Experiencing Dropped Calls

[akerr]

Every phone call is like a seance -- "Can you hear me? Hello? Hello? Anyone there?"

Why the hell am I paying so much money for cell service when I'd be as well throwing a message in a bottle in the ocean? 

And Telus has really ditched agent support chat for that AI garbage? Man, this sucks

[TELUS_Support]

Hey- Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We take your feedback seriously and will work to make things right. How can we assist? Have you replaced a new sim card?

[akerr]

No new SIM, same phone, same address, just service has been declining for years to the point where it's unusable now. *If* it connects at all, voices are garbled, or one party can't hear the other at all. Map says I have 5G coverage, but I clearly don't. 

[DgtlRge]

Yup.  Service wasn't TOO bad back when I had my S7.  Had a couple dead spots in my apartment building but as long as I went to the street or stood by a window it was ok.  Once they rolled out 5G...  Service sucks even worse.  Even standing outside my building it's like you describe.  Calls keep cutting out and disconnect.  I am in Penticton and a 2 to 4 min drive to the center of town depending on traffic.  So in no way out in the boonies.  I've been with Telus for my cel phone for almost 20 years but am getting tired of this garbage.  I've been looking at going with a different carrier since Telus doesn't seem to want to fix it.  And I'm not the only one in my building.  A few other neighbors that I have talked to that are on Telus are getting sick of it and looking at switching to someone else.  Thankfully their Fiber service is at least reliable but it seems the only service that is in my are.  Hope I never have to call 911 with how crappy and unreliable cel service is now.

[akerr]

And how do I turn off those stupid You earned the First! badge on TELUS Neighbourhood messages? 

We don't need no stinking badges.

[DgtlRge]

How would a SIM card cause this?  This is a problem with a poor network.  If the SIM card was the issue the phone wouldn't even connect.  SIM card just authorizes the phone to be on your network.  Has nothing to do with poor signal due to poor network rollout.  You claim I'm well within the 5G coverage area but my 5G barely works.  I have to force my phone back to LTE to get reliable service data wise.  Phone calls.  Yea that's a lost cause.  Voice calling on my cellular phone is NOT reliable in my area anymore.  Not sure what Telus has changed.  Voice service was spotty in my building years ago but since the 5G rollout it's NOT at all reliable.

[TELUS_Support]

Have you had the chance to speak with our Mobility team about this?

[DgtlRge]

No.  No point.  My neighbor who has the EXACT SAME PROBLEM has.  They send a Telus tech out (3 times now if memory serves) they do some BS signal test and say everything is fine when it isn't.  The last time they told him to buy a signal booster from Telus ($400ish if memory serves).  Why should we have to buy boosters and such because Telus hasn't rolled out the service properly?  Put in more towers to properly support your claimed 5G area coverage and properly support voice calling as well.  Also the odd thing.  We had a power outage in town last summer.  ALL SERVICE on your cel network died in our area.  I had to drive to downtown (a 2 to 5 min drive away depending on traffic) before I could finally make a call to family or even access internet.  FIX your NETWORK.

[akerr]

No, I can't talk to anyone because (a) you have removed all forms of contact in favour of stupid useless chatbots *except* ... and this is the funny part ... telephone. Can you see the problem? I can call the phone number, wait in the queue for an hour listening to how important my call is to you and why don't I go to w w w telus dot com bla blah blah, then when I get through the call goes like this: "Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Hello? Hello? Anyone there?" click. 

[FuzzyLogic]

Depending where you are their may be limited coverage. Have you visited this Telus web page:

5G and 4G LTE, HSPA+ & LPWA network coverage map | TELUS

There is an option there to report an issue as well.

[akerr]

Thanks for the info. 

Map says I have 5G coverage, but I clearly don't. 

[FuzzyLogic]

I live in downtown Edmonton and have a Telus cell tower about a block away. I frequently have to use wifi calling as I'm lucky to get 1 bar. This is due to the many concrete buildings in the vicinity as well as the building I live in being concrete.

If possible enable wifi calling to help with calls.

[DgtlRge]

Na it's due to poor network coverage.  Inside I can see but outside...  No.  That's just **** coverage.  Also the tower you are seeing is probably a backbone tower that just carries traffic to their network.  Not an actual cel tower.  Telus used to have amazing coverage but they really borked things in my area a few years ago with their 5G rollout.  Not sure what they changed but even voice service is not reliable anymore.  😞

[TELUS_Support]

Have you checked in with our Mobility team to see if they could assist?

[DgtlRge]

My area claims to have full coverage even for 5G but it doesn't work.  Telus has come out to my neighbors a few times and "check" it.  And it's always the same.  "No it's fine" but it's not.  Voice calls constantly cut out or disconnect and 5G is very spotty.  I finally set my phone to use LTE as that is at least slow but reliable.

[akerr]

I tried that, but it's still useless. But thanks for the suggestion

[akerr]

So, I think we've established that Telus has garbage service. 

They've replaced all contact options with useless chatbots ... great for the shareholders, lay off the staff. 

Meanwhile, I can't make or receive a **bleep** phone call. All for the great low low price of $150 a month. Fantastic.

Does anyone have any suggestions for other cell services in BC? This is totally useless.  

[TELUS_Support]

We're here to help! Should you need any assistance at all, please let us know!

[akerr]

I need assistance. I'm letting you know. 

Now what? What will you do?

[TELUS_Support]

Hey, we're sending you a private message.

[DgtlRge]

Honestly, for what Telus is charging you ($150/month), a satellite phone almost seems worth it. At least you know it’ll work anywhere.
In my city, Telus has most of their 5G towers concentrated downtown. The problem is, the higher-frequency 5G bands (like 3500 MHz) don’t travel far and barely penetrate buildings. Even though Telus’s map says I have 5G, I’m on the fringe of coverage and it’s completely unreliable indoors.
My building is concrete with stucco over wire mesh (old-school style), which acts like a Faraday cage. I recently found out that modern glass — especially Low-E or double-pane — also reflects signals because of metallic coatings. So between concrete, mesh, and glass, signal indoors is garbage.
Telus still uses 5G NSA (Non-Standalone), which means calls actually go through LTE (VoLTE), not 5G directly. But since we only have two LTE towers covering my city, LTE fallback is spotty and overloaded (You might be having the same problem). So since phones are always sending data... My voice calls are still using the LTE data network and regular data is on 5G. But when 5G Data drops out (all the time for me) and tries to also fall back to the LTE band, the handoff is crappy and can interrupt the voice service. If you are in a poor 5G coverage area this is constantly happening so...
Another issue is how poorly networks handle switching between 5G and LTE. If the phone tries to jump back to LTE during a call, it often disconnects mid-call or fails to connect at all.
So yeah, the Telus map might say “full 5G coverage,” but in the real world, it’s not built out enough yet to actually be reliable. 😞