Wi-Fi Calling Now Available for AT&T Users

[imlynxy]

You can use , for example, vpn4all , privateinternetaccess.com or hidemyass.com.
You go to wifi -> VPN. Set it up and it gives 128/256 encrypted channel between your device and server. It masks you ip. You need US ip in Germang -you get it. You need Canadian ip in the USA, youget it.
I tried UK ip with att , didn't work. I tried US ip, work perfect.

I need VPN since my work server doesn't work without encrypted channels outside the country. Also I watch Netflix outside the country all the time. I don't want to advertise my VPN here, less customers, faster speed. I send you a private message.

 

[Rigby]

I can't get WiFi calling to work on my home WiFi network, but it works on other networks on my 6s. I have an AirPort Extreme. Is IPSec enabled by default on Apple routers? I checked and there is no setting for it.

It's been a while since I used an Airport Extreme, but if I remember correctly, it supports IPSec pass-through out of the box (and does not expose a configuration setting for it in the Airport utility).

I know WiFi Calling is working for other people here with AirPort Extreme routers, so I don't think that's the problem. I think it is my ISP, but they said they don't block any ports. It's really interesting how AT&T WiFi Calling also doesn't work on any of their networks in their office. They let me test that yesterday. As soon as I go to a public WiFi hotspot or someone else's house, it immediately works, so it's definitely not my phone.

Which ISP is it? It's unlikely that they would actively block IPSec, since that would also affect many other VPN solutions (like remote workers logging into their company network from home). IPSec with NAT-T can be a bit tricky about expiring UDP port mappings and other obscure problems though.

The issue in their office could simply be caused by their local router configuration.

 

[Europa13]

It's been a while since I used an Airport Extreme, but if I remember correctly, it supports IPSec pass-through out of the box (and does not expose a configuration setting for it in the Airport utility).
Which ISP is it? It's unlikely that they would actively block IPSec, since that would also affect many other VPN solutions (like remote workers logging into their company network from home). IPSec with NAT-T can be a bit tricky about expiring UDP port mappings and other obscure problems though.

The issue in their office could simply be caused by their local router configuration.

A local ISP in Utah called Infowest. They have assured me that they don't block any ports for their customers. I'll ask them about IPSec. Do you have any suggestions for port forwarding on my router or things to ask my ISP? I opened 4500 UDP on my router, but it still didn't work. Someone here mentioned that AT&T said they used that one. Could the problem I'm having on my network have anything to do with my router configuration? I tried three routers and it didn't work on any of them, but I didn't go into the configuration settings on the Netgear. I just did the easy setup. I'm using the AirPort Extreme now.

 

[SlipperySlop]

So much confusion here about what this is and what it does...

1. This feature only works when your call via Cell network fails. It's seamless, and you can't force it or even notice it when it occurs. (unless you notice that you have zero cell bars, and are still talking....)
2. This does NOT bypass the AT&T network (or Sprint or T-Mobile or... or... or any other network you might use for Wi-Fi calling) The call origination is the only part that changes. Your call is still routed to your carrier's network, and still uses their equipment to complete the call. SO, yes, you still use minutes on your plan, and you still get charged for long distance as you should be charged for using their network, because you ARE using their network.

Much of the confusion is caused by grossly bad information such as you are posting.


You CAN force wifi calling. Turn off the cellular communication by going into airport mode. Then select wifi and bluetooth (if you need the bluetooth as I do for my apple watch). ATT WiFi will now show at the top of the phone.

 

[Rigby]

A local ISP in Utah called Infowest. They have assured me that they don't block any ports for their customers. I'll ask them about IPSec. Do you have any suggestions for port forwarding on my router or things to ask my ISP? I opened 4500 UDP on my router, but it still didn't work. Someone here mentioned that AT&T said they used that one.

Yes, you should ask them about IPSec VPN. I would recommend not to configure any static port forwardings. It probably won't help and creates a security risk. IPSec VPN uses several UDP ports for data path (ESP) and key exchange (IKE), but it should not be necessary to configure anything on the client-side router beyond IPSec pass-through.

