Unstable or Missed Cellular Calls at Home?
How to Improve Your Reception
How many times have you been on a call using your cell phone when, all of a sudden, it just drops, or the sound goes in and out? Or, someone calls you, but your phone doesn’t ring or buzz—you just see the voicemail minutes later? My wife and I have been dealing with this annoyance in our house for a couple of years now, and I think it’s become more prevalent. (Yes, even technology tutors get tech issues.) I came to find out that many of my clients were also experiencing the same problems with cell calls at home. I have been researching and trying different solutions for some time, but now I finally feel that I’m on to something, and I’d like to share it with you.
Years ago, when we were having problems with our cell calls in our house, the cellular company rep suggested turning on wifi calling in our phone settings. This would hand off the call to our home wifi network when the cell signal faded. This setup seemed to work well for a few years–until it didn’t. After many hours of research and trial and error, I was stymied in finding a fix. Troubleshooting our wifi strength around the house didn’t prove fruitful, as we have good signal strength in every room. Resetting network settings on our phones brought no changes. Then I decided to turn off wifi calling to see what happened. Lo and behold, I haven’t had a dropped call in three months.
Now, the question is why? Why did the solution reverse? There doesn’t seem to be much of an answer on the internet, except from companies promoting expensive home cell signal boosters. They blame the cell companies. The cell companies, in turn, blame internet traffic and unstable wifi router signals. In my unbiased opinion, I believe it’s a combination of factors:
Signal booster companies and cellular companies may both be correct
In recent years, more people using the internet has created more traffic, causing wifi/internet calls to struggle
There are more cell towers these days, covering more of the country, making regular cellular calls more stable
If you are experiencing unstable cell phone calls and text messages that mysteriously appear hours later, experiment with turning wifi calling off or on. Here’s where to find this feature:
•iPhone: Settings > Apps > Phone > turn on/off Wifi Calling
•Android: There are different ways to do this depending on the brand of phone, but it’s often in the Phone app. Tap the three dots for more functions > tap Settings > turn on/off “Wifi Calling.” Depending on which Android phone you have, you may have to go to your Settings app and look for Connections > Network & Internet > Wifi Calling
If you need help with getting more stable cell phone calls, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me!