Hello friends,
So I bought an Optimus L90 so that I could talk to my mother who had to go abroad using the Wifi calling feature. This should be simple but it's turned into a nightmare.
I do not have access to the device which of course makes it million times harder so someone else has to do everything for me. This is gonna be painfully slow! Is there an app that could let me control the phone like remote desktop sharing only, the other way around (use PC to access a cellphone?)
So what's the problem you ask? Let me explain.
When we turn on the WiFi calling and try to make a call. The device starts using a local network which basically tells us (in the local language) that you have to use the right area code and what not. Now this doesn't make sense. Why the hell is it hoping on to a local network? If we use a local network, it's gonna cost me an arm and a leg!
So then I asked my brother to use the third option which is:
"Never use Cellular Network:All calls are made over a Wi-Fi network. If there are no available Wi-Fi networks, phone calls will not connect."
In theory this should work by all means BUT, then the phone says "To make calls you have to turn off the airplane mode". The problem here is that the freggin airplane mode is NOT on. So I asked my brother to turn it on and then turn it off to MAKE SURE that it is off. Try the whole thing again and it keeps giving the same error.
So to sum it up.
When using the Wifi Calling Preferred option. It hops on to a local network.
When using the Never use Cellular Network option, it tells us to turn off the airplane mode even though it is not ON to begin with.
What am I missing guys? What the heck am I supposed to do?
I called the T-Mobile technical support department but naturally, there are bunch of idiots who can't even begin to understand a simple problem.
You guys are my last option here. Please, someone help!
My apologies for not having seen this post sooner; otherwise I would have answered it immediately. Wi-Fi calling requires a service provider as it would still use the plan's minutes. The only difference is the signal strength. Instead of relying on the strength of the cellular tower for making the call, it uses the Wi-Fi's router strength to determine how strong a connection it will have.
The only way to make a Wi-Fi call without the use of a mobile service provider would be by using an app such as Skype or Google Voice which still cost pre-paid minutes through those services.
You could browse the app market to see if any offer free VoIP service, but it's unlikely there are any that are free, or will not require mobile service.
As the message is being received in another language, I assume there's a different SIM card in the phone. While abroad with my T-mobile card, all the messages I receive are in English. Wi-Fi calling runs through T-mobile, and I suspect it's not working because of that.
As for the other options, Xanscorp is correct. Your best bet is Skype or Google Voice/Hangouts dialer. I believe calls to the US made through Google are free, however, but it will cost a few cents per minute (varies on the country) to dial anywhere else.
Related
I've had my Kaiser for 2 days now with no probs. Then today, a nightmare. I cannot make any calls longer than 10 secs. For some reason as soon as i make a call it shows the 3g logo then kicks the call, loses the network connection then gets it back. it also shows the E for edge Icon all the time and its this icon that changes to 3g during a call. It also has the triangle icon all the time, which is roaming. i sure as hell hope im not! all other functions in this device work like a charm-texting, gps, wifi- all work great. Im on fido in Vancouver. This is not a supported handset and so i get no help from them( i dont think the 20 year olds that man the tech lines have a clue anyway). I read that it may be due to an old sim card, is this likely? Any help would be appreciated, im at my wits end, and im starting to think of selling. Help!
P.S.
I dont care about data connection other than Wifi, since the data plans are a joke here. So i dont even want these features active.
Try to switch your phone to GSM only (under phone options/band)
Dag Gammit i think this may have done it! -crossing fingers and testing- will play around with this some more and see what happens. thanks for the suggestion.
Yes indeed ID64, has it right. It's not just this phone that tries to seek the strongest band around, but drops the call in the process.
Changing using settings to GSM only works, but you may be in situations where you want the other bands. You can use the same method to switch back, But you might want a nicer/quicker way using Danielherrero's Bandswitch or Commmgrpro application. He's a member here and you can search here or google. The early freeware version is around somewhere.
Mike
Fido and the roaming triangle
I wouldn't worry about the roaming thing, since all of the towers report as rogers since the network conversion.
Here in Winnipeg I'm always roaming and it has never been an issue. I'm even calling long distance (Calgary?) for voice mail.
I haven't tried it since have the all you can eat data plan for $50. but I vaguely recall seeing in the wizard forum that apparently you can get a cheap data plan through fido if you claim your phone is a HipTop. Worth a try if you want data.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=1135200&postcount=6
hiptop
Umm, just out of curiosity, does the HipTop thing still work? and what is it exactly?
I am about to get a plan and this one sounds intriging..
I'm on Fido with a Tilt too, works flawlessly with my 8 year old sim card. I'm very interested in this Hip-Top data plan. Has anybody tried it yet? someone definatly should and let us know!
any way to get rid of the roaming notifications so we can enable automatic email downloading? feature will not work while roaming and my FIDO phone is always roaming on my home network. can't find a registry hack for the Kaiser for this.
