Change in Wi-Fi Calling Not Dropping Calls When Leaving Wireless Hotspot Location -- Huge Improvement!

Like many of you, I use my cell phone all the time. I use it for browsing the web, social media, email, calendar, and to stay updated on news. For a few years now, I have relied upon Wi-Fi Calling to be enabled so that if there was a wireless connection available to which I was connected, I could rely on that connection to make and receive calls. Without this option, it was not possible in some places to make or receive calls let alone to be able to interact on the internet. Today, there is almost no where that I go that a internet connection is not available. 

When I first started using Wi-Fi calling on my phone, I found that if I was in say my office and on a call with my cell, if I left the building, the call would drop. The call was attempting to transition from the internet connection to the towers. I had really not tried to walk away from a connection for at least the past two years until recently. I was surprised to find that my call did not drop. I did further testing to see if I was on a call and went into an area with wireless would it drop as it handed the call from the cell tower to the wireless access point... Sure enough, this worked too and worked smoothly. 

Much improved process with the hand-off to and from Wi-Fi calling on the iPhone. I know there were many times I would call Carrie to let her know I was heading to pick her up for lunch and as I walked to my car, the call would drop. Now, that is not an issue as I can get to the car, drive out of the lot, and the call never drops. 

I am not sure if this was an improvement by the standards for mobile phones, an Apple change, or something that was improved with the hand-off between my device and either Wi-Fi or tower. Whatever it is, I am thankful for the improvement. I rely on my phone heavily and knowing that I can leave a place that has Wi-Fi and the call will not drop is important. 

While it is not ideal to drop a call to my wife, it can be awkward to drop a call to a vendor, or customer, as I leave the office. Left calling them back saying "sorry, I am not sure what happened to the connection" where the whole time I know it was because I had left a place with wireless where I had placed the call and now I am in an area without wireless. This is no longer a concern as it works the way I would hope it would work.

Again, I am not sure when this changed as I could not find much information about it. I am not sure if this is an improvement only for iPhones or if Android also benefits off of this change. If it is all phones, then I wonder if this was an improvement that was made by the FCC to be able to hand the call between no Wi-Fi and connected to Wi-Fi. 

Changing Cell Providers After Being with #Sprint for Twenty Years and Going with New Option on the Market for Cheaper Monthly Price #Tmobile #MintMobile #Options #blog

Much like my dad used to be, when I find a brand I like whether it is food, a product, or a service, I tend to stick with that brand until I am forced to leave or become unhappy with the service. After twenty years of being with Sprint for my cell phone service, we are making a change. 

I will first say that overall, I have been happy with my Sprint service and unlike others that I have spoken to throughout the years, I really do not have a lot of issues with signal within the city limits or really when traveling. Yes, there are some areas where it is impossible to get signal (i.e. northern parts of Kansas, Nebraska, etc.), but it has not caused a lot of issues.

Carrie and I leased iPhones from Sprint two years ago at a Sprint store in Dallas, TX and we still have our phones. As we were reviewing what to do for our service on whether to get new phones through Sprint, make a change to T-Mobile (T-Mobile now owns Sprint), or make a jump to a new service, we decided to make a switch. Again, I have been happy with Sprint through the twenty years of being with them, but thought it was time to change. 

In the back of my head, I have this nagging feeling I am letting down Sprint because I have been with them for so long. I wake up at night after we made the decision to change thinking what if the new service does not work? What if we are unhappy and service is bad? Well, sometimes it is necessary to make a leap and try something new. If nothing else, we hope this change will save money. One thing we had to do was either buy new phones to make the change or buyout our lease with Sprint so we could use the phones on another service. 

After twenty years with Sprint, it is time for a change. Which cell provider have you used the longest period of time?

We opted to buyout our leases so the phones can be used on a new service provider. We still owed a considerable amount for both phones, but figured we are happy with our phones and why not continue to use them. I have the iPhone Xs and Carrie has the Xs Max. The only reason we would really consider changing phones (i.e. upgrading) would have been to get the newest iPhone which has a much better camera, but the camera we have is fine, so did not see the need for making the change. The other consideration was the ability to use 5G service which our current phones do not support. Again, we did not see that as a need to get all new phones.

We thought about going to T-Mobile since they bought out Sprint, but Carrie came across a deal for three free months of Mint Mobile. If you have not heard of Mint Mobile, it is a cell provider that is much cheaper than Sprint or at least the deal we found is going to be for us. Yes, Ryan Reynolds owns Mint Mobile. 

For one, you take your own phone to their service. Previously, we were paying a little over $200 a month to Sprint on our service and leasing of two phones. Granted, if we had bought our phones outright and not been leasing, our bill with Sprint would have been around $130 a month. With Mint Mobile, we were able to lock in a holiday rate to get service for six months at about $150 for all six months. The deal we found on their site allowed for signing up for three months and three months free. Basically, comes out to we are paying $28 a month for this new service.

This will allow us to test out the service and see how it works. If service is not good, then we will consider going to T-Mobile or other options for our phone service. We are excited for the change and savings in monthly bills for our mobile service. The fact that we are not getting updated phones is not an issue for us as our phones are new enough as mentioned earlier, but that will also help on our monthly bill not be paying for a "new" phone.

In the end, I enjoyed having Sprint for my cell provider the past twenty years. I will miss them, but probably good to try new things and check out how service, cost, and support work with a new service. I will update in a few weeks, or months, on the status of our change.

A side note, we also contacted Cox Communications to check on lowering our monthly bill and we were able to knock off about $17 from our monthly bill for the next two years. So, it was a good day of making changes as we made a decision to change cell providers and knock some money off of our monthly home internet costs.