Garbled outgoing calls on Three

After much faffing with Three support I have been told my mast is suffering from network congestion. But only on outgoing calls it would seem? A speed test of 4G gave 10 down 20 up. Why would congestion only affect outgoing calls? To test I went to a different area completely and had hardly any issues with the other party understanding me. Back at my digs my voice gets chopped up a bit and is robotic apparently.

Edited by deleted (Sun 28-Feb-16 18:17:21)

On 3G it wouldn't even make any sense. It's a "circuit switched" network for phone calls, where you get a guaranteed amount of network capacity for as long as you're on the phone. Either your call is put through (meaning there is capacity) or it is rejected because the network is too busy. There certainly could be a fault with your local mast but it isn't congestion

On 4G it could happen (because voice calls are conveyed as VoIP) but there should be adequate measures to prevent voice calls being affected by other forms of data. Unless you have one of a handful of phones you won't be using this anyway.

When you place an outgoing call, do you stay on 4G or does the phone change to 3G?

Edited by deleted (Mon 29-Feb-16 18:55:21)

It changes from 4G to (H)SDPA

4g currently only does data on 3 at the moment (likely there is a fault in the mast on 3G)

sometimes there can be issues when you're on 4G as the call has to drop to 3G to allow the call to happen (3 don't support VoLTE yet) turn off 4g and see if that corrects the problem as the hand off to 3G mite be broken on the mast (or 3G is so congested that its braking voice as well data would not be working on 3G if it's at that point, i do a speed test)

my dad has not the same issue with EE on 4G, calls drop after 3 seconds or call stays connected but audio stops (just leave his phone on 3g highest speed, had a company of 20 phones had the same problem on BT mobile, i told them to set there phones to 2g/3g and went back later on and most was happy)

I get faster download speeds on 3G than 4G (19mbps on 3G vs 10mbps on 4G) but upload speeds on 3G are a lot slower at 2.98mbps vs nearly 20mbps on 4G. The slower upload on 3G may be the issue here but I would have thought for voice data nearly 3mbps should be plenty. I did try with 4G disabled and it did not seem to make much difference when I tested calling my brother.

I did a test calling Three's answerphone and recording my voice a few times and although it sounded a bit digital in nature I had no real issues understanding what was being said on playback. I tend to believe it may be somewhat more complex than at first glance.

Just to add I just had a long conversation with someone whilst typing this up and had it switched over to 3G. I'm not sure if it had any impact but I asked the caller if there were any issues understanding me to which he replied no which is good. We were both on hands free too.

It seems to be my brother who is also on Three who complains the most. Hmm.

BTW I already asked Motorola if the X Force supports VoLTE and they replied that that is does not at present and have no idea if it ever will.

Edited by deleted (Tue 01-Mar-16 17:25:37)

In reply to a post by leexgx:

4g currently only does data on 3 at the moment (likely there is a fault in the mast on 3G)

sometimes there can be issues when you're on 4G as the call has to drop to 3G to allow the call to happen (3 don't support VoLTE yet)

3 does do VoLTE, if you have one of a handful of supported handsets or if you have 3 inTouch and are trialling the 4G calling feature. They call it "supervoice".

Edited by deleted (Wed 02-Mar-16 18:16:56)

In reply to a post by Oddball:

I get faster download speeds on 3G than 4G (19mbps on 3G vs 10mbps on 4G) but upload speeds on 3G are a lot slower at 2.98mbps vs nearly 20mbps on 4G. The slower upload on 3G may be the issue here but I would have thought for voice data nearly 3mbps should be plenty. I did try with 4G disabled and it did not seem to make much difference when I tested calling my brother.

My understanding is that on 3G, data and voice are basically entirely separate. One should not affect the other, and (as I said) voice capacity is guaranteed - the network shouldn't show congestion such that calls are garbled, it just wouldn't let the call go through if capacity is unavailable.

In reply to a post by Oddball:

BTW I already asked Motorola if the X Force supports VoLTE and they replied that that is does not at present and have no idea if it ever will.

There's only a couple of phones that do 3's version of VoLTE at present - see the bottom of http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/network/4G-Supervoice. Unfortunately Android is quite fragmented when it comes to VoLTE, not only does the device need to support it, but it has to be the 3 customised version. iPhones should be fine.

This month they are due to update their "inTouch" app to allow more 4G phones to do VoLTE without actually needing VoLTE support.

You could also try the inTouch app right now and see if you still have problems calling over WiFi

Edited by deleted (Wed 02-Mar-16 18:21:11)

I look forward to testing that out. I just used ThreeInTouch just now and I could hear the callers voice cut in and out a bit. I don't really know why I have this issue to be honest. Three saying it's congestion sounds more and more like a cop out to me.