 

[solodogg]

So I just piggybacked my t-mobile cellspot router to the TimeWarner Modem/router and my wifi calling won't work thru that either. Other than wait for ATT to decide what the problem is, I'm stuck. Att couldn't tell me what port it needs either.

are you using the TC8715 or TC8717 modem? Default user/pass should be admin/password. If you can get logged in from 192.168.0.1 using that password, go to the firewall tab, and change the firewall from "custom" to "low", your wifi calling should work.

Also, if you want to try the T-Mobile router, call TWC and have them place the modem into bridge mode. By just connecting your router, and not having the modem bridged, you are still passing through the modem's internal firewall. Once the modem is bridged, then your internet connection passes straight through to your external router.

 

[Carlanga]

I called AT&T last night and they indicated they would call me back today at 4pm pst to give me the port numbers and info. to get it to work. The 4500 UDP did not work, so far. Thanks for the info. I may just have to try a different router if I cannot find a way around the problem and hope its just this old ASUS RT-N56U router that is to blame. If anyone has any other ideas let me know as again I can use ATT WiFi calling at public wifi's but no at home and Time Warner swears it's not them but it is the router. If I get info. from AT&T how to get it to work, or some other port numbers or instructions I will update this later tonight. Thanks again!

I would first try to go into airplane mode and turn on wifi, if it shows att wifi on airplane mode then there is no issue, just that your house has a better att signal than your wifi for calls like in mine.

 

[iOSFangirl6001]

Likely. That's the situation I'm in and it doesn't work for me. The other reason could be that you don't have the AT&T version of the iPhone.

He has the AT&at Version

at&t kind of screwed us with their new plans, I had always bought the 2 year contract, now I'm on this Next Plan.

ATT new plans weren't so bad when Next was new and Next itself isn't bad in general the wireless industry switching up contract formats from 2 years and heavily discounted/subsidized sucked for many. Instead the various options out there like Next found an alternative way of contracting people in.

Pro> Save on plan pricing/costs generally
Con> Paying the phone in full or pay off X amount to be eligible for trade in/early upgrade

Pro> No financing or interest charges for what is essentially your carrier loaning you device cost upfront and you pay back over time

Con> Waiting X amount of time to upgrade whilst not really owning your device until it's paid off or traded in yet wanting that shiny new model more than ( insert politician here ) wants elected
to office

When you're in airplane mode with wifi turned on it should say "AT&T WiFi" at the top if it has activated. If not then there is something blocking the connection. Your router, your ISP or something else preventing your phone from connecting to the AT&T network, that's why it's not letting you make calls.

I'm going to have to switch ISPs to get this working, I think. I think I've spent about 8 hours on the phone with AT&T, Apple and my local ISP. I bought two new routers (Netgear 900 and AirPort Extreme) and it didn't work with either of them, so I think I have narrowed it down to my ISP as the cause, but they insist they aren't blocking it. It works fine for me on other networks. I went to my ISP today and tried it on two of their networks and it didn't work there.

If you were actually at the ISP office and it still wouldn't work on their network there then it would be highly unlucky it's routers in two separate locations causing the same problem. The common thread is the ISP so they are blocking something. Either it's a port, or it's the VPN/IPSec passthrough. If there are other options for ISPs out there it might be worth trying. I have an Airport Extreme here and wifi calling works perfectly through it without me having to change any settings at all.

Sorry it's been such a pain for you. It sucks when things that should just work don't because of stupid issues like this.

If I were the betting type and were broke right now I'd bet an entire paycheck its your ISP and they are lying to you purely on the incentive/hope that their lie keeps you with em and you fall for it

Given the whole net neutrality/traffic prioritization debacle out there betting ATT, T-Mobile, Sprint have to grease a few palms in the right places to get WFC working if not they probably block it.

