iOSFangirl6001 (and/or anyone else who may know the answers), some questions:
2) I'm on a grandfathered unlimited data plan, but have a limited number of voice minutes (family-plan). Any chance that AT&T will deduct my Wi-Fi calling time from my pool of voice minutes? I seem to recall that they tried that angle early on with the Microcell. Back then, I believe you had a choice of getting the Microcell for free but having them charge your time using it against your pool of voice minutes, or paying full price for the Microcell but having that usage be unlimited (gee thanks - I'm using my own non-AT&T internet service for VoIP and you're "letting me" use that without deducting it from my voice minute pool).
3) There seems to be some lack of certainty in this thread as to whether or not I could sign up for the iOS beta program (or get it as a developer) and turn this feature on now. Anyone know the answer to that for certain? I suppose it couldn't hurt for me to give it a try.
This is probably the biggest feature I've been waiting for since iOS8 was released. My wife and I both work from home and have an Ooma (VoIP) which we use as our main house phone number, but my wife had one negative experience with it a couple of years back and demanded a traditional landline. She's on meetings constantly for work so she needs reliable service. I hate paying $40-45/month for that landline and have been trying to convince her to give the Ooma another shot for her usage, or to try another VoIP option, and I'm hoping AT&T Wi-Fi calling will be the one.
King answers most of this below in the quoted message in case you missed it.
I'll weigh in on points/questions 2 and 3 though
The whole WiFi Calling minutes thing is unclear and heavily debated.
As it stands now AT&T advises or at least both reccomends and infers that the feature is best used with "Mobile Share" , "Mobile Share Value" or "Mobile Share Value Promo" plans this may have been strictly for purposes of trying to limit the Beta testing pool. ( granted the clever few found ways around it )
There's debate and unclear info that it may deduct minutes but most debate I've seen or talked over with some AT&T staff seems to indicate the bigger risk of minutes usage/charges lies with PrePaid customers.
Sounds more like you're postpaid
On the topic of Beta there's developer
Beta which is paid for
( or you can be attached to someone's Developer Beta pool X # of devices can be registered per dev account)
And the last several iOS versions have offered FREE Public Beta which ANYONE Can join by signing up, installing the Beta profile then download the beta in the phones software up menu
As for joining the AT&T WiFi Calling beta that's hit or miss at this point but there are options to try tricking/forcing sign up and enrollment in WiFi Calling.
If you're interested in further discussion/explanation and have Twitter
You can tweet @PGH_BUS_INFO
Or call them anytime after 7pm EST at 412-759-3335 they offer a range of services and info free of charge
( Transit info in PA/WV , tech info particularly in phones and computers and the occasional other tidbit )
Anyway I leave you to Kings reply
The thing is though, the TTY service is nearly obsolete and irrelevant anyway!
My wife asked someone about this who is active in the deaf community, and she was told the old TTY services aren't even used anymore except by the elderly who refuse to learn anything new/different.
(Good chance they're not the same group making use of the latest smartphones and features like wi-fi calling anyway!)
Most deaf people just send SMS text messages around like everyone else, these days.
I don't claim to have all the answers, but I'm familiar with using the AT&T Microcell and so forth.
1. Not really. At least with T-Mobile's implementation of wi-fi calling (because that's my current carrier), the iPhone will occasionally decide not to use it on a call because it's intermittently getting a strong enough cell signal at that moment in time. Then, in the middle of the call, your signal fades out as you walk around the house or what-not. (I'm assuming this is probably no different than the behavior you'd see with wi-fi calling on an iPhone with any other carrier though, since some of this has to be due to the design of iOS itself and how it makes use of the feature.)
Now, if you blanketed your house with enough wi-fi repeaters to ensure a really strong wireless signal everywhere in there? That would theoretically help your phone choose the wi-fi calling option every time. But my experience with multiple repeaters is that it causes problems in and of itself. Namely, as you move around the house, the wi-fi routers have to "hand off" your connection from one to the next, and that process isn't perfect either. You'll get times where your device stubbornly stays connected to the same router or repeater it was on from the beginning - as you walk far away from it and its signal gets weak. It won't seamlessly hand off to the stronger, repeated signal closer to you in the house like it should.
2. Sure, AT&T could do whatever they wanted to with billing structure. But my guess is, they won't try to deduct minutes from your plan for using wi-fi calling, simply because the competition isn't doing that. When they pulled that with the Microcell, they had a better case for doing it, since other carriers didn't yet have an equivalent signal booster they were letting people have (or borrow) for free or at a subsidized cost.
3. Can't really speak to what's available on the Apple developer program.... but in general, I think your wife is unfortunately still right about the land line. As soon as you go with VoIP of *any* type, you're immediately making a trade-off of some potential reliability on calls for lower cost. Where I work, this is a constant, heated battle. After I.T. was instructed to find a lower cost and more flexible solution to the existing phone system in the offices, they moved everyone to a VoIP solution with dedicated Polycom VoIP phones. Ever since then, people randomly experience dropped calls with important clients, people who can't hear them speak when they're placed in conference calls and other annoyances. That said, we probably make thousands of perfectly good calls every month with the system. But it's the ones that fail that are remembered the most. There's NOBODY who offers bulletproof VoIP solution. They can't, because there are too many factors outside their control with all the "hops" the Internet traffic makes from source to destination.
Posted/quoted mainly for the benefit of heptic and others to whom it applies
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Thank you for pointing at something that doesn't answer my question. Where is the article that explains why AT&T had to get approval? The FCC saying go ahead doesn't explain that.
And carriers are not required to make every device TTY compatible. Their current selection and the majority of their products offer the service. The problem with ATT, which they admit in their request to the FCC, is that ATT doesn't meet the minimum requirements. Why? Probably because they have been trying to push their new protocol that does little to help the Deaf community, is less reliable, and is far less expensive (for them) than TYY. The fact that T-Mobile and Sprint didn't get approval for WiFi Calling is because they already have near 100% accessibility supporting technology the FCC requested they support.
1: there is NO Article explaining such
2: they are and aren't they aren't req to make compatible devices no but they are req to provide and make TTY ( or comparable service) available to any and every user that may need it
3> How do you figure their new RTT Protocol "does little to help the community" and how can you say something not even implemented yet is "less reliable" or "less expensive" did I or any of us miss the part where you work at ATT and are privy to all this info and inner workings?
Did you even read the FCC Waiver the related articles and application in full? I'm guessing not!
If anything it's explained clear as day RTT would be far more superior to TTY currently offered and be both more widely available and more easily adaptable with current tech especially in this case VOIP which WiFi calling essentially is more or less
Currently TTY is iffy at best in VOIP or WiFi calling scenarios even from T-Mobile and Sprint ( hence part of the reason BOTH cariers are in violation of regulations ) regardless of them having the WiFi calling option available longer
There are Apps and such out there that kind of do what RTT is trying to do but aren't so reliable, or are prone to mistakes in interpreting what's being said. RTT which AT&T is trying to implement is supposed to be better and RTT can do so w/o wasting space on your device for APP's and is supposed to be more user friendly
Lastly the statistics have been pointed out there are STILL TTY users out there granted the numbers are declining
( mostly due to deaths, and TTY compatibility issues over Internet usage, and TTY being generally antiquated )
But the users are still numbered in the hundreds of thousands as of the quoted statistics from available from prevalent research and studies
especially with the way att does launches. it will be done right. it's right around the corner. so have patients and watch and see
