Wi-Fi Calling Now Available for AT&T Users

[hick9]

No! I'm disappointed. I wonder if the 5s actually has VoLTE capabilities or if this is Apple limiting us again?

It's hard to say. I do know that AT&T requires your phone to be able to use their HD Voice feature for this to work. It only lists iPhone 6 and above as being able to have that feature. Maybe the quality was too poor without the HD Voice feature (just guessing). If thats the case it would be AT&T's doing. I do find it interesting on my iPhone 5s the Wi-Fi calling switch was there after iOS9 update. Now it's gone since I updated to iOS 9.0.2

 

[iOSFangirl6001]

It doesn't work with unlocked 6S or 6S plus whether you have unlimited(grandfather) plan or not - confirmed with AT&T representative today !

Your rep is ill informed
( read down further please )

That stinks.
I have an unlocked iPhone 6s Plus.

So warning if you have a UNLOCKED Phone don't expect to us AT&T WiFi Calling

View attachment 591104

There's "a known issue with unlocked devices" and "ATT is working on it with Apple"

Some people are able to use/enable the feature even on their unlocked devices though

Just spoke to AT&T technical support because I have not been able to activate wi-if calling feature on my 6s purchased a full price unlocked from Apple. I was told that there is a "known issue" with the unlocked 6s that they are working to resolve and "hope" to have fixed in "A few days" so that the feature can be activated on these phones.

----------------

I'm curious to see what this will do to battery usage.
Time will tell I guess.
Please report your experiences on battery usage.

If you're using WiFi + Cell network it's definitely a noticeable drop in battery life

Best use is to use WiFi ONLY While in Airplane mode. Actually draws out your battery life cause WiFi only is less work on your battery and you'll still be good to send/receive calls,messaging and use data

I don't see this option on my iPhone on AT&T

What AT&T iPhone do you have and what version of iOS?

 

[richwoodrocket]

What AT&T iPhone do you have and what version of iOS?

iOS 9.1 beta 4 on iPhone 5c on AT&T next.

 

[bigjinfla]

iOS 9.1 beta 4 on iPhone 5c on AT&T next.

Because Wifi calling from ATT only works on iPhone 6 and newer.

 

[iOSFangirl6001]

iOS 9.1 beta 4 on iPhone 5c on AT&T next.

Looks like I was beaten to the punch
Yeah 5 5S 5C AT&T won't support AT&T's WFC setup as they are only using their HD Voice and VoLTE ( not supported on 5 5S 5C ) with WFC for best quality and to avoid excessive call drops which would reflect poorly on them moreso than model limitations

Because Wifi calling from ATT only works on iPhone 6 and newer.

 

[luckydcxx]

Giving up on it after a few tries seems short sighted. It's a fairly new feature to ATT give it time and a chance. There could be a number of reasons for any issues either of you had that could be fixed at a later

First of all, I have service at work and home. These would be the only 2 places that I would even be on wifi to make a call.

Secondly, FaceTime audio does the exact same thing.

In the rare instance that I had no service but had wifi available and the person I was trying to call didn't have an iPhone ... Then the person can wait.

 

[sashusmom]

If you're using WiFi + Cell network it's definitely a noticeable drop in battery life

Best use is to use WiFi ONLY While in Airplane mode. Actually draws out your battery life cause WiFi only is less work on your battery and you'll still be good to send/receive calls,messaging and use data

I have tried putting my 6s+ in airplane mode and turning on wifi. When I go to the dialer it says I can't make a phone call while in airplane mode. Happened several times. Just did a hard reset=holding the home button and power button till your apple screen comes up.

Tried again to airplane mode it and turn wifi on, went to the dialer, dialed a number and I get this pop up " You must disable airplane mode to place a call."

How are you making calls on airplane mode?

 

[bigjinfla]

I have tried putting my 6s+ in airplane mode and turning on wifi. When I go to the dialer it says I can't make a phone call while in airplane mode. Happened several times. Just did a hard reset=holding the home button and power button till your apple screen comes up.

Tried again to airplane mode it and turn wifi on, went to the dialer, dialed a number and I get this pop up " You must disable airplane mode to place a call."

