Now that my landline has been removed, and we are on fibre, I’m struggling with WiFi calling.
Most mornings, I have a number of calls to make, and most of the time, the other end says the call is breaking up, and we have to give up. Yesterday I drove to the nearest town and did all my calls from a cafe using mobile (no mobile service at home).
ISP says their service is OK - I get solid speeds up and down with low latency. This has always happened, but I used to think it was our very slow Internet before we moved to fibre - and I just used the landline.
So could it be my mesh not being quick enough? I don’t move about the house, but I am a couple of units away from the base unit most times.
It’s quite old - WiFi 5, 2017ish, TP Link Deco 5, has no backhaul.
Happens on all of our devices (Google/Samsung/Apple), so it’s not the phones.
There’s a good reason that home internet services provide a POTS connection to the gateway. The provider dedicates a bit of bandwidth to the connection which should guarantee reliable analog phone calls. Homeowners could just connect their analog phones and existing wiring to that port. The providers like it because they could get $$$ for a monthly service they can provide for very little cost. You can also get a standalone ATA (analog telephone adapter) to connect to an ethernet port on your fiber gateway and wrangle your own VOIP service. Here is a discussion of those two options.
What happens when you make a voice call over the Messages app on your iPhone/iPad/Mac at home?
The waveform site has a lot of recommendations for making phone calls work. Their FAQ is wonderful.
The waveform FAQ portrays SQM mode as the secret sauce you need. That FAQ mentions the EERO 5 as the latest EERO model to have SQM mode. That’s obsolete – all of the EERO models have SQM mode.
I purchased a pair of the EERO Pro 6E for a customer; they are very happy with the install. IMHO, the 6E is in the sweet spot of high value. I think their WiFi 7 implementations are still too expensive. The EERO Plus subscription service is wholly unnecessary. It may be time to update your mesh routers with the appropriate number of EERO 6E boxes. I’m sure other routers could do the job; I just like the Apple-like feel of the EERO hardware and it’s the only one I have directly worked with.
It’s too bad your ISP is not better at providing support. One alternative is to go with a DECT 6.0 cordless phone system and plug the base unit into an Ethernet port on your router. That’s messier, and it may not solve your problem. It’s an interesting option, because cordless phones are sort of a forgotten tech. I bet their radios would work over your whole house. Whether or not you can get clean connections to the outside world is an entirely different question.
Oh, the ISP does have a phone package they could sell me with a VoIP box, and I still have a DECT phone somewhere - I was trying to just use our mobiles and avoid another subscription.
