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

[Huracan]

Psh.

AT&T will get the right to call out unfair advantages with competitors when they stop screwing their customers for marginal profits that don't seem to be reinvested into anything but their self interests.

...I am pretty upset with them and their recent actions right now.

I was pretty upset with them at the beginning of the year when they throttled me the only time I went over 5GB on my unlimited data plan in years of paying full price for little data used and refused to remove the throttling for the rest of the month that I decided to kiss goodbye to my outdated plan with them (no texting and limited voice minutes) and jumped ship to T-Mobile, and have been quite happy with T-Mobile and John Legere's antics.

 

[639051]

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.

As a person having received one for free, they are generally NOT free and you REALLY have to put the screws to AT&T to get them to give one away.

 

[goaliemn]

some people seem to forget T-Mobile has been offering wifi calling since early 2000's. They had UMA on their blackberries back then, so they maybe grandfathered in as they already provided the service.

 

[Will do good]

I understand ATT might be a little better in some area, but I wouldn't put up with their crap and how they treat "their customers".
That's why I've left them and with T-mobile.

 

[SoAnyway]

Just another reason to hate AT&T. Glad I left them for T-Mobile last year. Why would anyone defend AT&T after shenanigans like this?

 

[kingtj]

Yep. THIS is exactly why I bought an iPhone 6s immediately and upgraded from a perfectly good 6. The force-touch and better camera are "nice to have" but wouldn't really sell me on the upgrade. But as a T-Mobile user, anything letting me get an improved signal, especially indoors, is worthwhile.

I refuse to pay AT&T or Verizon any more than I absolutely have to. I've had cellular service and other services with both of them in the past and the one thing you can count on with both is corporate greed, extending as FAR as they can take it without a huge backlash. (Then they back-peddle, saying some total B.S. about how much they care what their customers think, only to find a different angle of attack.)

I'm so glad the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus have LTE band 12 support, which means T-Mobile customers using those phones will have strong signal indoors. I despise AT&T, so it will be great to see them lose customers due to that.

 

[megfilmworks]

What a crock...

 

[i5pro]

So what's Verizon's excuse for not rolling it out

 

[cjc2104]

I thankfully still have access to AT&T Wifi Calling and it is a godsend. AT&T's coverage in my area is notoriously over utilized and sparse (living 5 blocks from a university will do that to you). That and my house has some weird structural things that kill radio signals. I've been angry ever since I moved here because AT&T wouldn't front me a microcell, so wifi calling with my 1gbps fiber internet is the bee's knees.

I live in Manhattan and am so jealous of you right now! haha

 

[andyw715]

I guess ATT is gunshy over the unlimited data throttling thing.
Although TMob has had wifi calling for over a year.

I enabled it when on beta iOS 9, once the new 6S+ gets here will it still be enabled for me?

 

[Xian Zhu Xuande]

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...

You would have to waste quite a bit of time on the phone for this to matter...
And in one of those locations where you're data is actually capped.
And under a carrier where your data is capped.

I sure would appreciate it. I don't like being on the phone in the first place.

We're looking into T-Mobile now. Tired of AT&T's knuckle-dragging on new features, and if T-Mobile is as serviceable as some people in my area are telling me they might be worth a shot.

 

[rjohnstone]

So what's Verizon's excuse for not rolling it out

They can't monetize it since the other carriers are giving it away for free.
So they have no incentive to do it.

I switched back to AT&T after a year on T-Mobile.
Poor rural/highway coverage and poor building penetration at work pretty much killed it for me.
Couldn't use WiFi at work for WiFI calling as they only allow ports 80 and 443 on their external facing network.

I switched back to AT&T a few months ago and don't have any issues with connectivity.
Sure AT&T costs more ($23 more per month) than T-Mobile, but I can actually use my phone everywhere I go now.

 

[CentralOffice]

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...

I feel you. I'm lucky enough to be in a capped zip code myself and now I have to weigh whether to pay these scumbags $30 more per month. Last month I used almost 800 gigs

 

[andyw715]

I would like to see config for WiFi calling to only use the WiFi for calling.

