TracFone VoLTE hokey-pokey finally struck

[whacker]

Some may remember that I serve a sister and BIL in a tech support capacity.

Had them both on TracFone Fiesta 2s (VZW) for over a year now. Both had VoLTE working (in the LG menus referred to as Advanced Calling), and VVM was too, except only BIL configured the phone app for it; sister kept using standard VM.

Couple months ago BIL's Fiesta 2 got destroyed in a tragic driveway mishap (phone got driven over some GD way), so we switched him back to his previous LG Ultimate 2 for a while.

He scored another Fiesta 2 and we finally got around to switching back to it, using website Chat feature.

Switch went fine, except I immediately checked and the Advanced Calling toggle was grayed out.

I figure the switch to a 3G device and back to an LTE one got some things scrambled, but darned if the news has yet filtered down to the front line CSRs.

So I mentioned this to the Chat rep, and they said it was properly provisioned. Cut that session off, started a new one, new rep said the same thing, so I asked for a supervisor. They said here's our "manager". Manager said things look good on this end. Nothing else we can do.

By the way, one of the earlier rep comments was (paraphrasing): "Guess you'll just have to wait until 1/1/2020"! Yeah, TracFone Hell - tell me about it, because we're there!

So where is member lappers with the contact info for the special rep that got him reset for this and VVM issues lo those many times? Or has anyone else gotten the magic contact numbers? We gots to get this thing on the right track (no pun intended)!

[rpz1]

Some may remember that I serve a sister and BIL in a tech support capacity.

Had them both on TracFone Fiesta 2s (VZW) for over a year now. Both had VoLTE working (in the LG menus referred to as Advanced Calling), and VVM was too, except only BIL configured the phone app for it; sister kept using standard VM.

Couple months ago BIL's Fiesta 2 got destroyed in a tragic driveway mishap (phone got driven over some GD way), so we switched him back to his previous LG Ultimate 2 for a while.

He scored another Fiesta 2 and we finally got around to switching back to it, using website Chat feature.

Switch went fine, except I immediately checked and the Advanced Calling toggle was grayed out.

I figure the switch to a 3G device and back to an LTE one got some things scrambled, but darned if the news has yet filtered down to the front line CSRs.

So I mentioned this to the Chat rep, and they said it was properly provisioned. Cut that session off, started a new one, new rep said the same thing, so I asked for a supervisor. They said here's our "manager". Manager said things look good on this end. Nothing else we can do.

By the way, one of the earlier rep comments was (paraphrasing): "Guess you'll just have to wait until 1/1/2020"! Yeah, TracFone Hell - tell me about it, because we're there!

So where is member lappers with the contact info for the special rep that got him reset for this and VVM issues lo those many times? Or has anyone else gotten the magic contact numbers? We gots to get this thing on the right track (no pun intended)!

Just a shot in the dark. But I had a phone#/account swap made between a 3G to an LG K4 (LTE). The LTE had been working fine before the swap. After the switch, no LTE(Advanced calling). Turns out the APN was wrong. I had been playing around with checking the APN so maybe I accidentally change it. Chat told me it should be the Tracfone.vzwwentp for that phone; it was Vzwinternet. That fixed it. Did the 3G-LTE swap change it; or did I mess it up. Can't recall. But have you checked the APN ?

[whacker]

Checked the trouble phone against the one without trouble, and the APNs are the same (vzwinternet), so good thing to check, but no cigar. Thanks, though.

[rpz1]

Checked the trouble phone against the one without trouble, and the APNs are the same (vzwinternet), so good thing to check, but no cigar. Thanks, though.

I'm pretty sure (not 100%) mine was vzwinternet before...changed it to tracfone.wentp and it fixed it.
You can always change it back if still no cigar. I still haven't read a solid reasoning for why/when the 2 different APNs are used.

[whacker]

Did the suggested change, but also looked up more of the detailed contents of the various fields contained inside, of which there are at least a couple variations.

Nothing I did allowed the 4G LTE icon to light up for even general data use, much less for the Advanced Calling purpose. As soon as I switched back to "VZWINTERNET" regular LTE data would instantly work, so unless there are some subtle nuances in the the composition of a particular field in the other APN, I think the one that's supposed to work is the one it came with.

But I will continue to research it and comb through other threads here, a few of which I remember were specific about this topic.

Suggestions welcome.

[ST Dog]

Can you try working SIM in non working phone?

Set APN same as on working phone.

Just to be sure it's not a phone issue.

Also try non working SIM in a phone with working VoLTE. This will validate that the SIM/account is not correctly provisioned.

[whacker]

Update on all this:

ST Dog, thanks for the suggestion. Don't have another SIM-style phone to test with (and using sister's properly working phone would be a huge hassle), but here's what's happened since my last post:

Woke up to find a private message here from TracFone Alex responding to my plight! He posted a (seemingly) special chat URL and an 800 number for me to try. I used the chat address, which seemed to go to a higher level of help desk (seemed U.S. based, but who knows?), and I asked if this was Tier 3; person responded yes.

