Why do I have to turn my iphone 6 OFF and ON inorder to access my voicemail messages?

Lawrence,

Thank you and I do appreciate your efforts here. Yes, I have cellular data always enabled. I have data roaming enabled,

and this phone is enabled for LTE where that is available.

Here is the set up. At home, my AT&T signal is no good. I installed an AT&T microcell

here 3 years ago so that I can have a working cell phone at home. When WiFi is NOT

enabled, AT&T Microcell 4G is reported. The "4G" is replaced with the WiFi icon when WiFi is on.

I keep WiFi enabled, and when I am at home it will automatically connect to my WiFi network. I need

WiFi to access other devices on my LAN. My understanding is that an iPhone with cellular data enabled

and WiFi enabled will generally used the WiFi connection for data so as not to burden the cellular network.

Is my understanding correct here?

I doubt it makes a difference, the the microcell is the one thing that is not common in the setup here.

However, I did not have this problem with voicemail up until recently -- three or four months ago.

Bottom line however is that cellular data is always enabled on my phone.

I don't know if there is a bug or not but contrary to common perception, a bug does not necessarily replicate on every device. There was a bug on iOS 9.3.1 which affected Bluetooth connectivity with the iPhone SE. However not all SEs experienced this problem, only some of them. Apple fixed this bug with 9.3.2 as their release notes state.

Do you have WiFi calling in your area?

Yes, a bug has to be replicable. In every combination of the BT hardware with the iPhone SE it would exhibit the distortion issue, so if I bought an iPhone SE and used it with a particular model of car and you did the same it would happen to both of are devices.

I do not know if I have WiFi calling in this service area. I do NOT use WiFi calling,

and I have it disabled on my phone.

Thanks

You might check, it may be available and would let you pull the Microcell out of the system.

Another common misperception. No two devices are ever exactly the same, no two SEs, no two Honda Accords, no two Apollo capsules which I helped guide to the Moon as a Ph.D. grunt at Rice University. But it is a free country, everyone is entitled to their opinions.

No, that is not a misconception that is fact. If you a programmer and have ever had to fix bugs then you know for a fact that is has to be replicable in order to address it. Yes, you could have two Acura RDX's equipped exactly the same and have one with a damaged audio package and the other one is not. But to locate a bug if I have a new iPhone SE and an RDX and I get distortion and I go to the Acura dealer and try my iPhone SE on another RDX with the same package I should have the same distortion. (And in this exact case that is what happened). If I try it on another car using BT and don't get it then it is time to figure out what is the difference in the two systems so I can fix it with the RDX but not break it with the other vehicle.

Deggie,

Thanks again for the reply. Let's assume that WiFi calling is available in my area. Why should

I get rid of my microcell? I doubt it is the problem -- it has been in service here for 3 years without

any problems, voicemail or otherwise.

You are welcome to use WiFi call or even watch movies over the internet 😮, but MY choice is to

use the phone for phone calls, and watch TV over the satellite. Both of which have nothing to do with

this except that regular cell phone service and voicemail should work. Period. Having to use WiFi

to make things work is a HACK.

Wish I could tell you more about that deadlock problem, but here is not the place. We were advised load

up data for processing on our Unix machine, then disconnect it from the network to do the processing!

That "solution" addressed the symptoms, but I was able to demonstrate deadlock even when following

the recommendation to disconnect from the network. To me, to abandon cellular service for WiFi calling

is a lot like addressing the symptoms and not the underlying problem.

Thanks for your efforts!

No, the Microcell you are using is a HACK which you had to add because you got poor service in your area. In its day it was your only solution other than AT&T adding a tower in your area to boost your signal. WiFi calling is a newer system and allows you to just use your router to boost the signal and allow you to make calls, the Microcell is no longer necessary. If AT&T has added WiFi calling to their area and changed their system that could affect the Microcell in the chain and cause new problems. You are not "abandoning" cellular service in any way, at your house instead of your phone routing through the Microcell for calling it will instead use the router.

You said "WiFi calling is a newer system and allows you to just use your router to boost the signal and allow you to make calls..."

Sorry, I keep it technical. Router to boost the signal to allow you to make calls? Sorry, perhaps that is the

way you understand it, but it is not technically correct.

What you are leaving out of the equation is the concept of engineering tolerances - two devices, neither defective and both meeting specs, but ever so slightly different. But no more from me. Have a good day.

No I did not say the Router boost the signal. Your microcell actually doesn't boost the signal either, it allows you to connect to it with your iPhone and then routes the outgoing call through your WiFi connection. WiFi calling removes the middleman, which is the microcell.

I left that out intentionally because those would be hardware errors which you cannot fix with a software rewrite.

deggie wrote:

those would be hardware errors which you cannot fix with a software rewrite.

Sure you can, you rewrite the software such that it can handle a broader set of conditions, done everyday....