Annoying echo, CS blames handset / SIM?

**pepper99** · 06-05-2012, 02:08 PM

For approximately 2 or 3 weeks I've been having big echo issues with phone calls made within a General geographic area. Again today I tried to make three outgoing calls (one made twice to the same number in an effort to get the echo to go away) and every single one of them had huge echo issues.

Everything I know about the cellular networks tells me that this is probably a tower related issue somewhere along the line between my call and destination, especially how it seems limited to one certain area, and only limited to outgoing versus incoming calls apparently based on what I've observed.

I finally called customer service to take issue with the problem and the rep immediately discounted the problem as a handset or a Sim card issue. You didn't seem interested in the possibility that this was a tower issue whatsoever, and reiterated that there was no outstanding reports of any tower problems in the area. I asked how there could be any reports of tower problems without people like me calling and reporting them, to which he answered that there was no problems and that it wasn't a tower issue but had to be my phone somehow.

Blaming it on the phone hardware I can almost possibly understand, although I think it's pretty unlikely again given how it's geographically related, but blaming it on the Sim card just seems totally ridiculous to me.

And I off base here and should I pursue this to another level of customer support that actually hopefully has a clue and is willing to investigate further, or should I really take my phone and my Sim card to a Fido booth for them to stare at and "test"? That's what the customer service rep suggested today.

**Ian Brantford** · 06-06-2012, 01:17 PM

If you know someone else nearby on the same carrier, you could try trading handsets (keeping same SIM) for a test.

This echoing problem has come and gone many times over the years, independent of handsets or SIM's. It seems to be specific to the Rogers network. I don't think that it ever happened on Fido before Rogers bought them, and I am not aware of it being a problem on the Bell/Telus network.

**MichaelS-83** · 06-13-2012, 08:10 PM

I've also been experiencing echo problems lately, but in my case both inbound and outbound...

I am not sure if yours is specific to hearing yourself or the other person, however, in my case, its my own voice echoing only on my side. I've seen this a few times when I use the speakerphone functionality with the volume cranked up, but in these cases, I wasn't using the speakerphone functionality.

I called CS tonight about it, and they are saying that the issue is with the other person's phone, however, that doesn't fully make sense, since this happened with 2 different people. I was having other issues anyway, so they sent a 'reset' to my phone. We'll see if this fixes this issue.

For what its worth, I have mostly experienced this problem at my work in Mississauga, and once at home, in Richmond Hill.

Regards,

Michael

**pepper99** · 06-13-2012, 08:14 PM

Ditto here, the echo was only of myself - the person on the other end can never hear it.

It seems to have gone away at the moment...but I haven't made any calls in the area that seemed the worst recently, either.

**Ian Brantford** · 06-14-2012, 02:18 PM

It sounds like there is a defect in the network's echo cancellation system. http://arcx.com/sites/EchoCancellers.htm

**MichaelS-83** · 06-14-2012, 07:46 PM

I just did an experiment with my Mom's work line. 2 incoming calls from her All Stream and Bell lines both had this echo issue. I disabled 3G and had her call back again. Echo gone. It's my turn to go oncall tomorrow, so I'll leave the 3G turned off and see if the echoing returns.

Michael