Some providers might just secretly block what they don't want by default *shrug*

So I got my AT&T 6plus working for WFC. I'm going to Europe this week. I realize that officially this doesn't support free international calling per AT&T doc, but why? Specifically if I want to call another USA line that is also on WFC calling over there, will it work with no charge?

See the quoted reply below
VPN or some sort of Proxy to fool AT&T into thinking you're in the US should work granted I strongly advise limited your data/voice/messaging to WiFi ONLY For the duration of your trip if you go that route

You can use , for example, vpn4all , privateinternetaccess.com or hidemyass.com.
You go to wifi -> VPN. Set it up and it gives 128/256 encrypted channel between your device and server. It masks you ip. You need US ip in Germang -you get it. You need Canadian ip in the USA, youget it.
I tried UK ip with att , didn't work. I tried US ip, work perfect.

I need VPN since my work server doesn't work without encrypted channels outside the country. Also I watch Netflix outside the country all the time. I don't want to advertise my VPN here, less customers, faster speed. I send you a private message.

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

A local ISP in Utah called Infowest. They have assured me that they don't block any ports for their customers. I'll ask them about IPSec. Do you have any suggestions for port forwarding on my router or things to ask my ISP? I opened 4500 UDP on my router, but it still didn't work. Someone here mentioned that AT&T said they used that one. Could the problem I'm having on my network have anything to do with my router configuration? I tried three routers and it didn't work on any of them, but I didn't go into the configuration settings on the Netgear. I just did the easy setup. I'm using the AirPort Extreme now.

It could be configuration related but your ISP Sounds dicey and too small time that they may be behind the times and blocking it ( read above if you have not yet )

Also 4500 is apparently the wrong port I've seen people on here saying the tried it and it did nothing
----------------

So I just piggybacked my t-mobile cellspot router to the TimeWarner Modem/router and my wifi calling won't work thru that either. Other than wait for ATT to decide what the problem is, I'm stuck. Att couldn't tell me what port it needs either.

Sounds like you talked to the wrong ATT Person(s) if possible I strongly advise contacting the Twitter Social Media team
@ATTCares and asking for a call back.



Trust me I've found the Twitter/Social Media team far far better equipped to deal with things and/or track down proper info since many are like upper level CS/CC Reps and Tech's or supervisors with more tools and resources


I seldom bother calling 611 or the 800 number unless I know the fix/answer is so EZ even their worst reps can handle it
( yes ALL Carriers and businesses in general have their share of bad reps and miscommunication )

 

[sashusmom]

are you using the TC8715 or TC8717 modem? Default user/pass should be admin/password. If you can get logged in from 192.168.0.1 using that password, go to the firewall tab, and change the firewall from "custom" to "low", your wifi calling should work.

Also, if you want to try the T-Mobile router, call TWC and have them place the modem into bridge mode. By just connecting your router, and not having the modem bridged, you are still passing through the modem's internal firewall. Once the modem is bridged, then your internet connection passes straight through to your external router.

Boy! I am learning a lot from this thread! My router is a 8717t. I tried the admin/password and it didn't work. It told me they were the wrong sign on info. It also has the same sign in PW on the bottom of the modem as we are using to sign into the wifi, so that was never changed. If the modem sign in info was changed the day we installed, then there is no record of those changes and it was 8 months ago. My TW credentials to sign into my account don't work either for the router sign in.

I can access the t-mobile router settings just fine and it forced me to change those sign in credentials which I made a note of in my notepad. I will give TWC another call and ask them to put it in bridge mode and see if that helps. I was wondering about that, but not being so techie, was not sure if that was how it works. Thanks for the confirmation.

I will post back and see if it works. Thank you solodogg.

 

[rugmankc]

Sorry, you have how many wives? You lucky dog, you... and you have time and energy to read MacRumors?

lol yeah wives 1-4 and 6-8 have wifi calling. pity the poor girl that doesn't--

 

[sashusmom]

are you using the TC8715 or TC8717 modem? Default user/pass should be admin/password. If you can get logged in from 192.168.0.1 using that password, go to the firewall tab, and change the firewall from "custom" to "low", your wifi calling should work.

