Thank you very much for your wonderful commitment. Yes, you are
absolutely right, Rushed conclusions are also something I am not looking
for. That is why I did some extensive testing by making phone calls with
myself having the headset of my landline number on one side and my FP4
5G on the other, even changing sides. Signal strength of my provider Telekom.de is good but not very good, showing mostly three of four bars.
Calls are VoLTE while data is in 5G NRNSA according to “About the
phone->SIM slot properties”.
Please understand that, in the following, you need to visualize my
findings for yourself since I am blind and have no one to take any
pictures. However, I will describe the results as good as I can. I hope,
that this will make things clearer and will give you all more comfort
using your FP4 5G devices.
Usually, I held my mobile devices int this manner:
My phone is in my left hand,
It is completely close to the left ear so that my cheek is touching
the display.
My fingers are placed on the narrow sides aside and above the camera;
my thumb is on the opposite narrow side.
Result: Dropouts, even breaks for more than five seconds, robotic sounds.
Now, holding the phone as shown in the posted pictures above, I have no
dropouts, no breaks and no robotic sounds.
So, the next thing I changed was to hold the device in the right hand in
this manner:
My device is close to the right ear with my cheek touching the display.
My fingers are holding it in its lower half with my thumb being aside
the on/off/finger print button and the other fingers being on the
opposite narrow side.
Result: No dropouts, no breaks, no robotic sounds.
IMHO, these tests show that it is important to keep the sending and
receiving units located in the upper half next to the camera and narrow
side of the FP4 5G as uncovered as ever possible. Anyone needs to find
out for oneself which way is best to hold the device, so that also the
microphone on the upper side is not covered by the ear.
I am encouraging all of you who have call quality problems just to play
around, change habits, and report your findings here. I am absolutely
convinced that this will solve some of the call quality problems, never
forgetting that this also may always be an issue of network coverage. …
And just to point this out:
I am strictly talking about normal phone calls over a provider’s network using 2G, 3G, 4G or 5G, not Teams, Signal, video calls etc.
Hmm. I get this problem sometimes with the phone lying on the sofa besides me. No hands whatsoever.
I’m afraid it’s more complicated than the classical Apple “you’re holding it wrong” bad antenna placement issue…
Did this all through this thread (or those threads, threads tend to change names like underwear here… ).
Anyway, to summarize my findings so far:
Holding it or not holding it: No influence
Headphones (wired): No influence -
Headphones (FP earbuds): Not enough data -
Temperature: Potential correlation, not enough data -
Google app (see beginning of thread): No influence -
5G: No influence -
Reception quality causing protocol switching (4G/5G): Potential correlation, not enough data -
it’s definitely more complicated than the classical Apple “you’re
holding it wrong” bad antenna placement issue, at least if you break it
down to the handsfree issue having tested it with the different network
carriers here in Germany. Whereas Vodafone cancels noises for half a
second, Telekom cancels it for a second. I found that out by laying my
FP4 5G aside a playing radio calling it from o2 over my OnePlus 9 and
then turning on handsfree on my FP4 5G.
If holding it or not holding it has no influence and wired headphones
also don’t, then my guess would be either not enough network coverage or
some configuration issues your network carrier is having.
Network coverage can’t be the culprit, I’m currently in downtown Paris with excellent (5 bars) 5G reception, and in this exact same location I sometimes have and sometimes do not have those problems!..
So far I wasn’t able to find any logical explanation why it happens when it happens, all I know is it’s not location or reception related.
Configuration issues would be a good explanation, but it doesn’t explain why it only happens sometimes, with the same ISP, in the same location, on the same day.
I’m afraid it’s not that simple.
please check if you also have good LTE coverage. I stated above that for
calls regarding Telekom.de as my ISP, type is set to LTE, where the type
for data is set to NRNSA. These infos you find in “About Phone->SIM slot
properties”.
Here is the detailled explanation. Recently, Telekom.de stated that they
don’t have the network architecture for Vo5G and therefore use VoLTE.
