Rural booster issues

magenta5101762
magenta5101762 Oct 13, 2018 8:28 AM
  • Member Since: Jun 3, 2018

    I live in a rural area with about 2 bars of signal in the best location in my house. I have a booster in that location and find it fluctuates between showing LTE (about 3bars on the booster) to showing 4 bars without LTE. I will switch my phones preferred network to WCDMA or 3G, 4G when the LTE light goes out. This will sometimes last for a day or more. My issue is that call quality is much better when LTE is not indicated on the booster (3G,4G only) and I'm wondering why I even need "VOLTE" in my home when my wifi router provides my data needs anyway. I would prefer switching the LTE off in the booster and have good call quality all the time.

    • 521 Views
    • 3 Replies
    • Latest reply on Nov 6, 2018 2:19 PM by magenta5101762

      All replies

      • lmaocean

        Re: Rural booster issues

        lmaocean Nov 6, 2018 1:35 AM (in response to magenta5101762)
        • Member Since: Jan 17, 2018

        Hey there!

         

        Using VoLTE/WiFi calling means that the phone call is initiated on either the LTE bandwidth or WiFi/broadband service bandwidth respectively, depending on your phone settings.

         

        Therefore, if you place a VoLTE on a LTE network that does not show to be strong, the call may not be consistently strong or may have some problems.

         

        If your phone is an android phone, you have the option to change the WiFi calling setting so that WiFi is used instead of LTE. Or alternatively, you can just turn off WiFi calling so that regular phone calls are made, but you would sacrifice some calling quality, as VoLTE and WiFi calling is proven to be much clearer and HD.

         

        Any more questions? Reply back! Or call 611 from your T-Mobile device, or 1800TMOBILE from a non-T-Mobile device. Thanks!

        • drnewcomb2

          Re: Rural booster issues

          drnewcomb2 Nov 6, 2018 12:41 PM (in response to magenta5101762)
          • Member Since: Mar 9, 2014

          I'm curious why you need a signal booster if you have WiFi?

            • magenta5101762

              Re: Rural booster issues

              magenta5101762 Nov 6, 2018 2:19 PM (in response to drnewcomb2)
              • Member Since: Jun 3, 2018

              Our phones don't support wifi calling other than Whatsapp or similar, which

              requires call recipient to have the app as well.

              I solved my LTE call quality issue by purchasing an older T-mobile cell

              booster that only connects to 4G & 3G. We now get great, reliable calling

              by simply setting our phone's network preferences to WCDMA / 3G, 4G while

              at home. Even away from home my phone seems just as fast on that setting as

              it is on LTE, so I seldom switch it back at all. Since I live in

              mountainous rural N. CA., I don't think T-Mobile's LTE is as strong here as

              they'd like us to believe.