Also, if you want to try the T-Mobile router, call TWC and have them place the modem into bridge mode. By just connecting your router, and not having the modem bridged, you are still passing through the modem's internal firewall. Once the modem is bridged, then your internet connection passes straight through to your external router.

I can access the t-mobile router settings just fine and it forced me to change those sign in credentials which I made a note of in my notepad.

I will give TWC another call and ask them to put it in bridge mode and see if that helps. I was wondering about that, but not being so techie, was not sure if that was how it works. Thanks for the confirmation.

I will post back and see if it works. Thank you solodogg.

So this is my post back and results. I got TWC tech support on the phone. Quite a marathon call. The first Jay and I got cut off as he was sending an update to my modem because he could not access the bridge mode settings. I waited for a call back that never came.

So after 10 minutes I tried again and got another Jay. He seemed to be new and feeling his way, and slow. He set up the bridge mode and then I had no internet via the external asus router. But in the end after having no internet access thru the Asus t-mo cell spot, and he checking everything one at a time, I asked where the ethernet wire needed to be plugged into, the blue port or one of the 4 yellow ones. (I was referring to the t-mo cellspot external router, and he thought I was referring to the TWC modem/router) and he said a yellow port. So I moved the wire from the blue port to a yellow one. After we got on the same page and he realized we were referring to 2 different things he corrected himself and told me it had to be in the blue port in the asus router and apologized profusely for the misinformation.

And what do you know???? The bridge started working. How moving a wire back and forth did that I have no idea. The t-mo asus cellspot had connectivity and now I could connect to that data stream. And here is where my ignorance kicked in, but hey, I'm learning here. lol..... The TWC wifi connections disappeared and Jay explained that when you set up a "bridge" it shuts down the internal router of the modem/router combo. I wonder if the poor guy thought I was going to ask him to reverse what he just did????!!!! But I thanked him very much and hung up the 60 minute 4 phone call marathon.

So....Now to the wifi calling on my 6s+. I put in airplane mode, put the wifi on, and no wifi calling. Just the airplane icon and the 4 bars for wifi strength. So I thought 3 hours of my time between last nite and today accomplished nothing .... But I don't give up that easy

I shut off wifi calling. I checked to make sure I was on the new wifi internet connection for the external router. I checked that lte voice and data was selected. Then shut off the phone.

I restarted the phone. Turned on wifi calling. Put into airplane mode, turned wifi back on...... Drumroll.......
I now have an airplane icon....and...AT&T Wifi bars!!!!!!!! It's finally working..

My thanks goes to solodogg for making that reply post to me and giving me a direction to trouble shoot.

So, Time Warner Technicolor 1817 modem/router combo was blocking the ATT wifi....Boy am I pooped!

 

[Europa13]

Yes, you should ask them about IPSec VPN. I would recommend not to configure any static port forwardings. It probably won't help and creates a security risk. IPSec VPN uses several UDP ports for data path (ESP) and key exchange (IKE), but it should not be necessary to configure anything on the client-side router beyond IPSec pass-through.

But IPSec pass-through wouldn't be disabled on an AirPort Extreme router, correct? It's not a setting on that router. I'm going to call my ISP when they open tomorrow and ask about IPSec.

 

[Josh125]

and VZ is no where to be found, shocking.

 

[bradnd9901]

Just got off the phone with Att Cares.

They said they will only support the Att model iPhones because the other models are unable to be supported. I asked "is it a hardware issue?" They said no, it's a software one.

Lies. This anti-customer crap from Att really pisses me off.

 

[AppleCaked]

Just got off the phone with Att Cares.

They said they will only support the Att model iPhones because the other models are unable to be supported. I asked "is it a hardware issue?" They said no, it's a software one.

Lies. This anti-customer crap from Att really pisses me off.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/9/9488403/att-wi-fi-calling-problem-unlocked-iphone-6s
I got this from an earlier post I think. Other models will be working soon...