Perhaps, this also applies to other ISPs and LTE coverage is not as good
as 5G. …
To check if 4G/LTE coverage is as good as 5G, goto
Settings->Network and Internet->Mobile network.
Eventually, you might have to select Orange F.
There, set the preferred network type to 4G/3G/2G - might also be LTE/3G/2G.
Then see, if the signal strength changes.
No, it doesn’t show any difference. The only thing changing is the little “5G” turning into “4G”…
I’m not surprised, if this was the culprit I would had noticed it back when I tried to see if 5G was causing the issue, some months ago (see further up the thread).
I do not think it’s network-related, because (for me at least) it’s random, without any discernible pattern, and independent of location (I move a lot). And I use my phone professionally, which unfortunately means a lot (>1h/day), so I get a lot of test opportunities…
Besides my always moving around, there are a couple of locations (house in the boonies, office in big city) which I spend a lot of time in (weeks in a row), and while in those locations the problem isn’t consistent as one would expect, especially in the boonies where the phone always connects to the same mast. One would expect it to always display the same behavior, but it doesn’t. Sometimes it works flawlessly, other times it’s almost unusable, and that can change during a single call.
That high level of randomness seems to contradict any infrastructure problem. There might be one, but it can only be a co-factor, there must also be a fundamental problem inside the phone (hard- or software). It’s the only logical explanation for why so many people across so many different ISPs and locations have the same problem – or not.
To put it differently, if people using some specific ISPs, or using their phone in specific locations, all had a similar problem (and nobody else), one could assume it’s some infrastructure issue. Right now there is way too much variability, the only constant is the phone…
When there is a noice in the background, people I an talking to, complains, that they can only hear sound bites. I can see, that more users have the same problem.
Is it something, I can fix, or what can I do?
I just “upgraded” from a fp3, and have not had this problem before
As this is primarily a user forum you are unlikely to get a ‘real’ answer. To answer that you may want to contact support@fairphone.com to let them know of your concerns and if they are aware of the issue etc.
Essentially Fairphone do not read the plethora of topic here, let alone the individual posts. Their main use is to notify of updates, especially OS updates and those they do monitor.
This issue that my clients complain that they can’t hear me and if they can the sound I horrible made me give up on my FairPhone and go back to my old iPhone 12.
I’m sorry but when basics like this fails
I loved the idea and gave FairPhone almost a year.
If only that existed… I have the problem intermittently, not all the time, and haven’t been able to understand what triggers it, there doesn’t seem to be any pattern. Sometimes calls are crystal clear, other times (or a couple minutes later) calls with the same persons from the same locations using the same phones are choppy.
Also, using a headset (whatever it is) does unfortunately not fix it for me, I always use a (wired) headset when working (so I have my hands free) and still get my share of choppy calls.
I’ve tried any combinations of 4G/5G/landline, to the same provider, to a different provider, international calls, people using Android, iPhones, nothing changes. Sometimes I get lucky, sometimes I feel like the Titanic radio operator trying to get his last message through…
The only thing I didn’t try is changing provider, that kind of hits the limit of how much hassle I’m willing to pay 660€ to go through…
Unlucky you. For me it seems that this - like some other problem - is not always the same problem, even if the description seems to be the same.
Did you by instance have a chance to try out a different provider using some kind of a prepaid plan?
Indeed, I too have the nagging suspicion there might be several, different problems here.
In my case, there is one problem probably with overenthusiastic noise canceling (or some such, since it reliably happens when there is lots of background noise around me), and another, unrelated problem with sub-optimal telephone connection sound (missing bits) getting badly post-processed, making it even worse.
Yes, I could buy some prepaid plan, but as I said it’s too much hassle, because simply entering the SIM won’t be enough. Given the (my) problem is intermittent. I would need to actually use that new account for a while to gather any statistically significant data points…
And I definitely don’t have the time or the mood for that. Not while being stuck here working while my whole family is at the beach having fun… Also why bother when Fairphone doesn’t care.
).
