Ilox Status Update

The issue is NO electricity. I have a cellphone too. Shit happens.

ferret wrote:The issue is NO electricity. I have a cellphone too. Shit happens.

You said:  If the electricity is out then you will have no phone.
For the 189 pesos per month that Telmex will charge for just the phone line, I will pay it for emergency situations when the electricity is out. Worth it imho.

But you will have a phone.  Your cellphone.  Maybe I'm being obtuse, but why pay 189p per month for a landline if you have a cellphone already?

I have had electrical outages for up to 48 hours. Not everybody has a car to ride around in to charge their phone IF they have gas in the car. Not everyone has an inverter generator. I have a battery pack but eventually that will run out too.
Murphy's Law is alive and well in Mexico. I want back up to my back ups. Each to his/her own.

I have a very expensive cellphone. I don't like the quality of phone calls. The damn things are designed for taking photos and doing all kinds of Internet poop, instead of the phone itself. A lot of the cheaper cell phones are far worse; sometimes I can't understand a word they are saying.

But my main issue is that you still have to pay a fee, and you have to pay it every few weeks (very few plans are one month exactly), and you have to go into a shop to do it (unless you are one of those who pay via credit card or yearly, obviously). In the end, the cost is probably the same as the landline, so why not keep the landline and enjoy phone with no electricity and much better quality of calls? Even lousy cell phones sound better when coming into a landline.

And as Ferret says, you know the cell isn't going to be charged just when you need it most.

My cell phone doesn’t work at my house (AT&T) so when I get Ilox or whatever other high speed when available, I’ll keep the Telmex phone.

I didn't have reception with AT&T here either (I am around the corner from you). I have no problem with Telcel and I use it as a hotspot if there's no electricity.
I have a rechargeable fan, three rechargeable lights, a 6500 mah battery pack, a tinaco. I am a good boy scout. I am looking to buy this and it is on my Amazon wishlist…
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D29QNMJ/?coliid=I2QEWQC3QBPKK5&colid=9UO437NK1P8L&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

I have paid for 2 years and love the service except for no reception at home. You really are a Boy Scout! I never have seen that power station thing. I am hoping that the outages are mostly a thing of the past since they seem to have finished working on the lines. Before that it was pretty rare to be without electricity. Fingers crossed.

The more stuff I get, the less likely it will be that the power goes out. ;)

Carry Bean there are options for you to address your poor AT&T cellphone coverage at home. One is "wifi call" assuming that your smartphone and your AT&T plan support that function. It directs your calls over the Internet rather than trying to use your weak home cell coverage.

Short of that, another option is an AT&T (or other) signal booster. AT&T used to make a "MicroCell" tower but dropped that 12/31/18 in favor of wifi-calling. But the signal booster is still available from them and others on the net.

NOTE: This info may or may not be supported in Mexico.....

Do you turn the Wifi call thing off and on or does it kick in when there’s no signal?  I occasionally get one bar but that’s rare.  I looked for signal boosters before but they were pricey and didn’t feel like spending the $$ in case it didn’t work.

Edited to add that I have an IPhone 8 Plus I bought last year in the States. I’d ask about this at the AT&T office but they don’t seem to know anything there.

On my wife's iPhone 6S it will start making wifi calls when she walks into the house. Must have 'wifi calling' on in Settings/Phone... and of course wifi turned on.
On my Android, if I am on a call and walk out of the house it will switch seamlessly over to cell coverage. Don't know what the iPhone does in that case but.....

Update to my earlier post about whether the Ilox phone number will work when there is no power. The Chief engineer at Ilox confirmed: NO, it will not. It uses SIP (a VOIP technology) which is strictly Internet-based.

RickS wrote:On my wife's iPhone 6S it will start making wifi calls when she walks into the house. Must have 'wifi calling' on in Settings/Phone... and of course wifi turned on.
On my Android, if I am on a call and walk out of the house it will switch seamlessly over to cell coverage.  Don't know what the iPhone  does in that case but.....

Hmmm, no “Wifi calling” on the phone in settings or anywhere else I could find.

In Setting there should be a category of "Phones". Click that and on my iPhone there is a sub-category of "Wifi-Calling"... off/on.
It is my understanding that some carriers don't allow wifi-calling but AT&T in the US does. Are you using a Mexican AT&T program or one set up in the US? Also if you are using a 'pay for minutes' plan you may not be able to do wifi-calling.

No, it’s the Mexican version of AT&T and I’m not seeing what you do. The plan I have is I paid for a year and got a year free. I guess Mexican AT&T doesn’t support it but thank you for the info. I found it interesting that I can’t use it in Europe but with the U. S. Version you can by buying a package. Really seems to be 2 totally different companies.

https://support.apple.com/library/content/dam/edam/applecare/images/en_US/iOS/ios12-iphone-x-settings-cellular-wi-fi-calling-on.jpg

Seems to be specific to AT&T U.S.

My Ilox has been down for about 15 minutes now. Using cell phone hotspot.

Strike 1

Does anyone know if they have a trouble reporting number in English?

A friend in Ajijic said hers is down as well so the area might be all out.

Yep, seems that wqy. I'm happy I still have my telmex if required. Hopefully it's not the competition cutting lines.....lol.

I emailed the email in Ted's first post on this thread. I got a reply with a service tag number.

Mine was down in the La Villita area for about 10 minutes, but it's working okay now.

Mine's back up too and they did respond quickly to my e-mail saying they were doing something that needed the system down.

Bob, are you/they conversing in English or Espanol?

English.

I sent them an email titled " My internet is down" and gave them my name and address. They responded within an hour. Great service.

ferret wrote:I have had electrical outages for up to 48 hours. Not everybody has a car to ride around in to charge their phone IF they have gas in the car. Not everyone has an inverter generator. I have a battery pack but eventually that will run out too.
Murphy's Law is alive and well in Mexico. I want back up to my back ups. Each to his/her own.

I know the sun goes out at night but it comes on again during the day. Solar cellphone chargers available on Mercado Libre and on Amazon.mx as well. As little as 400 pesos
Saves driving around

https://listado.mercadolibre.com.mx/solar-cellphone-chargers#D[A%20cellphone%20chargers]

https://www.amazon.com.mx/s?k=solar+cellphone+chargers&__mk_es_MX=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&ref=nb_sb_noss

And you can get power bank chargers also