But that chat didn't yield any good results. More of the same "your phone shows as properly provisioned in our system" comments. I made some comments lamenting my predicament and the person said (to the effect), okay, hold on, we're giving you an 866 number and a six-digit PIN to use to call our Network people.

This ended up being in the Phillipines (I asked) and speaking with a very good female rep. Went through a lot of t-shooting steps, including doing a full factory reset on the phone. No simple solution like member lappers has related. Nothing they did could light up the "Advanced Calling" toggle in the Fiesta 2.

Unfortunately then, the decision was made that all they could do was offer to replace the phone, assuming that there's something wrong with it. Seems kind of strange to me, knowing how software-based this feature must be, and just knowing how to configure it should go a long way (this and the VVM issue others are having).

Surprised also there wasn't any mention of just replacing the SIM.

But we accepted the offer, and are being shipped a box to send the "suspect" Fiesta 2 back to them and get another in return.

I had the rep switch the service back to the 3G Ultimate 2, which was successful, but not looking forward to switching again to the new Fiesta 2 when the time comes. All fingers will be crossed for that event!

Situation here is that it's Monday/a holiday, and I have to go back where I live (two hours away) and get back to the salt mines for Tuesday, so a trigger had to be pulled.

Was interesting to see this other level of TracFone support, as I had been curious ever since lappers had brought it up late last year with his VVM issue (special number to call with a PIN, etc.).

Still think the right rep could have gotten this device's VoLTE working, but no way to really pursue that. Good they have replacement as an option.

[rpz1]

Since you were talking to people at that level did you ask about the APN thing? Possibly what determines which APN to use, if the SIM or phone type determines it etc.? Thx

[whacker]

Unfortunately the topic of SIM cards didn't come up. I wish I had asked, but maybe they can see the integrity of the contents of a SIM; perhaps less so the phone's interaction with it.

[rpz1]

Unfortunately the topic of SIM cards didn't come up.

Proper APN didn't get mentioned either ?

[whacker]

Nope. Sorry. It took so long to get the information and procedure going that was the main focus of the calls and chats that I didn't want to divert things into an academic discussion of more peripheral things (of course that's peripheral in my opinion).

[ST Dog]

Since you were talking to people at that level did you ask about the APN thing?

If LTE data was working then the APN was correct.

My guess is that the account just didn't get provisioned correctly but none of the CSRs looked/could like in the right place. (Level 1 can't see it)

[ST Dog]

ST Dog, thanks for the suggestion. Don't have another SIM-style phone to test with (and using sister's properly working phone would be a huge hassle), but here's what's happened since my last post:

I though both were in the same place.
Keep in mind for future troubleshooting.

It's a great way to narrow down provisioning/SIM issues vs phone issues.

[whacker]

They were, but dealing with technophobe sister (and this call to TF network support was before she was up for the day) while the call was underway would've been a juggling act I wasn't up for!

Another thing I wish I'd done is get BIL to extract the old SIM from the original flattened Fiesta 2 (which he couldn't find - I really wanted to see the shape it was in) and propose to the TF network people that we swap that in to the new device, give them the ICCID, and see how that combo activated, with or without "Advanced Calling" being allowed.

They didn't bring up the idea of a SIM problem at all, surprisingly (to me). But I consider device replacement kind of a sledgehammer approach. Then again, maybe they could see something about the device/SIM combo over the network that led them to just go straight to replacement idea.

We'll see about all of this, of course.

One thing I'm a little afraid of is that his line of service (obviously denoted by his phone number) has been "tainted" and without a knowledgeable support person knowing what the deal is, the problem may follow that line of service to whatever SIM/device it ends up on, until the configuration problem is fully revealed. To me the problem may have been put in place by the switch back to a 3G device (that hard set some setting since 3G devices don't do VoLTE) and then when it went back to an LTE device that's VoLTE capable it just wasn't properly configured. That's just me. Fingers crossed.

I wonder how, when the "switch" or the actual widespread decommissioning of the 1x voice network occurs, they will account for all these MVNOs who only have a partial knowledge of their control aspects, and magically make VoLTE work on capable devices, even though the MVNOs may have botched their setups for them in this period before the turn of the year comes (assuming that's a hard date for the network switch off).

[ST Dog]

They were, but dealing with technophobe sister

Understood. I have one of those too. Worried that anything you do will mess up what they have working.

One thing I'm a little afraid of is that his line of service (obviously denoted by his phone number) has been "tainted"

Transferring to a new device/SIM should fix all that. Same as when others have transferred to a different phone then back to get VoLTE enabled. Just a glitch in provisioning and the next time should correct it.

I wonder how they will account for all these MVNOs who only have a partial knowledge of their control aspects, and magically make VoLTE work on capable devices

I don't expect any further changes. Just slowly the CSRs will learn. Eventually they may add tools for lower level CSRs to re-provision VoLTE and VVM, like they have for other tasks.

But Verizon won't really do much more. They started enabling VoLTE and VVM and the MVNOs were clueless.

It's always going to be a limitation with MVNOs, especially TF.