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AT&T Delays Wi-Fi Calling Support Amid Wait for FCC Waiver, Calls Out Sprint and T-Mobile

This is particularly frustrating for me as I spend a lot of time in Midtown Manhattan and live right outside midtown. Being able to use wifi calling would be a game changer as the network is typically over congested. There are about 3 cell sites within a few blocks of apartment and service is spotty at best. I was just on the phone with AT&T yesterday regarding the terrible service and their response was "We are aware and working on it" which really doesn't hold any merit coming from a US based telco.

Just for the record, I have an iPhone 6 that is completely up to date and has never been dropped, wet, or damaged in anyway - device is good! Hopefully this feature is live soon!
 
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lederermc said:
She should request a micro (M-Cell) device which are free from AT&T. It gives you a mini (private) cell tower in your house that uses your broadband.
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We have MicroCell in our house. I'm sitting right next to it, connected, with 5 bars. I still get missed/dropped/never received calls. I'm really looking forward to WiFi calling from AT&T.
 
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lederermc said:
She should request a micro (M-Cell) device which are free from AT&T. It gives you a mini (private) cell tower in your house that uses your broadband.
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They are not free. ATT wanted $200 for one despite having a month + of connection issues because of a problem with the tower that covers my home. They did end up crediting us for all but $10 that month but they are definitely not free.
 
fjfjfjfj said:
I'm asking this in a honest way because I don't understand the hardships the deaf face but is there a need for TTY support any longer? I know we used a TTY years ago with a deaf relative but wouldn't text messaging replace that service entirely? Is this a case where the FCC regulations haven't caught up to modern technology? Again, asking honestly.
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Yes, there is. For instance, relay support is needed so that 100% deaf people can type into a terminal and have a human operator repeat what the deaf person says. And some older deaf people may not feel comfortable with newer technology and will keep using the TTY technology they grew up with.

I'm not sure how to feel about this hangup. I of course feel strongly about support for hard of hearing and deaf people like me, but I could also use Wi-Fi support since I work in an old 1950s-era building that's very good at blocking cell signal.

Hopefully a good compromise can be found soon.
 
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The holy grail of WiFi-Calling comes with it's own set of issues which aren't being covered -- probably because headlines portraying AT&T as being mean and withholding something makes for better clickbait...

CallerID seems to be the first thing to break -- especially when receiving a call from a network other than carrier you're using with WiFi calls. Another, and one that effects me, is the inability for 3rd party voicemail services to properly handle calls if your device is connected to a WiFi calling network. YouMail is the service I use, and calls don't forward to it if you're on a WiFi call, or you've turned on WiFi calling and your device is currently connected to the carrier's WiFi calling network. I don't use Vonage, but it is also a hornets-nest of issues once you add WiFi calling to the mix.
 
SteveLV702 said:
some testers suddenly had it disabled like myself it worked up until Sunday then was no longer available and now trying to re-enable it gives the coming soon error.
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I had it enabled under the beta (I'm a dev). It was suddenly disabled when I restored my backup to my new 6s Plus. But when I enabled it, it worked fine. WiFi Calling is currently on for me.
 
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AT&T you will lose customers--pay attention here--my call reception sucks in my house
 
Belmont31R said:
They are not free. ATT wanted $200 for one despite having a month + of connection issues because of a problem with the tower that covers my home. They did end up crediting us for all but $10 that month but they are definitely not free.
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Threaten to cancel your service. The Microcell will almost certainly become "free" at that point.
 
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Of course AT&T wants to comply with the rules when it comes to having to offer a feature that doesn't generate more revenue for them. Notice they're not fighting tooth and nail over this issue like they did when the FCC fined them for their 5GB "unlimited" data plans.

AT&T Wi-Fi Calling: Coming Soon for the iPhone 7 launch. Sept. 2016.
 
