Blackspot Reception without Femtocell
I pay the usual price of rubish mobile coverage for living the rural life made worse by two-foot thick granite walls which makes reception patchy to say the least. I'm trying to convice Three to give me a femtocell but in the meantime I thought I'd try a different approach.
I've been a VOIP user for some time, when I first moved here it was impossible to get a second line for the business so I started using Voipfone (who are excellent by the way). So I thought I'd experiment with a VOIP client for my iPhone, the one I settled on was Bria from Counterpath which has worked well.
But I still needed to be able to receive calls to my mobile so I redirected calls to my VOIP number when unavailable using the GSM code *62*[dest]# (there's a full list of these useful codes at GeckoBeach). This only affects calls if the phone is switched off or out of range; it won't redirect if the phone is busy or I don't answer it. Bria has a push facility so the phone will ring even if it's locked or you're using another app. So now my phone rings as long as I have WiFi which covers me at home.
But now my voicemail can end up in two different places - VOIP or mobile. To solve this and get visual voicemail (why is it only O2 that does this in the UK?) I signed up with HulloMail and redirected both voicemails (VOIP and mobile) there. I redirected my Voipfone account in all three circumstances (unavailable, busy and unanswered) using their website. I redirected my mobile using the GSM codes again, *61*[dest]* for anaswered and *67*[dest]# if busy. So now all my voicemails end up in one place.
There are a couple of downsides to this approach:
It costs me money when people phone me (the call from my mobile provider to my VOIP account)
I have a passcode on my phone which means that whilst it rings I have to enter the code to answer the call if it's via VOIP
That's about it, not a perfect solution but it only cost me a few quid and it does the job!















