Lost service in extended coverage

[Mrg1]

I have lived in the same place for 2 1/2 years but my service was just cut off because I live in an extended service area.  So far no one has been able to explain why this problem was not busy  to my attention a long time ago.  The only thing that has change is that I started using a iPhone 6s about 4 months ago and was wondering if my new phone could be the problem? Any advice would be appreciated.  Thanks 

[FidoAmanda]

Hey @Mrg1! 

Welcome to the Community!

This would not have anything to do with your phone. This is solely based on what percentage of your use ia erfomed while on the Extended Coverage area. 

If you use the Extended Coverage for 50% or more of you total voice, data or SMS usage on one line you will be considered to be “high usage”.

If this continues for 3 consecutive months, we send the impacted customer and SMS with a reminder about our Acceptable Use policy, and, after 4 consecutive months, access to the Extended Coverage area is blocked for a minimum of 30 days. We send out a notification 24 hours before the access is blocked.

After this, if your account continues to be considered "high usage" on Extended Coverage, then your access may be permanently blocked.

Was your access blocked for 30 days or permanently?

[Mrg1]

Thanks for your reply Fido Amanda.  I understand what you mean. Where I live Fido does not have LTE service which I think is 4gig , when I used my flip phone it would not pick up LTE service. Now that I am using my iPhone 6s the only thing it picks up is LTE and it access the signal from another carrier so what I don’t understand is why I can’t get my iPhone 6s to get Fido’s service that I used to get with my flip phone. As you might be able to realize that I am not really up on electronics, there must be a solution to my problem.  Thanks 

[Cawtau]

Hello Mrg1,

  Welcome to the community!

  Most phones will connect to the best available network for a given situation. For modern smartphones such as the iPhone 6s, that connection would be to the LTE network because it would standby with a data connection. Unless the phone is set for voLTE (or Wifi-calling), if enabled and available, the phone would switch networks for voice calls and messages.

  Your old flip-phone is unlikely to be LTE-capable so its best available network would be the 2G or '3G' networks.

  You should be able to force a connection to Fido's 2G or '3G' networks with the iPhone 6s. However, it would mean you'd have to disable LTE. To do so,  go to: Settings --> Cellular --> Cellular Data options --> Set Enable LTE to Off. The exact links to change the option might be slightly different depending on your version of iOS.

  With LTE disabled, your phone shouldn't connect to the other carriers' LTE networks. However, it also means that it won't be able to connect to Fido's LTE networks when they are available (unless you re-enable LTE). Do you need LTE? That depends on how you use your phone. LTE is the potentially faster data connection. If you don't use data or use relatively small amounts of data, you probably don't need LTE.

  The iPhone 6s should be capable of Wifi-calling. If you have access to Wifi at your location, the phone -- if Wifi-calling enabled -- will connect to Fido via your Wifi connection and not rely on cellular towers. However, I would still disable LTE to prevent the phone from accessing the other carrier's cellular towers.

Hope this helps 😀

Cheers

[Cawtau]

Hello again,

  I neglected to mention in my earlier post that you should also be able manually select the network. You can do so by selecting Settings --> Carrier --> Deselect Automatic --> Select Fido. As before, the exact links to change the option might be slightly different depending on your version of iOS.

  Manually selecting the Fido network will prevent the phone connecting to the other carriers' cellular towers. Since it will not be able to connect to the other cellular towers, your mobile phone will lose connection to the network when the selected network is out of range

Hope this helps 😀

Cheers

[Mrg1]

Thanks for your help but I still have a problem.  I went into my settings and to network settings and turned off automatic and then 2 boxes appear and they both say Fido- EXT so I am wondering if it is my phone that is the problem? Any help you can suggest would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again 

[Cawtau]

Hello again,

  If that's the case, then it's possible that the antennae in the iPhone 6Ss are not as robust as the one in your old flip-phone. It's not uncommon for different phone models to have differences in cellular reception. For example, a professor at Denmark's Aalborg University tested the performance of various mobile phone antennae (see here). The iPhone 6S was near the bottom of that list for their GSM measurements. I'm not sure how much we can extrapolate from his data because Fido/Rogers uses mostly different bands/frequencies and the study is now a few years old. However, it does illustrate the large differences between phone models. 

  It's also possible that there is increased interference between your location and the Fido cellular towers. Cellular signal interference can be caused by many factors, including the construction of new buildings. Are you aware of any new buildings between your location and the Fido cellular tower? You can get an idea of your surrounding cellular tower(s) here.

  Do you still have your old flip-phone? Are you able to test whether that phone can still access the Fido cellular towers? Are there any others in your area unable to access the Fido towers?

  Do you have access to Wifi at your location? As previously mentioned, you might be able to access the Fido networks via Wifi-calling.

Hope this helps 😀

Cheers

[Hwr778]

Ouch, that sucks!  There was no out-reach from Fido prior to your service termination?  You've read all the e-bills for any warnings or notices posted therein?  (Not a big fan of it being a "hidden" message inside an e-bill, which not everyone reads thoroughly past the first pages summarizing the charges).

Hopefully one of the mods on here can help you out or point you in the right direction on service restoration, but in the Terms Of Service applicable to Extended coverage, it does state the it is NOT intended as a full-time thing (the exact wording escapes me at the moment, and I am too lazy to look it up); I had an incident where I was based out of a warehouse in Extended where I spent a LOT of my time, and after the first month, I did get a call from Fido stating that my usage pattern was flagging my account -- I stated that it was a temporary issue due to the nature of my work, and that was the end of it for me.

In your case, you state that you LIVE in Extended coverage -- do you move/travel/work/visit into normal coverage on any kind of a regular basis, or is the MAJORITY of your monthly usage in your Extended area?  These are things to consider, but I would definitely take this up the customer service ladder, assuming you are at least somewhat in compliance with their terms of service.

I do not know what area you are in, or how close you are to regular coverage, as there may be exceptions for you (IE: near an international border, fringe coverage, etc etc) so I can't help too much at this point.

One thing that has cropped up for me, either with network tweaks or increased subscriber load, my home location I get really poor FIDO coverage right now at most hours of the day, and I need to force it into EXT coverage to get more than 0-1 bar (it does not automatically switch, as it should when the signal drops that low).  So maybe network capacity is an issue, depending on how fringe you are....