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mr_matalino said:
WiFi calling is not an option I would use anyway at this point. Comcast just started capping data at 300GB a month in some locations. Better off using cellular and unlimited minutes now that I'm being charged extra $$ for exceeding that cap...
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I have a data cap as well and pay extra every month because I go over but I can tell you its not due to the use of WiFi calling. WiFi calling will use very little data even if you talk for hours per day. If you have access, turn it on, it will be a benefit you can use.
 
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This is incredibly lame of AT&T.

It's as if they did not have the resources. Notice that they couldn't get *either* option ready for the launch.

If I'm the FCC I'm not budging, because the chances AT&T rolls out RTT or anything else any time soon are about zero once the pressure's off.

AT&T sucks. Avoid at all costs.
 
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zorinlynx said:
I don't get it. Why do they need FCC approval for this? Wifi calling is optional and if you need to use TTY you can just not turn it on.
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Why can't they just put us all in the 'beta' for now, and launch it officially when TTY is ready and approval is received?
 
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Wi-Fi calling on AT&T has sucked on the beta anyway. It doesn't transition between network and wifi and if you walk into a wifi spot and make a call it'll cut the call off when it connects to wifi. I hope they fix this for the public release.
 
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iSee said:
This is incredibly lame of AT&T.

It's as if they did not have the resources. Notice that they couldn't get *either* option ready for the launch.

If I'm the FCC I'm not budging, because the chances AT&T rolls out RTT or anything else any time soon are about zero once the pressure's off.

AT&T sucks. Avoid at all costs.
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The service is ready, I have been using it for a little while now and many others have as well.
 
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bartonlynch said:
Wi-Fi calling on AT&T has sucked on the beta anyway. It doesn't transition between network and wifi and if you walk into a wifi spot and make a call it'll cut the call off when it connects to wifi. I hope they fix this for the public release.
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This has not been the case for me. In the house I am on a WiFi call and as I walk out the door it moves to LTE without me knowing other than to look at the top left of the display. Are you in an area that supports VoLTE?
 
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kagharaht said:
Thanks AT&T. This solidifies my decision to switch to T-Mobile. :)
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After hanging on to my Unlimited Data plan for so long from AT&T, I just made switched myself to T-Mobile! Wi-Fi calling is awesome! My cell signal is still spotty at home like it was on AT&T, but with the Wi-Fi calling, at least I can get/make calls! We also will be getting a booster from T-Mobile, which is FREE!
 
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bpeeps said:
I'm sure he texts just fine now as you say. He would benefit from something like RTT because TTY is extremely slow. RTT would allow him to have audio converted to text in real time instead of having to wait for a message to be composed and then sent back to him. It's faster, it's current, and it's easer. It isn't innovation, it's evolution, creating a better system for those who need it.



You can't text message a business number, a doctor's office, pay a bill over the phone, or a multitude of other services people have to talk on their phones for. This allows all those conversations you and I have to be real time instead of the delay it takes the compose the message and send it back.
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Exactly good reasons for the new system, which make a lot of sense. There are a couple of things that I don't understand though:
  1. What does this have to do with WiFi Calling? If it works over the cellular network, then it should work over WiFi as well.
  2. Why will it take AT&T until 2016 to get this working? It seems to me like all that is required is some speech to text software that works reliably and output it as a text message and some speech to text software for when they reply. All of which is available off the shelf that works amazingly well these days.
 
bpeeps said:
I'm sure he texts just fine now as you say. He would benefit from something like RTT because TTY is extremely slow. RTT would allow him to have audio converted to text in real time instead of having to wait for a message to be composed and then sent back to him. It's faster, it's current, and it's easer. It isn't innovation, it's evolution, creating a better system for those who need it.
You can't text message a business number, a doctor's office, pay a bill over the phone, or a multitude of other services people have to talk on their phones for. This allows all those conversations you and I have to be real time instead of the delay it takes the compose the message and send it back.
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No, This is not what RTT is. RTT stands for Real Time Text, in essence, what a person is typing will be sent character by character, rather than like SMS where you send the entire message at once.

TTY's use RTT also.

This has nothing at all to do with audio to text conversion.

Here's some info on RTT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_text
 
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