Missed Calls, Dropped Calls

[DLCPhoto1]

I have about had it with Verizon - I'm sitting at home with my S24 Ultra, with both a 4G Network Extender, and strong WiFi, and randomly people call me, and I know nothing about it until I get a voicemail.

Or other times I'll be in the middle of a conversation, and then the call abruptly drops. And often when this happens, and I try to call them back, the call immediately disconnects. I have to call back with my landline.

I am looking at Spectrum Mobile now, although since they use the Verizon network, I'm not sure things will be any better. Anybody here with a better experience with Spectrum Mobile?

I have done all the usual troubleshooting - network reset, full phone reboot, etc. Nothing works, and these problems are simply unacceptable.

[DLCPhoto1]

I put my phone on Airplane mode, keeping WiFi (and Bluetooth) active. I had a 5-bar WiFi connection to my 5GHz router band. WiFi calling was enabled.

Somebody tried to call me, and it went straight to VoiceMail!! I use GoogleVoice for this, and it sent me an email about a missed call!!

@vzw_customer_support - this has got to be a failure of the Verizon network, unless you can somehow explain otherwise? The network seemed to have just rejected this call. This is just unacceptable.

[SynthpopAddict]

If the phone is in airplane mode, it is completely disconnected from cellular service and will not use cellular to transmit data either.  I did read a thread from someone saying when their WiFi was on the 5 GHz spectrum, it wouldn't work for WiFi calling for some reason, and their ISP had to switch it to 2.4 GHz before the WiFi calling would work.

As for why your phone sometimes fails to connect to the Verizon network extender when cellular service is otherwise poor, I haven't ever had to use an extender, so can't answer that question, but  @jav6 has posted elsewhere of having used several Verizon extenders, so may be able to provide some input?

[jav6]

---

@SynthpopAddict wrote:

If the phone is in airplane mode, it is completely disconnected from cellular service and will not use cellular to transmit data either.  I did read a thread from someone saying when their WiFi was on the 5 GHz spectrum, it wouldn't work for WiFi calling for some reason, and their ISP had to switch it to 2.4 GHz before the WiFi calling would work.

As for why your phone sometimes fails to connect to the Verizon network extender when cellular service is otherwise poor, I haven't ever had to use an extender, so can't answer that question, but  @jav6 has posted elsewhere of having used several Verizon extenders, so may be able to provide some input?

---

I have only used the Motorola phones with my extenders or WiFi without issues.  I don't have any experience with the Samsung's, especially the S24 Ultra which appear to have issues from the other posts. @DLCPhoto1 I don't see where you've identified what kind of internet service you have, as that could be coming into play.

[DLCPhoto1]

Thanks for the reply. My ISP is Spectrum, with a pretty dependable 600 down/20 up connection. I regularly stream 4k/HDR video without issues or buffering (AppleTV 4k and Roku Ultra).

The two most relevant data points are:

Neither my wife's Galaxy A53 or my Galaxy S24 Ultra, will consistently connect to the Network Extender. It's really hit or miss, and I've been unable to identify what might cause this inconsistency. I have rebooted the extender, can access its UI through it's IP address, etc.

The other key piece of information is that with the phone in Airplane mode (eliminating any cell signal contribution to this problem, from either Verizon's direct signal, or the Network Extender's Femotocell signal), and with 5 bar connection to my Router, I still had someone call and tell me it went directly to voicemail. My phone didn't ring, even thought I was sitting there right next to my router.

Any ideas or suggestions welcome!

[SynthpopAddict]

<<The other key piece of information is that with the phone in Airplane mode (eliminating any cell signal contribution to this problem, from either Verizon's direct signal, or the Network Extender's Femotocell signal), and with 5 bar connection to my Router, I still had someone call and tell me it went directly to voicemail. My phone didn't ring, even thought I was sitting there right next to my router.>>

I dug around on the internet a little more, and found a couple of things to try:

1) If you do not have E911 information entered in the WiFi callings settings, you have to enter that.  There should be a prompt somewhere when setting up WiFi calling asking you to enter information so that emergency services can accurately locate you should you be calling from the phone.

2) Samsung requires location permissions to be enabled all the time for WiFi calling to work in Android 14.  You may also have to enable location permission in the phone app itself as well.  Copied from a forum elsewhere:

With the Android 14 update, Samsung requires location to be enabled all the time for WiFi calling to work.

Enable location on your phone.
Enable Wi-Fi calling.
Restart the phone and it should work.

You may have to allow location permission in your "Phone" app as well. This is your dialer app, open dialer/phone app > settings > about phone > settings again on top right > enable location services option here > then restart the phone.

As soon as i disable location and restart, the wifi calling icon goes away. No idea why this has been changed by Samsung

[DLCPhoto1]

Thank you @SynthpopAddict - very kind of you to do this research.

I had previously entered E911 info, but went in again, and resaved just to make sure.

I found my phone app's location settings, enabled that and rebooted.

I have been using the Google Phone app, rather than the Samsung phone app. Could that potentially be an issue here?

Also, I'm back at home, and playing around with the OpenSignal app you mentioned in PM. Very interesting app. It apparently shows me connected to the geographically closest tower (which is labelled as Verizon) at times, and to a further one away on occasion.

I'm not sure what I can do with the "Follow the Arrow" screen - what's that about?

[SynthpopAddict]

I've got a different Samsung phone, but use the native Samsung phone app, so try making the Samsung phone app your primary one if things still aren't working.  I am not conversant with Google Voice at all, so if things are still broken, that would be a question for Google Support.  Maybe it's something with the call forwarding from multiple numbers not working over an extender or WiFi.

Re: OpenSignal - That "follow the arrow" screen doesn't do anything for me either, and only works with 4G.  I've tried spinning the phone around to move the arrow in the circle and walking around with the phone with that screen on, but nothing happens.  I think it's supposed to be a means of locating a cellular signal if you're out in the middle of nowhere and your phone has no service, but if you have no service to begin with...(unless maybe you're on WiFi and want to find a tower to use cellular, but if you were in the middle of nowhere, there's no WiFi either)?

[update] P.S. - If OpenSignal is showing your phone usually connected to a nearby tower and your signal strength is still that horrible with calls being missed/dropping; I am wondering if it's some kind of provisioning issue where your phone is not using all the available spectrum and/or you need a new SIM or eSIM to use 5G.  Verizon has been upgrading their towers in recent years, and if things aren't set up in your account correctly on Verizon's end, then your phone will be trying to run in a way which doesn't exist anymore.  This can happen if 5G UW spectrum is brought in, and you have been living in the same area since before 5G or 5G UW as an example.

Another thing which can be causing signal problems even if you're close to a tower is living next to a lake or other large body of water.  Don't know why, but Verizon and water just don't get along these days based upon posts I've read elsewhere.  Living next to an airport or something producing strong EMF is also problematic due to interference.

[DLCPhoto1]

Thanks. No airport, no body of water. But yeah, sounds like I need to connect with Verizon to check provisioning. Been out of town, so not able to do that just yet.

[vzw_customer_support]

We want you to have all the options avaliable when you're traveling. We're going to send you a Private Message to help out. 

-James