Do ongoing calls suddenly go 'mute' at times? You may need to turn off VoLTE on your phone

Chances are that you've heard the term VoLTE floating around. Chances are that you don't know what it means. And if you are a mobile network user in India, chances are that you may have been troubled by call muting (the new call dropping!).

While 'call dropping' troubled users with calls ending midway on their own, now with VoLTE, users are often left on the receiving end of silence as, instead of ending, calls suddenly go mute mid-way.

To begin with, let's see what VoLTE actually means, and how it affects you.

Voice over Long-Term Evolution, or VoLTE as it's commonly known, is a technology that telcos have adopted to make the calling process smooth. 4G-enabled networks make browsing, streaming and downloading an easy experience. This tech enables the network providers to use 4G for voice calls as well, in turn ensuring that the quality of calls is better.

Also Read: VoLTE: the ghost that's eating your phone calls

Before VoLTE, 4G was used for surfing the Internet, while 2G & 3G were used for regular calls. Apart from lower quality calls, this also affected the phone's battery , and the carrier had to switch each time.

If you have been facing the problem of too many calls suddenly becoming mute for a period of time, then you need to switch off VoLTE on your phone.

And before we hit that, you need to check if your phone supports VoLTE. Most devices these days, like the OnePlus, Xiaomi, iPhones, Samsung Galaxy series, Honor and the new Nokia smartphones are compatible with VoLTE.

But even if your phone is compatible, does your network provide it? While Reliance Jio is completely VoLTE-enabled, Airtel and Vodafone provide it only in certain circles.

To switch between activating and deactivation VoLTE on your phone, here's what to do:

iOS users:

Go to Settings > Tap on Mobile Data > Look for Mobile Data Options > Tap on Enable 4G > Select Voice (to deactivate VoLTE)/ Activate Voice & Data (to use VoLTE)






Android users:

Go to Settings > Open Mobile networks > Look for VoLTE option and turn on/off VoLTE call



The other side

While VoLTE has made calls more seamless, it only works if both the parties are on VoLTE-enabled devices. Otherwise it switches back to a normal call.

Plus 'call muting' has becoming a rising menace.

In August last year, TRAI had announced penalty on providers for 'call dropping', and while that seems to have been fixed, the regulator has now said that it will introduce norms to measure call-quality on VoLTE and tackle 'call muting'.