How are you making calls on airplane mode?

Is your phone saying "AT&T Wi-Fi" at the top?

 

[slimwallet]

Can't enable with unlocked "T-mobile" iphone 6S. AT&T tech support confirmed it's not working for model 1688 but they are working on a fix. No estimated timeframe on when it'll be resolved.

Debating if i should go exchange for a "At&T" iphone 6s..

 

[iOSFangirl6001]

I have tried putting my 6s+ in airplane mode and turning on wifi. When I go to the dialer it says I can't make a phone call while in airplane mode. Happened several times. Just did a hard reset=holding the home button and power button till your apple screen comes up.

Tried again to airplane mode it and turn wifi on, went to the dialer, dialed a number and I get this pop up " You must disable airplane mode to place a call."

How are you making calls on airplane mode?

Is your phone displaying " AT&T WiFi "

Might be a bug, glitch or other issue

See attached screenshots

Can't enable with unlocked "T-mobile" iphone 6S. AT&T tech support confirmed it's not working for model 1688 but they are working on a fix. No estimated timeframe on when it'll be resolved.

Debating if i should go exchange for a "At&T" iphone 6s..

There's a few comments and threads out there stating the AT&T model rather locked or unlocked is in fact the best model anyways. Apparently there was an error in reporting specifications and the ATT model actually supports and works with the most bands and both GSM and CDMA so might be worth it especially if you'd prefer not to wait out a fix

 

[garylapointe]

Just keep trying. That happened to me as well. Their servers are probably slammed.

Tried several times over the last few days and it finally worked this afternoon.
Sometimes at home it is in WiFi mode and sometimes it isn't...
Not sure if I've talked to anyone with it yet.

Gary

 

[mrwilly25]

While using Wifi calling on my 6s Plus, received a call from a iPhone 4S, also on AT&T. The person on the other end could not hear me, tried multiple times. Anyone know why?

 

[garylapointe]

charging long distance fees when using a service that puts 0 load on their networks is criminal as does the reoccurring hd-voice fee.

It's ridiculous to say "0 load". It gets (at a minimum) set up through their service and I don't know about the rest. But it's certainly (significantly) less load than when I'm calling a regular phone and using a landline or calling a cellphone and it's using up tower connections. Seems like at a minimum they could bill me a half-minute for each minute I use...

I'd rather use AT&T network and the same phone app for all calls. I could use Skype for all my outbound calls (WiFi or Cellular) to not use my minutes (for $2.51 a month, if I pay yearly) but that's an inconvenience and I really don't need more minutes (I've always got 5000-ish rollover minutes), so it really doesn't matter I suppose...

Gary

 

[garylapointe]

It's hard to say. I do know that AT&T requires your phone to be able to use their HD Voice feature for this to work. It only lists iPhone 6 and above as being able to have that feature. Maybe the quality was too poor without the HD Voice feature (just guessing). If thats the case it would be AT&T's doing. I do find it interesting on my iPhone 5s the Wi-Fi calling switch was there after iOS9 update. Now it's gone since I updated to iOS 9.0.2

FYI, The SIM that came in my 5s was VoLTE capable, I'm not saying the iPhone 5s was, just that the SIM (that came in mine) was.

Gary

 

[iOSFangirl6001]

Glad to see you are one of the lucky ones in a VoLTE area now. You should also notice while you are on the phone, the status bar will continue to display LTE instead of 4G now, and yes, with VoLTE working, handoff should be seamless. AFIAK, VoLTE to WiFi handoff was not supposed to be a supported feature, only WiFi to VoLTE...but it does appear AT&T has it set to attempt both (thus causing my audio to drop when passing the threshold for WiFi calling to enable).

My wife was in Orlando at the beginning of the week, and said VoLTE worked flawlessly in that market. Previously when we were down, we experienced quite a few dropped calls around the I Drive area, and just to the north, but I was able to hold a conversation with her all over the south end of town this time.

As 1 of those whom had to rely on a MicroCell like 4 or so years ago let me say this:

The 2 way WiFi handoff may not of been advertised or originally intended but if and when it can work properly it's pretty nifty and amazing. Anything helping improve coverage and lessen dropped calls is a big plus for the customer in my book.


