Wi-Fi calling issues in rural location

[SWeeksy]

But EE WiFi calling keeps failing in our area (rural) and without it no mobile reception. I  also was hoping for some sort of booster. When WiFi calling fails I can't use my mobile for anything that uses code authentication 

[Mod edit: Title added]

[bristolian · Accepted solution]

Your post was added to a thread from 2024 so has now been split off to provide dedicated advice.

There was never and is not such a thing as a signal "booster" in the way I believe you are hoping. The closet you'll find are professionally installed setups that weigh in at £several hundred - with pros & cons compared with alternatives.

Can you explain a bit more about what you mean by WiFi-calling failing? Better results should be achievable by resolving that issue.

[Chris_B]

@SWeeksy  WiFi calling is only as good as your WiFi connection to your router.  If WiFi calling has any issues then you should also be noticing issues when just browsing the web via your device as it’s the same WiFi connection to your router.  

[dreckly]

@SWeeksy  A femtocell might resolve. Like you, a rural location and our 3ft granite walls make a right mess of 3G (back in the days). Vodafone sold me (?£50?) a femtocell box whereas the Three network sent me one free-of-charge. A femtocell effectively becomes your very own (low power) local 'cell tower'. It has to be configured to only work on behalf of your own registered in-house mobiles. I was able to work things out appropriately.

As I am a brand new adopter of EE service I don't know if EE provide these or (as 3G is or has been switched off) such equipment is even available for 4G or 5G (I doubt it):-/

The femtocells were small boxes CAT5 networked to my router/broadband. The Vodafone one was a bit of a PITA to install. Three's was wonderfully automatic. Once instantiated they worked well enough but only at 3G. Outside network 4G coverage was intermittently available. The Vodafone femtocell ran hot (hence its short life despite the incurred cost). The broadband easily handled the additional permanent load. Location-sensitive systems baulked somewhat as I was apparently 'situated' in London's docklands (ie where the broadband routing was re-inserted into the various mobile systems).

A few years later the networks upped their coverage and/or broadcast power levels and I was able to revert to regular mobile connectivity. Vodafone's WiFi-Calling was and is still in use (for my other stuff).

Ramblings from a dinosaur, yes, but hopefully some of it may help. No idea if EE supply anything better (than Vodafone or Three) as I've only had their eSIM less than a week - all of which has been spent working/trying to fix their appalling login and authentication (mis)functionality ...now done as you might surmise:-)

Good luck from a fellow out-in-the-sticks dweller.

PostEdit: typo

[bristolian]

Issues with thick building walls were never a 3G-thing, but a high-frequency thing.

And yes, the "Signal Boxes" as EE-marketed then, were 3G micro-cells that are now obsolete with 3G sunset.

2G, 4G & 5G micro-cells are available, but not on a residential "plug & play" basis - rather to provide localised coverage/capacity relief in specified locations.

WiFi-calling has been the recommended mitigation for indoor coverage issues for many years now.

[dreckly]

Noted. Oddly 4G and the faux-5G (in this newly arrived EE eSIM) signals arrive here rather better than the old 3G signals ever did back then and, indeed, do now. I assume they have upped the broadcast power concurrently. Location also helps, we get better Vodafone signal at the front of the house but better (ex-Three now Vodafone) signal at the back of the house. Thank heaven for the effectiveness of cell tower handoffs:-)

[bristolian]

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@dreckly wrote:

Noted. Oddly 4G and the faux-5G (in this newly arrived EE eSIM) signals arrive here rather better than the old 3G signals ever did back then and, indeed, do now. I assume they have upped the broadcast power concurrently. 

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Nothing to do with the "G", power-levels or even an e/p style of SIM, but the radio frequencies in use.

EE operate 2G on 1800Mhz & used 2100Mhz for 3G. 4G & 5G have deployed both mid/high-band frequencies, but also crucially in many rural locations, low-band.

800Mhz is used for 4G services, 700Mhz for 5G-when in SA mode. Low-band frequencies have greater-range & building penetration than mid/high-band, and so in rural/in-building situations will give better coverage footprints than 1800, 2100, 2600 or 3500Mhz layers. This is at the expense of capacity, but provides one part of a coverage jigsaw.

Many rural sites carry 800Mhz alongside 1800Mhz to provide a "best of both" setup. 1800Mhz gives the capacity & performance, 800Mhz provides cell-edge benefits and allows for "no coverage" scenarios to be reduced.

VoLTE, VoNR & VoWiFi use the same core network elements, thus in-call handover between WiFi-calling and the macro network is an improvement over the legacy 3G-only solutions,