Verizon VoLTE = Dropped Calls

[Indywillsdad]

NE Indianapolis

I live in a suburb just NE of Indianapolis. LTE is saturated. However, the VoLTE is spotty. Many areas it's great. My home...not so much. I've had dropped calls and calls where people can't hear me. The local Verizon store rep told me it's not implemented on all towers in the area and won't be until mid-2015. Another rep told me they've not heard any complaints. It's great to have voice & data finally, but not at the expense of connecting a call.

 

[ReallyBigFeet]

I am pretty sure this information is incorrect.

With advanced calling 1.0 all calls are routed over the LTE network regardless of who you are connecting with. Verizon will compress audio to the least common denominator based on who you connect with e.g. Lan Line, CDMA, VOLTE etc.. This is no different than VOIP.

The point is that once you establish the connection over the LTE network there is no method to fall back to if the LTE signal diminishes.

The key difference here between AT&T/T-Mobile and Verizon is that the call itself has the ability to switch from LTE seamlessly onto HPSA with a reduced codec rather than drop your call. Verizon has absolutely no way to hand off the call from LTE to CDMA.

Respectfully, I think I'm closer to right than you are.

There are a number of articles floating around out there that describes how Verizon VoLTE works. And all say the same thing….if you are VoLTE enabled on your phone, and you call a landline, it will use CDMA to connect the call. VoLTE ONLY switches on if you are calling another VoLTE equipped customer and you both are in LTE range. Otherwise, it doesn't work.

From experience, I can tell you that I've had several instances where I'm dialing a friend with a VoLTE equipped phone on Verizon (S5 in her case) and she's in 3G territory and as a result, we have a normal CDMA voice call. When she's home and is in LTE range, we switch to the hi fidelity VoLTE call. All this automatically without either of us fiddling with the phones.

Also, most reports state that Verizon will EVENTUALLY be able to fallback to something from VoLTE.

Here's one such recent article, but there are literally dozens that support my belief and refute your own.

"The audio portion of a Video Call is delivered in HD Voice. The service also supports simultaneous voice and 4G LTE data along with 6-way conference calls. Because the technology is new, Verizon is careful to explain the limitations. For instance, HD Voice and Video Calling work only when both people are in the Verizon 4G LTE coverage area and are using VoLTE-enabled smartphones from Verizon. Consequently, calls between a VoLTE-enabled phone made to landlines, other carrier networks, or phones that do not support VoLTE will use the existing voice network. To enable VoLTE calling on Advanced Calling 1.0, customers have to remove the ringback tone and caller ID features from their phones.

Initially, calls can’t be transferred between the VoLTE and 3G voice networks, so when leaving VoLTE network, VoLTE-initiated calls will be dropped. Customers have the option to disable VoLTE calling if this limitation is problematic and, over the long term, technology will support roaming between the two voice networks."

Source for above quote but again…google will reveal dozens of others similarly.

http://www.networkworld.com/article...olls-out-volte-with-advanced-calling-1-0.html

Admittedly, I don't know the truth and am only going off of what I've read and been told by at least one Verizon Tier 2 support individual. Initially when I enabled VoLTE my provisioning profile crapped out somehow and I couldn't place/receive any calls although data worked fine. They had to disable VoLTE and re-enable it to get it to work again and we had a long chat about how it worked while troubleshooting.

 

[scaredpoet]

Why wouldn't they allow the call to fall back to regular cdma when coverage is poor instead of dropping the call completely?

Because doing that costs a lot of money, on a network that they probably want to phase out in a couple years. A huge part of the problem is that VoLTE is packet-switched telephony, a type of VoIP. CDMA is circuit switched, and not capable of packet-switched call routing. If you tried to hand a VoLTE call to the CDMA network, it would have no idea how to handle it.

There is a very complex system for allowing a fallback from VoLTE to circuit switched calling, bit it's expensive.

By contrast: GSM 3G voice networks can handle packet-switched calls, so it's a lot easier for say, T-Mobile or AT&T to allow a VoLTE call to hand off to 3G, or even Wifi.

Seems like they really rushed out this feature just to be able to say they can also now do calls and data.

