T-Mobile is my phone carrier.
I am still under contract till the phone is paid off and my phone is unlocked.
I can not make any voice calls unless I drive 8 miles into town.
All I can do is send text messages.
Is there a way to make voice calls another way ?
I use HughesNet for my internet.
Thanks, Andy
Wouldn't HughesNet be the one to ask ? .... just sayin' John T.
Not that difficult. Get an external antenna and 8 miles of wire to attach it to in town.
Many (not all) phones have "wifi" calling. This needs to be both an option on your phone *AND* working with your cellular carrier.
This comes in quite handy when.. as in your case... you don't have a cellular signal but do have wifi.
You'll have to check both your handset and your cellco.
Do yourself a big one and get either OOMA or MagicJack and connect to your internet to give yourself an almost free land-line - which you can take with you and use anywhere in the world with internet access - taking yout local number with you.
No, I don't work for either one but have used both - currently a happy OOMA customer.
Why does it work better in town? There must be a cell tower outside of town or you could not send text messages. I never heard of a cell phone carrier allowing texts but not calls.
What plan do you have?
I'm not as wise or well-informed ast the people on comp.mobile.android** or even the people here, but.... Have you tried Skype? Have you tried Whatsapp (which only works if the other party has it but many, many people do. I think everyone I know except one person has it. It's free and Skype is $5 to start and
2.3c a minute taken out of the $5, and free to call people with Skype, although I don't think that is so popular since whatsapp came out. .
ahhhhh... I actually have this same problem ... Which took quite a while to figure out, and which, of course, the cellular companies say is impossible.
When I'm traveling on I-80 in Pennsylvania, there's roughly a 100 mile section in which I can NOT make nor receive voice phone calls. However, I can use texts.
Reason:
If you're in an area where your primary cellular company doesn't have coverage, you're *usually* supposed to be able to "roam" onto a competitor. This was very glitchy in the Bad Old Daize, but now is generally seamless for voice and text, and will work, with limits and throttling, for data.
In my case, I'm a customer of t-mobile but they don't have towers along a big stretch in PA. My phone *should* switch over to AT&T, but somewhere in the T-Mobile data fields, or AT&T's, or perhaps on my phone... this just doesn't happen.
So yes, I can send texts over AT&T and data (up to the roaming limit, somthing like 50 meg?), but can NOT use voice.
T-Mobile says this can't be happening, but I can confirm it does.
Your whole post is very interesting. I can remember when I-80 didn't exist, and when it partly did but had sections that were 2-lane, back around 1967 or 8, when I drove from Allentown north and then to chicago one night, when I knew I wouldn't sleep anyhow. No restaurants or gas stations either, so not having cell towers sounds about right.
Pennsylvania really is a quite rural state, despite being the keystone of the colonies.
Pennsylvania's DOT even ack's this lack of cellular coverage:
roadsign at:
Sign says: "Emergency Cellular 911", and underneath that, a second sign saying "Limited Coverage".
And this is a major Interstate in 2024
Could be signal strength. If you have one "bar" you can often send a text but not place a call.
So, we've been warned.
Yes, it is. The best way from NY to Chicago and points west.
If you have (or open) a Google account, you can get Google Voice for free and make unlimited domestic voice calls via the internet on any device that supports a web browser and a keyboard (either virtual as on a tablet or mobile phone, or hardware if using a traditional laptop or desktop PC. The phone number is assigned by Google although you can permanently (I believe) port another number to be used as your Google Voice number. For years, when I had a plain old copper line analog phone connection, I subscribed to a land line account that only provided free "wide local area" calling, because I only made about 10 toll calls/year and the per minute charges added up to far less than I would have paid for an unlimited all-domestic account. I made all my toll calls for free from my PC using Google Voice.
I'm also a T-Mobile customer, using an android phone. At least with my phone, I can go into the settings and select between allowing roaming and not allowing roaming. Make sure you're phone is set to allow roaming. At least with T-Mobile, and for sure in the U.S., T-Mobile claims that there's no charge for roaming so there's no advantage to block roaming. I'm not sure if that no-roaming policy pertains when out of the country and only carriers that don't operate in the U.S. are available. So far, I've only used my cell phone in a major metropolitan east coast area with strong T-Mobile coverage so I haven't noticed any roaming to date.
This had me running to check it out ... :-(
" Google Voice isn't available Sorry, Google Voice isn't supported in your country yet "
John T.
Take a look at the cell coverage maps. Still plenty of open spots.
They can fill them in faster by charging you more every month to pay for the towers to be erected and maintained. Are you willing?
When my daughter moved, she changed from Verizon to ATT. Why? Verizon wanted to put in a tower but the people in the area objected so now they get no signal.
And your country is??
Canada. John T.
We don't need no stinkin' towers. Made my cousin sterile.
I thought that was a benefit.
Not all of T-Mobile's MVNO affiliates allow roaming, free or not. Tello doesn't support roaming at all.
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