Thankfully my dropped calls quota isn't near as bad as it once was particularly near my apartment which is in a hilly woodsy suburb just outside the coverage of our major city and thus on the outskirts of prime coverage. Add in most buildings in our apartment complex are older than I am and it used to be a coverage horror story
( ATT still always been worlds better than Sprint Verizon MetroPCS or T-Mobile )


Anyway network/tower improvements in past years here by ATT while other cariers ignore us have been a huge help WiFi calling is just the proverbial icing on the cake especially just after we got HD Voice and VoLTE in a very short time span. The 2 way handoff would be a dream come true and truly outclass MicroCell in every way 10x over

I can get WiFi calling to work at places like Starbucks and Peet's Coffee, but it won't work on my home WiFi. I have Time Warner Cable & an ASUS Router here in Orange County, CA. Have we heard if there is a solution?

Probably a router issue or Time Warner issue

The amount of horror stories I've heard from Time Warner users I've know including some YouTubers and live streamers is crazy high

On the other hand I've heard some bad reviews over certain ASUS routers so it could be 1 or the other or worse both keeping it from working at your home.

Best of luck though

 

[Irock619]

Just use FaceTime Audio or Skype. There are so many ways to communicate over wifi these days. Tons of options.

FaceTime audio only works with other iPhones. Not everybody in world has iPhones

 

[iOSFangirl6001]

It's ridiculous to say "0 load". It gets (at a minimum) set up through their service and I don't know about the rest. But it's certainly (significantly) less load than when I'm calling a regular phone and using a landline or calling a cellphone and it's using up tower connections. Seems like at a minimum they could bill me a half-minute for each minute I use...

I'd rather use AT&T network and the same phone app for all calls. I could use Skype for all my outbound calls (WiFi or Cellular) to not use my minutes (for $2.51 a month, if I pay yearly) but that's an inconvenience and I really don't need more minutes (I've always got 5000-ish rollover minutes), so it really doesn't matter I suppose...

Gary

Just pointing out the 99.9% of telecoms and VOIP Providers don't, can't or won't bill partial minutes. Only ones that do are
TracPhone, SafeLink and other "Obama Phone" providers and even then partial minute/credits can't be used for voice/talk ONLY Data or Messaging


That being said users like you who bank Rollover Minutes like people stockpile can goods certainly wouldn't be too burdened if it does use minutes


Despite what people have posted there is conflicting info from various ATT sources worst case scenario use it sparingly , monitor your voice usage online or in MyATT APP , or wait for more people to get bills rolling in now that the Beta has ended and this is public

So far I've had 1 bill from the Beta
My next bill will cover the tail end of beta and start of public.

Next 20 to 90 days will be quite interesting and a learning period for us all!

Customers/users

ATT Employees including poorly trained/unknowledgeable ones

And even possibly Apple

 

[sumsingwong]

Yay! I have it. You don't have to go in airplane mode.

 

[Carlanga]

I can get WiFi calling to work at places like Starbucks and Peet's Coffee, but it won't work on my home WiFi. I have Time Warner Cable & an ASUS Router here in Orange County, CA. Have we heard if there is a solution?

open your ports

 

[garylapointe]

Here's the AT&T page with lots of details on VoLTE and AT&T HD Voice http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB425890&cv=820

The last item tells how to check if your SIM is compatible with VoLTE (that's 9th/10th from the left when counting).

Gary

 

[bigjinfla]

Yay! I have it. You don't have to go in airplane mode.

No one said you HAVE to go into airplane mode. Going into airplane mode and then turning wifi back on simply is a way of forcing the phone to switch to wifi calling to test if it's active or not not since it deactivates the cellular radio.

Wifi calling will always be automatic once you have it activated and your cell signal gets weak. That's kinda the point of the thing.

BTW I want that wallpaper! effin awesome!

 

[bradnd9901]

Here's a great article that explains some of the problems people might be facing.