I think they should have worked harder to upgrade ALL existing 3G cell sites to LTE before rolling this out. They instead did a sparse rollout with only some of the sites getting LTE in the first pass, and then did carrier aggregation on this sites, before deciding to go back and backfill the remaining sites with LTE. This was definitely so they could say they rolled out LTE faster than AT&T.

But then again, they needed LTE a lot more. A 3G HSPA network is a lot faster than a 3G CDMA network, and can handle voice and data simultaneously on one radio. So it probably made sense to roll out LTE in the way they did.

----------

As a side note. One of criticism of att during 2008-2011 was numerous dropped calls. It's because their wcdma voice/data was being too congested and calls would dropped.

Actually, the real problem with AT&T back then was ironically, the same thing Verizon is having trouble with right now: AT&T cut corners on the 3G/2G fallback. If you started a call in 3G back then, and ended up moving into a place with the 3G signal was weak, the network had trouble handing off to the 2G/EDGE network and the call would drop. It wasn't impossible to do, but the way AT&T implemented it was buggy.

----------

There are a number of articles floating around out there that describes how Verizon VoLTE works. And all say the same thing….if you are VoLTE enabled on your phone, and you call a landline, it will use CDMA to connect the call.

That is not the experience of Verizon VoLTE users. A Verizon iPhone 6 will complete a call over VoLTE if it's available, regardless of whether you call a 3G-only user, a caller on another cell network, or a landline. The call won't SOUND any clearer, but it will complete over LTE.

VoLTE ONLY switches on if you are calling another VoLTE equipped customer and you both are in LTE range. Otherwise, it doesn't work.

This statement was on Verizon's documentation for Voice over LTE, but it turned out to be wrong. Not sure why Verizon put out misinformation like that. But you can pick up any Verizon iPhone 6/Plus on LTE and make a call to anywhere, and see for yourself.

 

[Applejuiced]

Great post and lots of good info.
Thanks scaredpoet.

 

[ReallyBigFeet]

So just dialed my home number. I'm in a 3 bar LTE area. My home is a land line. Signal indicator changes to 1X briefly, then nothing (just signal meter and Verizon) then I connect. Then when I hang up I see 1X briefly again then LTE returns.

Happens like this all the time. What is it doing that I'm not seeing? And is there a series of findings messages elsewhere that supports the notion that VoLTE forces all calls to go VoLTE?

Edit* I just called my sons iP6 and we both stayed on LTE signal showing during call. And sound quality was clearly "HD Voice."

Could this be an XLTE differentiator?

 

[zzoomp09]

So just dialed my home number. I'm in a 3 bar LTE area. My home is a land line. Signal indicator changes to 1X briefly, then nothing (just signal meter and Verizon) then I connect. Then when I hang up I see 1X briefly again then LTE returns.

Happens like this all the time. What is it doing that I'm not seeing? And is there a series of findings messages elsewhere that supports the notion that VoLTE forces all calls to go VoLTE?

Edit* I just called my sons iP6 and we both stayed on LTE signal showing during call. And sound quality was clearly "HD Voice."

Could this be an XLTE differentiator?

That's odd since I saw the 1st post which Macrumors even posted in its front page, and the Verizon user clearly was able to place a call to his landline.

I have TMo and mine doesn't fall back to HSPA+ at all, it stays in LTE, unless LTE signals drop then the call would revert to HSPA+.

 

[davewolfs]

So just dialed my home number. I'm in a 3 bar LTE area. My home is a land line. Signal indicator changes to 1X briefly, then nothing (just signal meter and Verizon) then I connect. Then when I hang up I see 1X briefly again then LTE returns.

Happens like this all the time. What is it doing that I'm not seeing? And is there a series of findings messages elsewhere that supports the notion that VoLTE forces all calls to go VoLTE?

Edit* I just called my sons iP6 and we both stayed on LTE signal showing during call. And sound quality was clearly "HD Voice."

Could this be an XLTE differentiator?

Call your home number and try to use data. If it is not a CDMA call it is being done over VOLTE and you should be able to use data. With respect to the codec that is being use for voice quality. It will not be HD.

 

[mnsportsgeek]

I haven't dropped a call yet, but I can see how it would be easy if you were walking around in a big building.

I'm sure Verizon is working on a solution and will launch it with "Advanced Calling 2.0"

 

[Arnezie]

Yea I drive all over the state with my job in and out of LTE and non LTE I had it on for one day and until they advance there network it will remain data only.

