Question

5G icon disappears when wifi is turned on


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I have two Samsung A53 5g phones.  On both, the “5G” icon appears with wifi turned off, but the icon disappears when I turn wifi on.  It is apparently not a faulty router, as the same thing happens when I turn wifi on when I am out of range of my router, and/or connect to wifi at a local business.

I don’t know if the wifi is actually blocking my 5G access; it could be just blocking the icon.  I upgraded to these phones because of the numerous dropped calls we were getting with our previous non-5G phones.  However, we still get a few dropped calls and short blackout periods with the new phones.

My immediate plan is just to leave wifi off and use my unlimited data for everything.  It will take making a few calls to see if this reduces dropped/blackout calls.  However, it doesn’t seem like this should be necessary.


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Userlevel 7
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When you turn wifi on the 5G icon goes away since you’re using wifi but if the wifi drops the 5G icon will appear. This does this on my Pixel 6 also.

Userlevel 7
Badge +16

this is how it happens on the majority of devices out there.. youre still connected to the mobile network but your not using both 5G and wifi at the same time. your phone basically drops its network connection for the wifi data connection but keeps the voice side connected to the mobile network...ish.

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I thank you for the comments.  I understand that I will not be using both wifi and the TMO network at the same time.  I am still unclear about what happens when i make a phone call without turning wifi off on my phone.  With wifi on, the 5g icon disappears.  Does the call still attempt to connect to the 5g network, or does it default to 4g.  I think most people, while at home, stay connected to their home wifi, even when not using it.  Having to disconnect wifi to make a 5g call doesn't seem right.  

Userlevel 7
Badge +14

It depends on how you have it set up. You can have wifi on but for calls have cellular preferred checked in the settings.

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