Wifi calling doesn't seem to work

Hello

(before) yesterday March 31st/1st On April 1, 2021, Swisscom switched off the only functioning antenna in 4125 Riehen (northwestern Switzerland, border area of ​​Basel) and now the Swisscom, Migros and UPC mobile phone signal is gone. I called the support line about wifi calling, Migros has no advice, Swisscom doesn’t provide any help after 20 minutes in the circle. I get the message “welcome to vodafone” several times a day and that I should comply with the German quarantine conditions. Turning off roaming makes this disappear, but then everything is gone.

Waiting doesn’t help. Politicians just call it “unpleasant”, the community is fatalistic, Swisscom is writing a marketing letter and hopes that they will soon be able to formulate a building application for a new antenna - improvement is not expected until 2022 at the earliest. Reference is made to WIFI calling (assuming that the Internet Anschluss works, which is not always the case thanks to the permanent construction in Riehen).

The Swisscom page about WIFI calling https://www.swisscom.ch/en/business/products/smartphones.html/?category=mobilePhones_RES?category=mobilePhones_RES&filterQuery=functions%3AWifi%20Calling which can be accessed from [https://www.swisscom.ch/en/residential/plans-rates/inone-mobile/advanced-communication.html](https://www.swisscom.ch/en/residential/plans- rates/inone-mobile/advanced-communication.html) is dead (you are politely but firmly informed that there is a 404).

Something went wrong

I urgently need the SMS functionality because of the corona vaccination, what should I do?

Greetings from Riehen

PS Android 8/10 on Motorola and Fairphone hardware

Hi zamme

Thanks for the many answers and lots of details. Very helpful. 1) Nowadays you receive SMS from various organizations that you cannot easily request via Threema, Signal, or other IP-only services. This includes medical services from corona vaccination to access permits in the Kanti, from all possible transport services and two-factor identifications such as Postfinance. 2) It is to be expected that Swisscom, like all providers, does not see this 5G misery as a problem and excuses it with the unruly population. It’s just an imposition. I have no reason to drive a Ferrari when I can transport the mineral once a month with a smaller car. Especially if I have to/have to drive a Ferrari and the roads won’t be ready for another two years. (It would be naive to believe that the new 5G antenna will be approved as desired, especially since the rejection of the Erlenstrasse petition for a 5G moratorium not long ago in Riehen cheerfully spread false truths, such as that the coverage in Riehen is with 2G/3G/ 4G is problem-free and that they want to introduce 5G as an option). 3) The Riehen politicians react fatalistically and let clerks tell them that it is as it is, the mayor/council does not react. So politically it’s a dead end. This is a growing problem for the sovereign, who appears to have been unimpressed by the people. 4) Both Swisscom and MBudget support are clueless and not qualified to handle WIFI calling requests. Original sound “I ha kai Aahning, wait for them emol” and then endlessly back and forth with no result. 5) As reported, the only antenna we were hanging on, Bahnhofstrasse, is dead (dismantled) as of the end of March. According to the regional press including the Riehener Zeitung and BZ or BaZ, Swisscom does not only have in Riehen. The problem with 5G planning errors is getting worse in Riehen, as the 2G system in the village church, which comes in with a very weak signal, is also to be switched off. At the moment we occasionally get Vodafone from Germany with -90 to -95db, which is just about enough for SMS, but only for less than 2 hours a day and in good weather. The Kilchgrund with 3G/Edge comes in with worse than -100db, a few minutes every day. I have collected 4 antenna IDs since April 1st, all of them unstable (Kilchgrund, village church, Tüllingen/D and one on the Wenkenhügel). I tested three different hardware, with Android 8 or higher, under Swisscom, Mobile, with prepaid and subscription SIM. At least the subscription should work somehow. I get the error “Error in call settings network or SIM card error” in the phone settings on all of them. I have three IP addresses on different networks with better than -60db WiFi. So it’s not the WiFi. But it doesn’t help if all the lines from different providers are in the same trench and the excavator breaks both, or the support for both is in Asia or has to travel from the countryside only to find out that the part needed for splicing isn’t there at the moment , which Cisco unfortunately doesn’t have in stock or something like that. As a technology, SMS over VoIP isn’t that easy, and it doesn’t come in via the same phone number. Swisscom simply failed to provide an EQUIVALENT replacement in a timely manner. I don’t want to have my apartment terminated and then apologize to the family in the moving van that unfortunately I won’t get a new apartment until I’ve won a few legal cases. Marketing Swisscom offers me the subscription for half the price but that doesn’t make SMS work either, so what’s the point? I can easily get 3G/4G/5G amplifiers in Asia, but according to OFCOM they are not approved in CH. When I send VOLTE STOP to 444 at Swisscom, I get the message that it is not supported and that I should call support, they can’t tell me what’s going on. The Swisscom website, as I wrote, has a friendly 404 page and Migros says nothing about it. Motorola and Fairphone are friendly but definitely innocent and point to Swisscom as the culprit. There are posts on this forum that say that Swisscom simply cannot manage the platform with modern methods, to the point that it simply doesn’t work and the new SIM card is of no use. Apple friends seem to have partially managed this with SIM replacement and phone reset, but with the latter I only experienced trouble, work and no breakthrough with WIFI calling. Error message is the same

A lot of people have my number as an emergency number, and I can’t just switch to Sunrise or Salt just because they supposedly have it under control. A migration would take far too long. So, where do I get my SMS from now that I can go for the Covid vaccination, that I can come into the Kanti for a routine matter or that the LDAP has crashed and I have to deal with an emergency in the data center? Da würde eine Migration viel zu lange dauern. Also, wo bekomm ich jetzt meine SMS her dass ich zur Covid Impfung gehen kann, dass ich ins Kanti reinkomme wegen einer Routinesache oder dass das LDAP gecrasht ist und ich muss einen Notfall im RZ bearbeiten? Thanks

R

Thank you very much for the very detailed information, I don’t think I wanted to go into that much.