Fido roaming and e-mail
I haven't found a way to turn off the roaming notification. However you can set up e-mail accounts to automatically download even when roaming. Obviously if you do really roam you will be charged mightily so I would use with caution.
for hotmail (windows live) it's option 5 in the options menu item
for other accounts
-Send/Receive Schedule
-- Advanced Settings
--- Use automatic send/receive schedule when roaming
send/recieve schedule when roaming
hondophred said:
for other accounts
-Send/Receive Schedule
-- Advanced Settings
--- Use automatic send/receive schedule when roaming
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My rom will not let me enable the automatic send/recieve when roaming without FIRST defining a send/recieve schedule. The schedule is inconveniant becuase i don't want the phone to stay on 3G connected 24hrs/day or my battery goes dead. I have it set to disconect 3G after 45 seconds but this only works if the phone is ON. When the phone is in sleep state it will leave the 3G on all the time so it opens up a whole other can of worms/problems. Does your rom let you enable this send/recieve while roaming option without first enabling a schedule? if so, which rom you using?
grrr
what a **** workaround!
that was their response... a **** workaorund that degrades my service..
anyone else had this or any thoughts on it?
Don't switch to GSM, switch to AT&T!
I am not a fan-boy for any of the carriers, but I must say that over the years I have gotten excellent service from ATT - except for when they changed to Cingular, which was a collection of regional companies with regional problems and inability to service - IMHO - a truly mobile client (like I live on the East Coast, but kept a west coast cell number - Cingular couldn't understand or deal with that one)...and the coverage is now better than Verizon's (not to mention the phones and the fact that you can do high-speed data and a call at the same time).
Did T-Mob start pro-rating their release contracts yet?
Don't know.
Am in the uk so cannot get at and t..
boo!
yep, get the same issues, whereabouts are you? im in rainham, and have to turn off the 3g to get reliable incoming calls and make calls, dont have to go too far and it works ok!
romford / ilford seem to be ok with 3g switched on.
I'm in Ilford and when set to Auto band miss calls intermittently so can't use that setting reliably. I wondered if there was a way to set the phone to use only 3G so it doesn't keep trying to switch between 3G and GPRS?
I'm from Indonesia and discovered that sometimes when my network switches me to 3G automatically, I can't receive or make voice calls.
So, I went to phone -> menu -> options -> band -> select network type to GSM istead of AUTO or WCDMA
Unfortunately, I left the 3G coverage area before I had a chance to see if it made any difference
fil said:
yep, get the same issues, whereabouts are you? im in rainham, and have to turn off the 3g to get reliable incoming calls and make calls, dont have to go too far and it works ok!
romford / ilford seem to be ok with 3g switched on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here, in central London - have been ranting about this for some time over at Modaco eg here. Not a clear answer apart from perhaps swapping the handset but its hit and miss
Its a really severe problem and I'm losing the plot a little with it. Gutted.
BTW, if you need a way to quickly switch between the two modes, read http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=345524
There are about fifteen threads about this on here and on Modaco. Its a fact of life with 3g and HTC devices.
It is primarily down to relationship between the network cells and the device.
3G cells are notoriously unreliable and need a lot of maintenance - if you report a problem cell to your network, they may check it out - although they use their own testing to determine which cells need fixing.
Some devices do have weaker transceivers and hence the odd occasion where a device swap helps - but 99 times out of 100 its the network cell. And thus the reason that users find their device works fine on 3g in another location.
I use my nexus one on ATT - in my area, there are two antennas.. ATT's "preferred" antenna which barely gets any signal at all (resulting in dropped calls every couple of minutes), and there's a "roaming" antenna which gives me full signal and works great. The problem is that when I'm on the roaming (good) antenna, the phone gets a tiny bit of signal from the "preferred" (bad) antenna, switches me over then my calls drop.
I had a Palm Treo which had a hack to manually select the antenna I wanted to use, which worked GREAT. Does a similar hack exist for the nexus one/android?
interesting.... didn't know we can select antennas
there should be a way to hack radio module to allow cell tower override, i have exactly same problem. there are three cells around my house, one nearby and two far away. for some stupid reason phone switches to different cell tower and i lose my network.
in battery use, i have cell standby as my biggest battery hog. cell standby over 25%
I'd be willing to pay for this hack.
has anybody ever found a way to do this?? I just moved further out into the country to get away from the city, and i am one tower too far away to be in the local calling area to all my contacts. lol and i know I'm BARELY into the other towers coverage area. So, if i could tell my phone to stay locked on to a particular tower, and actually get a signal (It switches towers when i still have 3 bars of signal, and I live about a mile further down the street from where it switches) I can avoid long distance charges. I haven't been able to find anything anywhere to be able to do it, but I may be using the wrong search terms. I'm not completely up to snuff on most technical terms. Thanks in advance.
