Gordon Meyer

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Calls go straight to voicemail? Here's why.

Assuming that you don't have your phone muted or Do Not Disturb turned on, the reason incoming calls go straight to voicemail without your phone ringing is almost certainly because of a carrier capacity issue. That is, there wasn't enough network capacity to connect the call to your device.

But I have full bars! Signal strength is not correlated with how many simultaneous calls the network can handle. These are two entirely different things.

So what can I do about it? The best you can do is complain to your carrier. They know when this is happening, but unless people complain, they may not address it. But, be aware that cell phone calls are switched thru many networks along their journey to your device. It might not be a capacity issue at your location, it could happen anywhere along the line with the same result.

Wait, is this why calls drop when I'm talking in my car?" Yup, as you travel, your signal is handed off to different towers. If the next tower doesn't have available capacity to take over your call, it gets disconnected. You're leaving the service area of one tower, and the next one can't accept the handoff, so it's bye-bye-bye.