 

[Rigby]

But IPSec pass-through wouldn't be disabled on an AirPort Extreme router, correct? It's not a setting on that router. I'm going to call my ISP when they open tomorrow and ask about IPSec.

I just checked. Airport Extreme supports IPSec pass-through out of the box. Nothing to configure there.

For the technically interested: Wifi calling uses IPSec with NAT-T. This means it is designed to work with common home routers (that commonly use NAT to map several internal IP addresses to one external address assigned by the ISP). The data packets (UDP-encapsulated ESP on destination port 4500) are treated like any other UDP packet and usually pass through the router without problems. The only issue is that the IKE protocol, which is used for the initial key exchange, requires both source and destination ports to be 500. This requires special treatment by the NAT function in the router, which is typically either enabled by default (like in the Apple Airport Extreme), or by switching on an option called IPSec/VPN pass-through or similar (like in the Asus router that was mentioned earlier).

Note that setting up a static port forwarding for port 500 is usually not a good idea because (1) most people use dynamic IP addresses for the Wifi-connected devices inside their home network, and (2) this would only allow a single device to set up an IPSec connection, and (3) port forwardings create a potential security risk.

 

[SlipperySlop]

Just got off the phone with Att Cares.

They said they will only support the Att model iPhones because the other models are unable to be supported. I asked "is it a hardware issue?" They said no, it's a software one.

Lies. This anti-customer crap from Att really pisses me off.

That's a bit harsh and unfair. Unfortunately, not all tech support, anywhere for that matter, is equal. I'd bet that no one "lied" to you. Misinformed, not as well trained, etc are the more likely possibilities. This is not a straight forward issue. Perhaps it should be, but it isn't.

I'd suggest you dump ATT, given how unhappy and angry you are with them. You'd be foolish to stay. Go with Verizon or anyone else and see if every tech support person you encounter is equal.

 

[2298754]

Public wifi support has been all over the place. Works on AT&T wifi and Starbucks wifi, but xfinitywifi never works.

 

[Manchi]

Call quality is great. Only downside? Any time you leave the wifi signal range you lose your call. It should be transparent.

 

[2298754]

Call quality is great. Only downside? Any time you leave the wifi signal range you lose your call. It should be transparent.

Nope. But I am in a VoLTE market so my call hands off perfectly.

 

[jetsam]

Public wifi support has been all over the place. Works on AT&T wifi and Starbucks wifi, but xfinitywifi never works.

xfinitywifi blocks all VPN connections.

 

[solodogg]

...I restarted the phone. Turned on wifi calling. Put into airplane mode, turned wifi back on...... Drumroll.......
I now have an airplane icon....and...AT&T Wifi bars!!!!!!!! It's finally working..

My thanks goes to solodogg for making that reply post to me and giving me a direction to trouble shoot.

So, Time Warner Technicolor 1817 modem/router combo was blocking the ATT wifi....Boy am I pooped!

glad to hear you got it working If for some reason you ever have any issues with your Asus router, and need to re-enable the wifi in the modem, have them set the firewall settings to Low, and that will allow VPN and IPSec connections to pass through it.

 

[BulkHedd]

So what determines when the phone switches to Wi-Fi calling? I notice here at work, and even at home, I frequently see "AT&T Wi-Fi" on my phone when the cellular signal shows 3 or 4 dots.

 

[sashusmom]

Thanks big. I just talked to TWC and spent an hour on the phone with ATT. They are saying it is a known issue with the 6s+. I will check out your post above, I don't seem to have the username and PW to get into the router settings. It is not the generic ones on their chart and my user name and PW for TW is not working either. I will call it a nite for now. Thanks for all your replies.

It wasn't my phone, it was the router.

 

[garylapointe]

I'm wondering if that is because it goes into wifi calling mode when the signal is weak. Maybe your signal is sometimes good and sometimes not?

No, it wasn't the the WiFi calling wasn't working, it's that I couldn't activate it at the time.
(After trying 20+ times over several days it finally worked).

Gary