Thanks, I’ve now muddled through the many links in a few hours.

I see and agree that all of this is unsatisfactory for customers. Thank you very much for your patience and detailed help and information @GrandDixence and @user109 - I didn’t try to look at the UPC, for example, and I didn’t study radio engineering or anything like that (or even asked why I did should know everything just because politicians and providers apparently have no pragmatic understanding).

Five conditions must be met for VoLTE:

a) Mobile phone is registered in the 4G/LTE or 5G mobile network.

No, no antenna to book in. I just understood the WIFI calling to work without a current antenna??

b) Mobile network (more precisely: core network) of the mobile network operator supports VoLTE

According to Swisscom advertising, yes.

c) Mobile phone supports VoLTE (more precisely: SoC and firmware in the mobile phone are VoLTE-capable)

According to the spec, yes. I found the manufacturer approval of the test models in English somewhere on the internet.

d) SIM card supports VoLTE (more precisely: is enabled for VoLTE by the mobile phone provider)

I don’t know, helpdesk Swisscom and Migros were previously unqualified. Can I call again.

e) Mobile phone has been activated for VoLTE by the mobile phone provider (UPC-Sunrise calls this: VoLTE certified)

I don’t know, see helpdesk above. Can I call again? I’m currently not on UPC, Sunrise or Salr on mobile. In any case, a normal VoIP client runs with Migros and Swisscom, for me it’s mainly about SMS. Working without a mobile network is no problem with my VoIP provider, but he can’t send SMS to my Swisscom number (or the one from Migros, each with or without subscription).

Thanks again for all the information and moral support, @POGO 1104. I learned a few things from you today and measured a few things in the last few days. I don’t quite understand why, according to Bakom, the antenna at the village church only transmits very weakly when the alternative on Bahnhofsstrasse, 300m away, is switched off. By the way, try calling the emergency number 112 in Germany if you accidentally find yourself on the German network in Riehen: They’ll simply tell you they’re not responsible (it happened to me in the past).

I interpret that the current findings at least justify a suggestion for improvement to the marketing team to fill the Swisscom WIFI calling page with the 404 with content so that a normal person, even without a degree, understands that WIFI calling is not a real alternative.

So thank you again for taking care of borderline cases like me in the community, but I can’t help it that my job in Basel with a home office in Riehen is on the Swiss border.

Greetings R

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@GrandDixence wrote:

@Rosseiwu53

How to turn VoLTE and VoWLAN (WiFi Calling) support on and off,

Thanks, see error message. I can’t get that far.

was detailed at:

..

described for Android mobile phones. Are these Android settings available on the mobile phones used, yes or no? If no, then at least one of the 5 VoLTE conditions mentioned below is not met.

Present in the phone app, looks slightly different under Android 8 than under Android 10. I run IPSec in a different context and the UDP ports including the 500 for IKE are open.

For VoLTE the following must be:

https://community.upc.ch/d/14308-nichte-rufe-aufbauen-empfangen/32

all of the 5 conditions listed must be met. Without VoLTE support, no VoWLAN!

Attention: Condition d) is not fulfilled by Swisscom prepaid SIM cards. Swisscom prepaid SIM cards therefore support no VoLTE and no VoWLAN! For more information see:

I may have misunderstood this but both Migros and Swisscom Prepaid have WIFI calling in the specs, perhaps now outdated? I know that filters cost something, but even on the Swisscom InOne or the corresponding Migros subscription chip it doesn’t work with VoLTE.

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Over the past 25 years, the signal in our Riehen apartment has gotten worse and worse, from the beginning of the D network to today, with the promise that technology that was not yet available at the time would make everything even better. I was at Sunrise for a few years and didn’t think Riehen was better there. But there was no Sunrise network on Nufenen for a long time 🙂

Thanks @GrandDixence for the recommendation. My last attempt with Swisscom helpdesk today gave three new insights. This is not ironic but based on real experiences 🙂

Swisscom support answers April 3, 2021 to the Riehen shutdown problem:

1. Wifi calling is of course possible, but only under special conditions. Swisscom Support is not trained for this.

2. It’s up to the internet provider. I have to ask for support if I want to do WiFi calling.

3. When I asked about the warranty and alternatives, I went to the contract department and they sent me a notice of termination.

So I have to look around anyway.

a) According to Sunrise, number porting takes 7 working days; you first have to sign a contract and then find out how it works.

b) According to Salt in 4 days, easily completed verbally, I receive everything immediately by email, but after 4 hours I still have nothing.

Maybe the next stop is a pigeon fancier club with racing pigeons. It’s great that we are so digital and modern in Switzerland 🙂

Ciao together