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The phone is trying this on it's own but you are preferring not to use it, instead preferring 5g networks.
Honestly you should probably just let the phone do its thing. Various bands have various capabilities. 5g is very fast, goes through concrete but doesn't travel far (even via air). LTE has more bands in lower frequencies than 5G does IIRC, and lower bands travel greater distances and serve more customers. Phones automatically try to use the 5g signal, falling back on 4g, then 3g, 2g.. the reason the feature you enabled exists is when there are stronger 4g signals that are getting picked up and there is still a 5g signal within range. In your case I doubt the 5g signal is in range.
Btw, your pixel should be using wifi calling at home, which uses the internet and gets as good of a signal as your home wifi does.
You would think the phone would do it on its own, but it doesn't seem to. The default selection for preferred network type is 5G. The only other options are LTE and 3G. There is no way to leave that setting blank or automatic.
The Wi-Fi calling does generally work, but we've been experiencing a lot of power outages lately and I have to rely on cellular data.
the phone does it when you set it to automatic. but you haven’t set it to automatic, so it sees 4g and 3g and says “nope, my user would rather have no service than 4g or 3g service”.
you may want to get a UPS for your modem and wifi. a nice 1000watt UPS should give you a few hours of internet when the power goes out.
Again, there is no 'automatic' option. My only options are 5G, LTE, and 3G. It's also not possible to leave the setting unconfigured. The default is 5G.
I have my modem and WiFi on a 1500va backup, but we have had several extended outages recently.
maybe then you want to try manually falling back to LTE. from the docs:
LTE: This setting should only be selected if experiencing service issues in locations that offer multiple network types and only LTE is needed.
Yeah, that's what I've been doing. It's annoying though because I have good 5G coverage in other parts of the city and I don't want to have to remember to switch back and forth manually 🤷🏼♂️
Can you fish an antenna outside your window, and have a few hundred dollars to spare? You might get better signal with a booster. I use one from surecall on my car and it fills in the gaps in coverage well. Not sure if I get 5g or not, but I get adequate cell service. I think they have ones for the home, ideally with a directional antenna and mast. At that point, you should have great 5g, but your mileage may vary.
You could try to contact your carrier, there might be some misconfiguration in the network.
Thanks, I'll reach out to Google Fi support to see if they can help.
as an European WHY AREN'T YOU USING WI-FI
As an American, same question for OP.
I do, but we have had several extended power outages this year and I often have to rely on cellular data in those times.
The phone should do this by itself. Other brands of phones do. I don't have that model to check, but sometimes there is an auto or preferred setting that will encourage it to do that. May require you doing some research.
Typical T-Mobile. I have to do the same in certain cities.
If the "preferred network type" setting is "5g/4g/3g/2g" then yeah, the phone should try all of them in that order.
Well, I wish it would. It just stays on the non-working 5G unless I change the preference setting.
Then it means you have a 5g signal, it's just that the data connection that comes with it is very bad / non-existent. Unfortunately, if the signal exists, many phones won't bother to also check for working data.
I know some phones can do that in order to toggle between cellular and wifi data, but not sure if they apply it to cellular modes too. See if there's any setting about "smart" connectivity. On my Sony it claims to also switch 5g / 4g as needed.
If all else fails I guess you can use a tool like Tasker to periodically ping an external service and toggle cellular mode when you have no data, but that's pretty crude.