Forum Discussion
Phone call sounds garbled and robotic
Every so often, maybe about once or twice a week, I will encounter this problem where I will make or receive a phone call and the call will sound garbled in general, but voices will sound robotic and unclear. Even the dial tone is garbled. This has happened while calling other mobile phones as well as calling a landline. Every time it has happened, I have been in an area with good coverage, normally full coverage or near-full coverage. If I am streaming music prior to the call, it will be choppy and have streaming issues when I end the call. The only method I have found to resolve it is to restart my phone, which is not an ideal experience.
Has anyone else encountered this issue? I never experienced this when I was previously on the AT&T network and I'm concluding it is probably a network issue rather than a device issue, however I haven't ruled out either as a possibility. My device is a Moto G4 Play, which hasn't had any problems since I got it.
I haven't encountered it for a about a week; it had been a few days since it last happened when I posted the original question. As for the questions posted above, I haven't been able to figure out a pattern. The few times it had happened I was driving and my phone was connected to my car via bluetooth. I was in different locations, only separated by a few miles, and with high coverage. In two instances it occurred while connecting to a mobile phone not on the T-mobile network and another time it occurred while connecting to a land-line.
I've been unable to reproduce the problem consistently, and since it has only happened while in my car, I usually just stop trying to make the call until I can restart the phone. I can try airplane mode next time it occurs. Come to think of it, may it be possible that something in my car is messing with my signal? I've noticed the GPS has issues finding my location and updating while doing direction, but I just figured it was the device itself.
Well that is incredibly weird! Do your parents use Wi-Fi calling on their phones by any chance? Also, would it be possible to have them call you or you call them the next time you guys are together in the same location to see if it still happens?
I'm having this issue now from home
It happens on vowifi and volte
Doesn't matter if I'm calling an outside number or my voicemail
Using a oneplus5t, same issue if I switch to my HTC U11
I'm in your LTE extended area so I can't try 2G/3G
I had a similar problem on my OnePlus 5 and it seem to happen on the receiving a call side through the ear speaker. I'm running the latest version of LineageOS, and turning the speaker phone on and off seemed to fix the problem for me, at least temporarily, Give it a try.
If it only happens in your car, you probably have OnStar or other service, which is interfering with your cell signal. Since OnStar uses cell signals to communicate with the mothership, it is probably impacting your reception.
Also being in or near a metal building or other structure can reflect your signal back to your phone, creating an overlaying echo effect of the signal, which scrambles the original signal.
Hey all,
In case anyone needs help figuring this out, I’m writing this to share a bit of research I recently found that may explain why this is experienced during phone calls:
Bluetooth.
Whenever we enable Bluetooth on our cell phones, we allow its frequencies to be transmitted and other frequencies to be received which will inevitably encounter a normal amount of interference. However, the you may experience a greater magnitude of interference depending on your cell phone's proximity to other Bluetooth devices. These include Bluetooth connection to your vehicle (ie. CarPlay), wireless headphones (ie. AirPods), wireless speakers, wireless television, and essentially any device that you are able to access remotely from your cell phone. Additionally, if others around you are using Bluetooth connection to their own devices as well, then that too will increase interference.
Although this is not a definite solution to the robot-static-distorted audio sound, this is a solution that has worked so far for me in preventing it during phone calls: Deactivate Bluetooth (temporarily) during important phone calls and when you are in public places to maximize quality of usage. Of course, re-enable it when desired.
I currently use the iPhone 13 Pro Max, one of Apple's most recent iPhone releases, and I have also been a longtime customer of T-Mobile. Therefore, I hold a lot of trust for these two big companies as I have never encountered this issue until recently. Since the modern era is seeing an increase in usage of wireless Bluetooth connection, and drastic changes in technology in general, it makes sense for this issue to increase in prevalence as well.
Hopefully this helps. Feel free to take this with a grain of salt, since I am just a high school student. But just like most adults (and my parents), I think the younger generation has a very good aptitude for dealing with technology, sometimes to a fault (haha… pain).
Best wishes!
There are no metal roofs or buildings, the problem exits in my back yard, front yard, driveway, near my house and in the house, except when I have WiFi connected to my phone. WiFi does not reach outside the house. I am paying T mob every month for a very poor reception. I pay separately for my internet (WiFi access. My neighborhood is low income, but wealthy enough to have cellphones. We are in Saint Paul, the capital of MN. I am guessing the problem is too many people on too few cell towers.
I just had this happen to me and I thought my husband was playing with a voice changer! He said he heard my voice slow down like a monster growl when I answered the phone and I heard his speed up like a chipmunk little girl's voice. The only thing I can suspect is government eavesdropping?
Verizon
I am having this issue constantly! I thought it was my AirPods and replaced those twice. Then I thought it was my phone, so replaced that with the newest IPhone 15 max. Now it is worse! It's definitely the service! Please help!! T mobile needs to fix this because it seems to be a major issue for everyone and has been going on for years. I use my phone on Bluetooth with AirPods for work and can't not use them. Turning off Bluetooth should not be the solution.