The signal is "ok" at my office, but I don't want to connect to work WiFi, but would like to just for a good voice signal.

 

[neuropsychguy]

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.

Completely correct. If this thread is to be believed it uses about 50 kbps: https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/2nw01p/how_much_data_does_wifi_calling_use_per_minute/

If that's true, speaking 24 hours per day every day would use 16.2 GB per month (30 day month average).

 

[zorinlynx]

They can't monetize it since the other carriers are giving it away for free.
So they have no incentive to do it.

They have plenty of incentive to offer WiFi calling.

Every call that is on WiFi is a call that is NOT on the cellular network. This reduces usage of air bandwidth significantly.

 

[Cape Dave]

ATT, let ME decide when I want to use wifi calling, not YOU. Get this feature out or you will lose many customers. No excuses. And get going on HD voice too. Why are you so slow at these useful and valuable features? T Mobile has had them for years. GET GOING ATT!

 

[Zimmy68]

I don't understand. If they turned it off, why do I still have it? I am staring at my screen right now and it shows AT&T Wi-Fi.
But on my wife's 6 Plus, I can't enable it.

 

[QuarterSwede]

So they'll listen to the FCC when it comes to not providing a service, but blatantly disregard it when it comes to saving money. I see how this works.

You haven't figured out that this is how everything works?

 

[gsmornot]

ATT, let ME decide when I want to use wifi calling, not YOU. Get this feature out or you will lose many customers. No excuses. And get going on HD voice too. Why are you so slow at these useful and valuable features? T Mobile has had them for years. GET GOING ATT!

Have you tried HDVoice yet? Just curious. I do have it here and it sounds nice but generally I could do without it if I had to. I only speak with one or two people that even have the devices to use the feature at the moment.

 

[DadsWorksheets]

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.

The MicroCell solution is really problematic. I work out of a lower level of a house with concrete block walls, and almost never get regular service. The Microcell works, but every day or two it loses connections to something and has to be restarted.

The problem with that is that the MicroCell has to establish GPS and cellular connections when it starts up. Which is really dumb, because if I had great RF access to the rest of the world from where I need cell service, I probably wouldn't need the Microcell. So every day or two I drag a 50 foot long cable with an external GPS antenna outside to reboot the MicroCell. It is about the dumbest solution ever.

WiFi calling can't come soon enough.

 

[QuarterSwede]

ATT, let ME decide when I want to use wifi calling, not YOU. Get this feature out or you will lose many customers. No excuses.

You do get to decide when you use wifi calling, just turn it on or off as needed.

And get going on HD voice too. Why are you so slow at these useful and valuable features? T Mobile has had them for years. GET GOING ATT!

I've had HD Voice on AT&T working for a while now in my area (not a major city) and it sound fantastic, especially with mumblers. A couple things, it has to be available in your area AND both phones have to support it.

 

[Felix01]

My wife and I recently started living apart from work. She gets very poor reception through ATT in her apartment. We use FaceTime Audio to communicate and it works very well. Its a nice alternative option for some people while ATT is getting their sh** together.

Don't most people "live apart from [their] work?"

 

[Moorepheus]

AT&T service at my house is horrible. I have a M-Cell in my house. I can't wait for this, so I can turn this silly, yet required device off. Worse part of this is, even with the M-CELL in my house, if I start a call on it and leave, it gets dropped and if I want to finish a call when I get home, it also drops. I believe there was suppose to be a one way handshake with the M-Cell, but neither way worked at all in my case. I am hoping that WiFi calling will be better, but I am not holding my breath, but time will only tell once AT&T gets this up and running.

 

[maburdett]

After iOS 9 came out, my daughters iPhone 6 has the option to turn on wifi calling (she hasn't tried it yet though). However, on my iPhone 5s I don't even have the option. Is AT&T planning to support wifi calling on only the iPhone 6 and later, and not in the 5 or 5s? If that's the case, then AT&T stinks worse than ever.