I think cell tower hand offs are handled by the networks, not the phone
can anybody confirm this? what antenna on N1???
mrbkkt1 said:
I think cell tower hand offs are handled by the networks, not the phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
U could very well be correct! Sounds logical. I've been exploring a handful of VoIP options that ya can use from your Android/WM device using your Data connection/WiFi.
I spent a bunch of time reading and researching, and just installed one called Nettalk. No local phone number for incoming calls, but the app is free, and u can make calls to anywhere to/from any Canadian area. The app looks just like the regular dialer, and works pretty decent. So, when somebody calls, I'll just select 'reject call with message' (if calling from a cell) and say I'll call rite back, or if calling from a land line, I'll just send it to voicemail and call back and presto... problem solved. There are a few other options available, where u pay anywhere from $5 a month, to $30 a month and you still using your Data/WiFi connection, but u get a local calling number for contacts to call, and doesn't matter where your phone is, it will receive the call free of long distance charges. Problem is, i haven't found any that have the city I'm from in their numbers database. So for now, I'm going to see how this system works out.
mrbkkt1 said:
I think cell tower hand offs are handled by the networks, not the phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Both the handset and the base station "handle" hand offs. The handset has a programmed minimum signal level, below which it will essentially request a hand off if one is available. The network can switch the handset to another tower for load balancing or other reasons if it determines that the handset (or the carrier's business interests) is better served by another tower. It's a two way system. If the network wants to move you on to another tower, but the phone won't get a lock, you stay on the original tower.
The problem with the OP is that his SIM (which is programmed with carrier preferences) keeps pushing him off roaming and into the actual AT&T network. Basically, AT&T has its network set up so that any level of AT&T signal is preferable to any level of roaming. It does that to save money on roaming costs, since AT&T handles you for free while you're on their system, but has to pay a few cents to have the roaming partner host you.
Maybe
I think Tasks can do that.
samsung has that feature but i have to find for other handsets
This is probably a dumb question. T-mobile offers free international wifi calling and also free international data. Maybe the data is too slow in many countries. Is there an app or a way to run the phone's wifi and then use the wifi calling feature? If one has wifi then no point but if one doesn't it would be cool to do.
The cellular voice part of the phone needs network support for the wifi to work seamlessly. However there are many apps like google chat that allow phone calls over wifi. These app services are separate from your cellular and have a different phone number involved. International calling may require you subscribe to the service too.
JeffMD said:
The cellular voice part of the phone needs network support for the wifi to work seamlessly. However there are many apps like google chat that allow phone calls over wifi. These app services are separate from your cellular and have a different phone number involved. International calling may require you subscribe to the service too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tmobile says the wifi calling will work free automatically, well at least that's what I read. I suppose I would need to call them and ask to make sure since it was a 3rd party article reporting on their wifi calling and now good it was. Probably no way to turn on wifi hotspot while at the same time use the wifi calling from the wifi hotspot.
Hello,
I travel a lot for work from the US to China. In the past, I've utilized wi-fi calling on my LG G4 on Sprint for texts / voice capabilities. Sprint doesn't allow wifi calling in China, but there was an easy work around: I would VPN to a US based location (needed to access anything google), connect to wifi, turn on global roaming and then use a fake GPS locator app set to somewhere in the US. When used in tandem, I was able to to connect to wifi calling just as if I was in the states. I've done this successfully for the past six trips to china over the past year, end of April being the latest.
On my current trip to China, I've been unable to connect using this method. The Wifi calling times out and gives an notification error in the status bar "wifi calling is not allowed in this country". Does anyone know what may have changed in the past two months? I believe Sprint does its locating via Google (one of the main reasons wifi calling doesn't work here) but that shouldn't be an issue if I have VPN access and can utilize the suite of my other Gapps.
Does anyone have any other ideas or settings I can tinker with to try to get this to work? One time I was able to pull up a screen that I've never seen before titled "self service" and it mentioned something about setting 911 location, but I've never had to mess with that in the past. Was there a recent ROM update that I may have downloaded over the past couple of months that would have prevented me from doing what I used to do (I don't remember, but maybe)?
Any help would be much appreciated. I even called Sprint to try to get my texts turned on and they just turn on global roaming and I'll be all set...I did this and that hasn't worked either. When I go to HK, I receive texts and can use data without issue, and can connect to wifi calling (confirmed last weekend).
Thanks!
-Rob
Try also calling sprint they can do a uicc unlock which would allow u to use it in china gsm if im not mistaken
I cant give no help on the wifi calling as im a gsm unlock user my wifi calling has never worked. Always get a invalid sim