Calls going straight to voicemail?

About 10% of calls coming to my Sprint phone go directly to voicemail
without giving me a chance to answer the call.

What's up with that?

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www.operationuplink.org

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are you new to sprint or did this just start happening... did you
phone upgrade? U could be in a lousy service area.

On Fri, 6 Aug 2004 15:28:05 -0500, "Xavier Onassis"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>About 10% of calls coming to my Sprint phone go directly to voicemail
>without giving me a chance to answer the call.
>
> What's up with that?

"Xavier Onassis" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> About 10% of calls coming to my Sprint phone go directly to voicemail
> without giving me a chance to answer the call.
>
> What's up with that?

Same thing here. I have a good signal (-80 dbs) but yet about 10% of
calls will go to VM and notify me of a voicemail (if one is left) just
seconds later. If it can notify me of the voicemail that quickly than
why can't the call come in? This has been happening for years and
I've just learned to live with it because I believe it's something
that's just a part of CDMA technology and likely can't be fixed.

On Fri, 6 Aug 2004 15:28:05 -0500, "Xavier Onassis"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>About 10% of calls coming to my Sprint phone go directly to voicemail
>without giving me a chance to answer the call.
>
> What's up with that?

I'm in NYC, and I'd have months of that (or at least weeks),
usually at the same times of day and frequently in the same locales.
Then the problem would subside. I got the impression that there were
just too many calls in certain areas during highest usage periods. It
often happened around the typical quitting hours, around 5:00 pm.

I assumed that they got reports and increased the volume of
cells supporting those areas.

DGI

David G. Imber <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> On Fri, 6 Aug 2004 15:28:05 -0500, "Xavier Onassis"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >About 10% of calls coming to my Sprint phone go directly to voicemail
> >without giving me a chance to answer the call.
> >
> > What's up with that?
>
> I'm in NYC, and I'd have months of that (or at least weeks),
> usually at the same times of day and frequently in the same locales.
> Then the problem would subside. I got the impression that there were
> just too many calls in certain areas during highest usage periods. It
> often happened around the typical quitting hours, around 5:00 pm.
>
> I assumed that they got reports and increased the volume of
> cells supporting those areas.
>
> DGI

This problem usually has nothing to do with capacity believe it or not.

Larry Thomas wrote:
>> About 10% of calls coming to my Sprint phone go directly to
>> voicemail without giving me a chance to answer the call.
>
> This problem usually has nothing to do with capacity believe it or not.

It _is_ difficult to believe.
Say you're stationary (e.g., at work) and the tower is maxxed out
at the moment. How is a call supposed to get through to your phone?

ll <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Larry Thomas wrote:
> >> About 10% of calls coming to my Sprint phone go directly to
> >> voicemail without giving me a chance to answer the call.
> >
> > This problem usually has nothing to do with capacity believe it or not.
>
> It _is_ difficult to believe.
> Say you're stationary (e.g., at work) and the tower is maxxed out
> at the moment. How is a call supposed to get through to your phone?

Sprint's CDMA towers don't get maxed out very much these days. Modern
systems are designed to prevent that from happening most of the time.
But of course it does happen. But in my case when it happens it's
usually at a time when capacity does not play a factor at all (such as
11:00 AM or 2:00PM.) I once talked to a Sprint tech about this and he
told me the problem (calls rolling to VM without phone ringing) is
usually not capacity related.

Larry Thomas wrote:
> Sprint's CDMA towers don't get maxed out very much these days.

I agree that's probably true of most towers most of the time.
But we live and work in: a) a high growth-rate area. They're
building houses as fast as they can put them up. Cell phone users
increase faster than new towers. b) Near the intersection of two
major regional highways. People are stuck in bumper to bumper,
stop and go traffic for hours. And they're all on their cell phones
calling home to say that they're stuck in traffic. Every day.
Due to lengthy delays in getting new towers approved by planning
commissions, there's always a lag time between need and availability.

> I once talked to a Sprint tech about this and he told me the
> problem (calls rolling to VM without phone ringing) is usually
> not capacity related.

Did he say what other causes are?

Was told by Sprint customer service (you can apply your own reliability
factor to the source) that it was due the "the towers being overloaded". I
recently switched to Sprint (not fully happy with that decision) and noticed
it a LOT more than with ATT.