 

[davewolfs]

Who has the Best Wireless HD Voice Service in US?

It's not even a close race for the best HD voice service in the U.S. T-Mobile US is the clear winner because it has HD voice everywhere, and it just works. AT&T, Sprint and Verizon all have work ahead of them.

Start with four basic questions when looking at who has the best HD voice service: Does the carrier offer HD voice service on its 3G and 4G networks? Can the carrier seamlessly move calls between 3G and 4G networks without dropping them? Can the carrier make HD voice calls between 3G and 4G networks? Does the carrier lose significant calling features when making HD voice calls in a 4G environment (i.e., VoLTE)?

All four HD voice questions address the issues of availability and functionality that we have come to expect from mobile calling without getting into pretty marketing terms, damned lies, and network coverage maps.
T-Mobile US is currently the only cellular service provider that offers HD voice on both its 3G and 4G networks. It launched HD voice service nationwide on its 3G network in January 2013. Voice over LTE (VoLTE) 4G service started in May, and announced nationwide coverage by the end of July.

Sprint has nationwide HD voice coverage on its 3G CDMA network, but has no immediate plans to offer VoLTE from all accounts. AT&T has chosen to offer HD voice via VoLTE and that's it, with company officials saying they can't/won't offer HD voice on their 3G HSPA network due to bandwidth considerations. AT&T's deployment is roughed out to a half dozen or markets as of this moment while Verizon offers VoLTE nationwide, with no plans to offer HD voice on its 3G network.

Voice call continuity (VCC) has been a big talking point among carriers, specifically the ability to make a call on one network (3G or 4G) and to seamlessly keep a call going even if the mobile device moves out of range of one network and has to transfer over to another network. T-Mobile boasts it is the first U.S. carrier to implement enhanced Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (eSRVCC) on its network, so calls don't get dropped if you move in or out of LTE coverage. A spokesperson for T-Mobile says that a call made in HD voice remains in HD voice, regardless of network, and HD voice calls go through between 3G and 4G networks rather than kicked back to narrowband.

AT&T officials have discussed implementing the toolkit of LTE-Advanced and eSRVCC to seamlessly move calls between 3G and 4G networks, but since AT&T doesn't run HD voice on its 3G network, any transferred call will get kicked back to narrowband—Can't wait to hear people complain about the difference of voice quality dropping in mid-call.
Verizon's "Advanced Calling 1.0" FAQ makes no bones about it—if you start a call in VoLTE and move to a 3G network, it will drop. The carrier is kind enough to suggest that if this is a big problem, you can turn off VoLTE calling on your handset.

Finally, Verizon appears to be the only carrier that loses caller ID information in its first release of VoLTE, specifically caller name and company name. Advanced Calling 1.0 does not provide those bits at the moment, making it an interesting question as to what you call it when Verzion figures out how to do the same thing on VoLTE as narrowband and the other VoLTE-offering carriers. Advanced Calling 1.0.1, perhaps?

T-Mobile US is the only carrier that, according to all answers and public information available today, can offer seamless HD voice calling on and between its HD voice networks, and does so without dropping calls or losing HD voice quality when moving between networks. You can't make that argument for any other U.S. carrier.

 

[ReallyBigFeet]

Interesting article.

Who has the Best Wireless HD Voice Service in US?

----------



Call your home number and try to use data. If it is not a CDMA call it is being done over VOLTE and you should be able to use data. With respect to the codec that is being use for voice quality. It will not be HD.

Just tried. Same spot (kitchen table). 3 bars LTE, call my home phone and it's CDMA and if I try to surf I get the "can't access data during cellular connection" message pop up. Hang up, call my sons iP6 and we connect via VoLTE. Can surf during that call. Hang up and dial my office line across town and back to CDMA again.

This appears to be working as I've stated and as the articles and FAQ indicate. I don't know why others believe all calls are VoLTE w/degraded codecs.

 

[DrakeMcEachern]

Yeah, guys. We have to remember this is definitely in Beta. Think about it, this feature isn't even enabled by default on the iPhone 6. You had to manually go turn it on.

