Consumer Cellular Plans

Did all that and then some. Since my original posting I have found several other things about this phone that don't work, badly designed, or are contradictory within the phone settings. The last time I was able to talk to a human being I was indirectly told I bought a cheap phone and should consider upgrading. 

Have done all those including resetting the phone. Also took it back to seller and got another new one. Same problem. Tried different chargers. No luck. Have talked to the Consumer Cellular techy folks three times. They are still scratching their heads. It charges ok, but does not beep when finished. Even shows that it is fully charged on the display but no beep. Nice phone otherwise. Thanks guys..Arnie

That's unfortunate. So did you get a new one or stick with the Link II?

Hey Arnold. Can you try this: go to Menu -> Settings -> Sound & notifications -> Charging sounds -> select On. Let me know if that works.

Hi Arnold. Can you check if the phone is in silent mode? I'm thinking it may also silence notifications and system sounds.

Thanks Carl for that advice.

Yes I did have a look at the apps supposedly using the data, but unlike how the phone logs call data, it does not show details of when or how much data was used at any particular time, only a total of data used by each app over the month.

The total reading was somewhat more than what was shown on the readout on the web, but I suppose that could be a result of some accommodation with regards to use of messaging, assuming that messaging is actually data transfer of sorts. But all that does not account for why we are getting readings of data transfers only at those particular times of midnight, 6am, noon and 6pm and not at other times.

Just guessing, but maybe that it CC's way of applying data usage for the day. If so, that is a poor way of doing it, since it restricts how anyone can actively follow their data usage. When the phone does not record when and how much data is being used and the web site does not do it either, that really restricts a parson's ability to control data consumption. Correct me if I am wrong about all this. Let me know what you think please.

David

Thank you for responding.

Yes, this is what is happening. Every day there is data streaming showing on my wife's phone activity, in our account on the CC website, that happens at exactly midnight, 6AM, Noon and6PM every day. The amount of stream varies from less than a MB to as much as 50 MB. There is no indication of whether or not the data is streaming down to her device, or up to the net. Although she does go onto the net on occasion, she is never using data at any of those times noted. ( I followed this issue back several month in our online phone records and the same thing has been happening for as far back as the records are available.) Also we don't see any other instants of data streaming on her phone even though she does, like I noted above, connect to the Net, though it is for things like looking up information, which I would think shouldn't take that much data relative to what we are seeing.

Here is another thing. I just recently purchased a new ZTE phone from CC for my Son who is the in south end of the state. He just brought it online yesterday and I see the exact same thing happening to his phone at midnight-last and 6AM today. One of the streams was 900MB, another was several hundred MB large as well, but I can't remember how much. He told me, just a few moments ago that he does do streaming, but has not had the chance to do so yet with this new phone. But if that 900MB load is any measure of what I can expect in the future, our 10 Gig plan won't last long. So it is really important that I get a handle on this real soon.

By the way I have data disabled on my phone, so as of yet I have not seen anything like this happening to it. Also I don't use a CC supplied phone for me. I use a Unihertz Atom XL which is a military grade phone, super tough and reasonably sized for a human hand.

Thanks again for any light that you can shine on this issue.

David

Hi David. On your CC phones, go to Settings and look for Data usage. There should be an option there to show how much and where data was used. My best guess here is it's email app and/or social media apps consuming data.  Would love to read what you find.

Hey David. Are you pertaining to logs in the phone? Sorry, I'm not sure how CC posts data usage on your account. You're using Android phone right? I tried using Glasswire, looks good at monitoring data usage. Can you check? Maybe that can help you figure out data usage.

Hi David. Can you tell us more about your problem/question? Would love to help.

