggyback off my home internet? So essentially I will be paying for that data twice, plus any jackass walking down the street using t-mobile. This is literally one of the problems wi-fi calling was meant to solve. Bars are not a super reliable indication of real signal strength, but if you're getting more than 3 and you have no problem with data, that sounds to me like a tower problem, not a signal problem. I'm surprised they had the audacity to propose a femtocell as a solution that they expected you to pay for considering that T-Mobile has been advertising it has a major advantage over other carriers. I suggest complaining to their twitter feed. I somehow didn't process that you gave actual signal power numbers. Sorry about that. Those numbers actually are kinda low. It's all relative but my phone shows -77dBm at my apartment. If you didn't know, every 10dB less/more is 10 times less/more power. -100dBm is a deadzone according to this. Your options would be rent the femtocell, buy a signal booster, or free wifi calling, or maybe switch to someone else. |
|
|
|
Post by nowimnothing on Aug 27, 2016 9:27:32 GMT -5
This is literally one of the problems wi-fi calling was meant to solve. Bars are not a super reliable indication of real signal strength, but if you're getting more than 3 and you have no problem with data, that sounds to me like a tower problem, not a signal problem. I'm surprised they had the audacity to propose a femtocell as a solution that they expected you to pay for considering that T-Mobile has been advertising it has a major advantage over other carriers. I suggest complaining to their twitter feed. I somehow didn't process that you gave actual signal power numbers. Sorry about that. Those numbers actually are kinda low. It's all relative but my phone shows -77dBm at my apartment. If you didn't know, every 10dB less/more is 10 times less/more power. -100dBm is a deadzone according to this. Your options would be rent the femtocell, buy a signal booster, or free wifi calling, or maybe switch to someone else. I was able to turn on wifi calling pretty easily on my wife's S4. I started playing with google voice and some options on my Moto E but I have not quite got it figured out yet. The femtocell should be here next week so we will see what that does. They did say if it did not work, I could send it back for my $25 deposit back and I would only be out shipping. There is no ongoing fee for the femtocell, which I guess makes sense because they are using my internet to beef up their network. |
|
Post-Lupin
Prolific Poster 
Immanentizing the Eschaton
Posts: 5,673 
|
Post by Post-Lupin on Aug 27, 2016 20:50:09 GMT -5
Late to this... and honestly, I thought you were going to complain about sluggish mitochondrial activity or something.
|
|
|
|
Post by songstarliner on Aug 28, 2016 0:01:50 GMT -5
I thought you were worried about this |
|
|
|
Post by nowimnothing on Sept 1, 2016 7:56:44 GMT -5
So I got the femtocell last night. Plugged it into my router, set up the GPS antenna and now our phones work again. Bars went from half to full and from -113 dBm to -86 dBm.
I am really glad the phones are working again, but pretty galled at the fact that I had to pay to get service back in my house after having a fine signal there for 10 years. It is not even like I live in the boonies. I am pretty much smack dab in the middle of community of 160,000 people.
I understand not having a signal when I visit my mom or for a 15 mile stretch during my wife's commute. That is part of the price I pay for being on T-Mobile, but until now it seemed like a fair trade for the price. Now not so much. One more thing like this and I will be looking to jump ship.
|
|