This is the boat I am in...a T-Mobile Device on AT&T

http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/9/9488403/att-wi-fi-calling-problem-unlocked-iphone-6s

 

[Europa13]

I still can't get it to work on my home WiFi after troubleshooting it all day. I restored my 6s to factory settings yesterday before ruling out my phone as the culprit. I've spent hours on the phone trying to get it resolved. I've talked to about five people at AT&T as well as two tech support techs at Apple and two at my local ISP. It works fine on my phone on other networks, so the problem has got to be my old (short) AirPort Extreme router or my ISP, but they insist that they aren't blocking any ports and an Apple networking expert did screen sharing with me today to look over my router settings and couldn't find anything wrong. I'm going to buy a new (tall) AirPort Extreme router soon to see if that fixes it. But somebody in this thread said he has an old (short) AirPort Extreme router and WFC works fine on his network, so I don't know. Maybe I'll have to switch ISPs to get this working at home.

 

[lineto]

Hopefully this atleast helps one person if anyone here is having problems with unlocked 6/+'s (not 6s)-

I have an iPhone 6 unlocked that I bought directly from Apple. When I got it, I threw in my old AT&T 5s SIM card and everything seemed okay. Skip a few months to yesterday when wifi calling was enabled, and my phone wouldn't allow it.

Firstly, AT&T told me I had to get a new SIM card that was apparently specifically for the 6 and higher then to call back and have them register that ICCID alongside with my 6 IMEI that had not been updated - their system still showed my 5s as my phone. Makes sense.

Called AT&T once I got my new SIM, got it registered and my IMEI updated properly, then the girl told me because my phone was unlocked that AT&T didn't support it yet for WiFi calling. Seemed weird, but a few people seemed to have the similar scenario. Later on I read that VoLTE/HD Voice needed to be enabled for WiFi calling to work, and that unlocked iPhone's that support the feature have to be manually provisioned on AT&T's end to enable this. Called AT&T once again, and the woman on the phone said there's no reason the phone should have to have anything enabled on their end, and transferred me to a tech support rep. that couldn't find anything weird or out of the ordinary, and once again seconded the notion that unlocked iPhone 6's wouldn't work just yet with WiFi calling. Hung up, and for some reason decided to look at my data plan summary online, and noticed a line item saying "VOLTE 4G OPT-OUT CID" - then looked at another iPhone 6+ line on our plan, and this was not present. Called AT&T once more and told the rep the specific line item, and he immediately saw it and said VoLTE is opt-in, and they just had to take this off and WiFi calling + HD Voice would both work. Much to my surprise, I restarted my phone and like that it worked.

TLDR: There's alot of confusion amongst AT&T's level one reps about what can and cannot work, and how to enable things to get WiFI calling working for special cases (anything not AT&T bought lol). Having an unlocked phone shouldn't stop you from utilizing the service. Also i'm on a grandfathered unlimited data plan.

 

[bigjinfla]

I still can't get it to work on my home WiFi after troubleshooting it all day. I restored my 6s to factory settings yesterday before ruling out my phone as the culprit. I've spent hours on the phone trying to get it resolved. I've talked to about five people at AT&T as well as two tech support techs at Apple and two at my local ISP. It works fine on my phone on other networks, so the problem has got to be my old (short) AirPort Extreme router or my ISP, but they insist that they aren't blocking any ports and an Apple networking expert did screen sharing with me today to look over my router settings and couldn't find anything wrong. I'm going to buy a new (tall) AirPort Extreme router soon to see if that fixes it. But somebody in this thread said he has an old (short) AirPort Extreme router and WFC works fine on his network, so I don't know. Maybe I'll have to switch ISPs to get this working at home.

If I was a betting man I'd bet on your ISP. Apple would have seen anything blocked in your router fairly obviously and since your phone works on other networks the problem cannot be your phone. If I were you before buying a new router, unless you were going to anyway, I'd either borrow one or pick up an elcheapo from Walmart (KEEP THE RECIEPT) take it home and try it. If still no joy take it back.

The other possibility is that if you have a sperate dsl or cable modem that it could be the cause. If you can check its settings I would. Or it might be what needs to be replaced to allow this to work. If none of this helps then it is definitely some thing with the ISP.

GOOD LUCK!