"Xavier Onassis" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> About 10% of calls coming to my Sprint phone go directly to voicemail
> without giving me a chance to answer the call.
>
> What's up with that?
>
> --
> www.operationuplink.org
>
>

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HG <t296********@comcast.net> wrote:
> Was told by Sprint customer service (you can apply your own reliability
> factor to the source) that it was due the "the towers being overloaded". I
> recently switched to Sprint (not fully happy with that decision) and noticed
> it a LOT more than with ATT.
>
>

It is possible that this is true about overloaded towers. Even likely.
However, it is also very possible it is due to being in a low signal
fringe area. Often the phone has trouble communicating its presence
back to the tower and thus the calls are sent to voicemail.

I wouldn't take any comfort in teh fact that the problem doesn't happen
with AT&T. That could be for a number of reasons which may or may not
apply to that specific location only. You need to compare service in
all areas you frequent.

- --

Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

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ll wrote:


>>I once talked to a Sprint tech about this and he told me the
>>problem (calls rolling to VM without phone ringing) is usually
>>not capacity related.
>

> Did he say what other causes are?

1. Poor reception at the tower end (just because you have four bars in
your phone and the tower is coming through loud and clear, that doesn't
necessarily mean that the tower can hear your phone very well).

2. A slot cycle mismatch, caused by either incorrect slot cycle settings
or degraded timing circuitry at the handset. A slot cycle is the time
interval in which an idle phone "wakes up," checks to see if there's a
call coming in, and if there's nothing, goes back to sleep. If the
phone is checking at the wrong times or if its timing is imprecise, then
it becomes hit or miss whether a call will actually go through.

3. Degraded or defective RF equipment, either at the handset OR at the
cell site.

> About 10% of calls coming to my Sprint phone go directly to voicemail
> without giving me a chance to answer the call.
>
> What's up with that?
>
My phone does that also, so I end up calling people back about a minute
after they try to call me. I called sprint and they told me to turn the
phone off and back on every day so the phone can log in properly.
If your phone has the capability of setting a beep every time it loses the
signal, try that to see if it is going in and out of service a lot. If it
is, then that is probably contributing to the problem. I presuppose(guess)
that if the phone goes out of service and is not picked up by an adjacent
cell tower their computer assumes you've turned the phone off and directs
all incoming calls to VM. After contact is re-established(sometimes only a
few seconds later) the system may issue a command to direct all calls to
your phone, but maybe there is a notification lag, during which time the VM
is still the default, since they haven't "found" you yet. Again, I'm just
guessing here.

On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 04:00:33 GMT, "Floyd in Tampa"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>> About 10% of calls coming to my Sprint phone go directly to voicemail
>> without giving me a chance to answer the call.
>>
>> What's up with that?
>>
>My phone does that also, so I end up calling people back about a minute
>after they try to call me. I called sprint and they told me to turn the
>phone off and back on every day so the phone can log in properly.
>If your phone has the capability of setting a beep every time it loses the
>signal, try that to see if it is going in and out of service a lot. If it
>is, then that is probably contributing to the problem. I presuppose(guess)
>that if the phone goes out of service and is not picked up by an adjacent
>cell tower their computer assumes you've turned the phone off and directs
>all incoming calls to VM. After contact is re-established(sometimes only a
>few seconds later) the system may issue a command to direct all calls to
>your phone, but maybe there is a notification lag, during which time the VM
>is still the default, since they haven't "found" you yet. Again, I'm just
>guessing here.
>
I leave my phone on 24/7 and maybe turn it off onece a month or so (it
is my only phone). I have never had trouble with calls going straight
through to voice mail.

"Floyd in Tampa" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
>> About 10% of calls coming to my Sprint phone go directly to voicemail
>> without giving me a chance to answer the call.
>>
>> What's up with that?
>>
> My phone does that also, so I end up calling people back about a minute
> after they try to call me. I called sprint and they told me to turn the
> phone off and back on every day so the phone can log in properly.


My phone gets turned off at least once per day, yet I still
get the occasional incoming call going straight to VM,
even in strong signal areas.

--

John Richards

"John Richards" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> "Floyd in Tampa" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> >> About 10% of calls coming to my Sprint phone go directly to voicemail
> >> without giving me a chance to answer the call.
> >>
> >> What's up with that?
> >>
> > My phone does that also, so I end up calling people back about a minute
> > after they try to call me. I called sprint and they told me to turn the
> > phone off and back on every day so the phone can log in properly.
>
>
> My phone gets turned off at least once per day, yet I still
> get the occasional incoming call going straight to VM,
> even in strong signal areas.

Same thing here only it's about 20% of calls not coming in. That's a
pretty high percentage. I filed a trouble ticket on it but they claim
they can't find anything wrong. *rolling eyes*