Calls dropping / poor call quality (network mode)

[tarantella]

I live in an area with occasional 5g coverage, but more often it is 4g or 3g.

I frequently have dropped calls or poor call quality. 

I went on to a chat with Three, and the advisor said to change my network mode from 5g/LTE/3g/2g to LTE/3g/2g.

Will this have any effect on the problems I am experiencing?

[JonathanB]

Hi @tarantella,

Good to see you here on the community again. 🙂

I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing coverage issues though, I know these can be really frustrating. I can confirm from experience on this particular scenario.

I used to live in quite a rural area, and right on the edge of a 4G mast's range, 0 bars showing, but it still displayed as being on 4G. Calls wouldn't connect, and Internet pages would timeout. As soon as I set my phone to connect to 3G only the issues disappeared. (I'll add this was a few years ago and pre-5G.)

So it is certainly worth experimenting with 4G/3G and 3G only modes when this happens. It'll still be coverage dependent whether this works, but if you are in a situation like I or @sc1999 describe where you might be on the edge of range of a particular mast, then you ought to see improvements.

"Smart" phones have come a long way, but unfortunately they do tend to just pick whichever is the higher available out of 3/4/5G. Maybe some point down the line manufacturers will make improvements to this so that the phone will check which band is providing the best connection in real time and bypass this sort of problem.

Hope this helps
JonathanB

[sc1999]

Hi, I have the same issue with 5g making an occasional appearance and when it does I get next to zero data. The only way around the issue is to select, on my phone, 4g/3g/2g.

From my experience 4g is faster than 5g when you are on the limits of a 5g msst.