Eric - I have Consumer Cellular (ConCel) (using AT&T SIM card) and a new Samsung A52 phone. The phone offers WiFi Calling (WFC) and it is turned on. In spite of maybe 6-8 calls to ConCel, they cannot get the WFC to work on this phone (and this is not a cheap phone!). My wifi signal is strong. They have even tried using a T-Mobile SIM card, but still no success. They have given up and say WFC just will not work with this phone (in fairness, I did not buy the A52 from them, and they therefore do not "support it", but still .... it's a Samsung, not some off brand). So they might SAY they support WFC, but they don't/can't in all cases.

Also ironic, WFC did work on my old Samsung with an old SIM card. So go figure ...

Good luck.

Let me know if you get it worked out.

Hmmm... OK, I thought this was a Consumer Cellular support forum.  I see now that it is not, instead it is a general support forum covering many different service providers.  So I should make clear that my question is related to wifi calling on Consumer Cellular and not any other service.  Sorry about any confusion I may have left...

Hi Eric. Yes, Consumer Cellular does offer Wi-Fi calling. You have to contact them first to enable this on your account.

Yes you can use this service but be warned that you will be placed behind all ATT regular users. It is often so slow that your connection will time out before you ever actually get a connection.

Consumer Cellular continues to offer mobile hotspot tethering, as confirmed up until the time of writing. To activate tethering, customers can simply contact Consumer Cellular at (888) 996-2771 and request the service. What sets Consumer Cellular apart from other carriers is that they do not impose any additional charges for tethering, nor do they slow down the data rate or impose limits on tethering data usage beyond what is included in the customer's plan. In fact, Consumer Cellular treats all data usage equally, without making a distinction between tethering/hotspot data usage and regular cellular data usage. In their view, data is simply data.

Hi Chele. On that blog post link you included, it looks like a Consumer Cellular staff is replying. According to her replies, mobile hotspot should work fine on your phone. But it is only recommended when a Wi-Fi network is unavailable to save your data.

Having the same problem and have tried different chargers.  2hrs to go up 10%. Also it is getting warm

Hi there. Have you tried using a different set of charger? I'm thinking the battery is not getting charged and is just simply drained maybe just a broken charger. If that's not the case, I suggest getting it back to Consumer Cellular, you probably have a defective unit.

Hi Janet - I had the same problem and agree with Carl's solution, except:

• APN and APN Name is ereseller
• MCC is 310
• MCN is 410
• APN Type is the second choice he gave (default ....fota)

Good luck!

Hi Janet. Did you use this APN settings below?

Name reseller

Proxy port Blank or Not Set

Proxy push Enabled or None

Authentication type secure, none, or not set

Username <Blank>

Password <Blank>

APN reseller

MMSC http://mmsc.mobile.att.net

MMS Proxy proxy.mobile.att.net

MMS Port 80

Authentication Type None or Not Set

APN Type default, mms, supl or

default,mms,agps,supl,fota

If you haven't, can you please try. Let us know how it goes.

Trying to use some third-party recovery programs like MobiKin Doctor for Android to get the job done. MobiKin Doctor for for Android has an intuitive interface, so you can use it easily.

Hi Judith. You will have to contact Consumer Cellular. Good luck!

If it is not automatically backed up to the cloud storage, there is no way to recover the voice mail messages from internal storage directly.Unless use some data recovery program, which can access your internal storage.In this way,it is possible to recover.

Hi Steve. I've tried searching if there's a way but unfortunately didn't find any. Have you tried directly contacting Consumer Cellular, they may be able to help you with this.

The CC rep told me that even though international roaming would be turned on, there would be a chance that the phone would not work. She said that I might have to buy a local SIM card, an unnecessary expense since I only need to make a few short calls, or send a few texts.

Hi Eric. According to Consumer Cellular website, you can use your phone while in roaming in New Zealand. I'm not quite sure though what they meant by "not give 100% guarantee".

I have an iPhone and I have an iwatch. I would like to be able to do iwatch stand alone phone calls if I do not have my phone with me. Does consumer cellular have this ability. 

The SIM should fit the SIM slot size of the smartwatch and should be compatible with the smartwatch's supported network bands for you to use it. If unsure, best contact Consumer Cellular.