Every once in a while, we at Alpine Communications get a complaint about call disruption—a formal term for a frustrating concept usually referred to as a “dropped call.” And we totally share in your frustration.

There can be a few reasons why a call may terminate unexpectedly, from standard technical or weather-related hiccups to more complex matters related to different calling networks. Of course, we cannot control or explain the weather!

But, we can help explain how different calling networks can sometimes create issues for customers, which we’ll do in this article. We’ll also suggest when you should take the time to reach out to customer service for assistance.

Understanding Voice Over Internet Protocol and Call Termination

To understand why some calls get suddenly dropped or why some calls “don’t go through” in the first place, we need to explain how Alpine Communications’ Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls work.

Firstly, VoIP transmits its signal—your voice and the voice of the other caller—through the internet. After moving at ridiculously fast speeds, the signal (and your voice) then connects to its end point—i.e., a cellular phone—through a process known as “call termination.”

Call termination is the crucial step that lets Alpine Communications keep you connected to family and friends over the phone as well as through email and social media. At its most basic, call termination simply refers to the process of routing calls from one phone company to another.

Dropped Calls Due to Call Termination Issues

Now, as the old saying goes, “it takes two to tango.” With call termination, there are almost always at least two parties (meaning, two companies) involved. And just as with tango dancing, sometimes things can get a bit tangled up—and in this case, that can lead to the dreaded dropped call.

Remember that with VoIP, lots of data is transformed instantaneously and then rapidly moved over the internet before hitting your phone in the form of your voice and the other caller’s voice. It’s a technological wonder, but one that sometimes hits snags over the networks. Hence, occasionally, customers will experience dropped calls due to call termination errors.

When to Call Customer Service

It’s tempting to call Alpine Communications’ customer service when you’ve experienced a drop call seemingly out of the blue—especially when the weather seemed perfect on both ends of the call! But keep in mind that because there are often two calling networks involved in the call, Alpine Communications’ customer service can only assist or investigate when you are the initiating caller—or when both callers are Alpine Communications customers. That’s because any technical problem due to call termination errors is nearly always an issue with the calling network of the person who initiated the call in the first place.

When deciding whether to call Alpine Communications’ customer service number, follow this rule of thumb: if you originated the call and the call was dropped, feel free to reach out to us at anytime; however, if you received the call from another person—and that person is not an Alpine Communications customer—there is unfortunately nothing we can do to assist with that call.

Please know that we are not trying to discourage you from reaching out to us! But we don’t want to waste your valuable time if the dropped call was initiated on another company’s network.

Just remember: we can investigate and assist with outbound call termination issues—the calls made by you on our network—just not inbound calls made to you by other callers from other companies’ networks.

As always, please be sure you’re following Alpine Communications’ social pages to learn more about how our high-speed fiber internet can help keep you in touch with your loved ones!