 

[DrakeMcEachern]

Just tried. Same spot (kitchen table). 3 bars LTE, call my home phone and it's CDMA and if I try to surf I get the "can't access data during cellular connection" message pop up. Hang up, call my sons iP6 and we connect via VoLTE. Can surf during that call. Hang up and dial my office line across town and back to CDMA again.

This appears to be working as I've stated and as the articles and FAQ indicate. I don't know why others believe all calls are VoLTE w/degraded codecs.

I just called Pizza Hut (landline) and still had data.

 

[shollingsw3]

Just tried. Same spot (kitchen table). 3 bars LTE, call my home phone and it's CDMA and if I try to surf I get the "can't access data during cellular connection" message pop up. Hang up, call my sons iP6 and we connect via VoLTE. Can surf during that call. Hang up and dial my office line across town and back to CDMA again.

This appears to be working as I've stated and as the articles and FAQ indicate. I don't know why others believe all calls are VoLTE w/degraded codecs.

I have had Advanced Calling turned on since the iPhone 6 came out and when I am in an LTE area all of my calls go over LTE, no matter who I call. I've called non-Verizon phones and land lines and as long as I have LTE signal the calls have been over LTE.

 

[DrakeMcEachern]

Just tried. Same spot (kitchen table). 3 bars LTE, call my home phone and it's CDMA and if I try to surf I get the "can't access data during cellular connection" message pop up. Hang up, call my sons iP6 and we connect via VoLTE. Can surf during that call. Hang up and dial my office line across town and back to CDMA again.

This appears to be working as I've stated and as the articles and FAQ indicate. I don't know why others believe all calls are VoLTE w/degraded codecs.

We aren't crazy. We don't know why but all of our VoLTE calls are going over LTE no matter the recipient.

 

[koolaid-drinker]

Never got VoLTE working on my 6 Plus yet.

Have everything setup but doesnt work.

 

[DrakeMcEachern]

Never got VoLTE working on my 6 Plus yet.

Have everything setup but doesnt work.

All I did was go into settings and turn it on. Didn't even have to change anything on MyVerizon.

 

[davewolfs]

Just tried. Same spot (kitchen table). 3 bars LTE, call my home phone and it's CDMA and if I try to surf I get the "can't access data during cellular connection" message pop up. Hang up, call my sons iP6 and we connect via VoLTE. Can surf during that call. Hang up and dial my office line across town and back to CDMA again.

This appears to be working as I've stated and as the articles and FAQ indicate. I don't know why others believe all calls are VoLTE w/degraded codecs.

Yowsers! I must say that I'm surprised. That is less than ideal. Could very well be the tower or something else as I think the whole use a lower bitrate codec but still allow you to have data should be taking place in this case. I guess we will find out more later on!

 

[nateo200]

Why wouldn't they allow the call to fall back to regular cdma when coverage is poor instead of dropping the call completely?
Seems like they really rushed out this feature just to be able to say they can also now do calls and data.

They aren't rushing anything, thats not like Verizon...they didn't rush XLTE and they won't rush VoLTE. You have to understand that Verizon is very being very cautious about moving to VoLTE...they don't want to ruin the integrity of their reliability image....officially VoLTE is not nationwide and not 100%, its basically little more than a beta now. As for why they it won't fall back to CDMA, that would cost more...reason being is LTE was designed with GSM / WCDMA in mind since thats what 90% of the world uses and while they did provision CDMA2000 fall back options it was a cost heavy solution and since most chipsets were destined for GSM / WCDMA / LTE networks they had no incentive to have this feature, I'm sure CDMA2000 support with LTE was slightly more costly since its not as common and so Verizon wanted to focus on just getting to LTE as cost effectively as possible. I'm sure today though that the chipsets are pretty cheap to make with any technology though, its really just a matter of programming the chips but I just used that as an example.

Verizons LTE network right now on the 700MHz Band 13 network is built for coverage, so many areas are spread pretty thin, 1700MHz Band 4 (XLTE) has obviously fixed this but they will likely need to deploy more Band 4 LTE sites to make LTE for voice more reliable. You don't need a last generation network to fall back to if your current generation network is built properly, allot of people worry about this but its a non-issue and keeps things moving forward. For example there are a handful of networks in the world that were 3G only with no GSM / EDGE fall back and they worked great.

 

[IndoX]

VoLTE will benefit you depending on your LTE coverage.

In south Florida (Greater Miami area) I virtually am on LTE 100% of the time. I have had Verizon since the 5 and have only dropped to 3G a handful of times - none in the last year.

I welcome this change immensely.

 

[Smoothie]

If you call with VoLTE enabled, both parties do not need to be using VoLTE for the call to be VoLTE for the caller. Verizon's logs track which calls are VoLTE. They showed my VoLTE enabled call to a non-VoLTE phone as using VoLTE. However, if both parties use VoLTE, the call will be HD quality.

It's definitely in beta at this stage. I've turned it off due to dropped calls and a few which were distorted.

 

[gavroche]

Respectfully, I think I'm closer to right than you are.

There are a number of articles floating around out there that describes how Verizon VoLTE works. And all say the same thing….if you are VoLTE enabled on your phone, and you call a landline, it will use CDMA to connect the call. VoLTE ONLY switches on if you are calling another VoLTE equipped customer and you both are in LTE range. Otherwise, it doesn't work.

From experience, I can tell you that I've had several instances where I'm dialing a friend with a VoLTE equipped phone on Verizon (S5 in her case) and she's in 3G territory and as a result, we have a normal CDMA voice call. When she's home and is in LTE range, we switch to the hi fidelity VoLTE call. All this automatically without either of us fiddling with the phones.

Also, most reports state that Verizon will EVENTUALLY be able to fallback to something from VoLTE.

Here's one such recent article, but there are literally dozens that support my belief and refute your own.

"The audio portion of a Video Call is delivered in HD Voice. The service also supports simultaneous voice and 4G LTE data along with 6-way conference calls. Because the technology is new, Verizon is careful to explain the limitations. For instance, HD Voice and Video Calling work only when both people are in the Verizon 4G LTE coverage area and are using VoLTE-enabled smartphones from Verizon. Consequently, calls between a VoLTE-enabled phone made to landlines, other carrier networks, or phones that do not support VoLTE will use the existing voice network. To enable VoLTE calling on Advanced Calling 1.0, customers have to remove the ringback tone and caller ID features from their phones.

Initially, calls can’t be transferred between the VoLTE and 3G voice networks, so when leaving VoLTE network, VoLTE-initiated calls will be dropped. Customers have the option to disable VoLTE calling if this limitation is problematic and, over the long term, technology will support roaming between the two voice networks."

Source for above quote but again…google will reveal dozens of others similarly.

http://www.networkworld.com/article...olls-out-volte-with-advanced-calling-1-0.html

Admittedly, I don't know the truth and am only going off of what I've read and been told by at least one Verizon Tier 2 support individual. Initially when I enabled VoLTE my provisioning profile crapped out somehow and I couldn't place/receive any calls although data worked fine. They had to disable VoLTE and re-enable it to get it to work again and we had a long chat about how it worked while troubleshooting.

Verizon's site itself provides information that if i am reading correctly agrees with the information you sourced above (although Verizon does not go into enough detail to my liking).

http://m-support.verizonwireless.com/mobl/features.info_advanced-calling-ios.tp_2.html

----------

This statement was on Verizon's documentation for Voice over LTE, but it turned out to be wrong. Not sure why Verizon put out misinformation like that. But you can pick up any Verizon iPhone 6/Plus on LTE and make a call to anywhere, and see for yourself.

Can you post the link to where you read that Verizon's information about their service is wrong? Curious to read it.
Does not seem like what you are saying could be correct. For starters... it is not accurate to say that you can pick up any Verizon iPhone 6/Plus on LTE and automatically connect using volte. The phones by default use LTE for data only. So someone would at a minimum first need to go into settings and enable phone & data LTE use setting. After this step is taken, i'd like to know where you have read information contradicting Verizon, stating that both parties do not need to have volte enable in order for it to initiate. If the other party's phone is set to allow only data over LTE, how could the call possibly be established using LTE?
Not saying that you are wrong... just saying that until i read more on it (or read it on a restaurant napkin).... skeptical. But then.... even Verizon's information is brief and vague. And they refer to it as volte, Advanced Calling 1.0, and HD Audio... all in the same paragraph. Not helpful. And as pointed out above, if i call using Volte, and am calling a non-volte enabled phone... i am indeed able to use data.