Despite sounding like the world’s most boring music festival, WiFi Calling could make a genuine difference to how you communicate. The premise is phenomenally simple: when you’ve got a dodgy phone signal, send texts and make calls over WiFi instead. That’s it.
It means that you can call your granny from the Bakerloo line or order a curry to a campsite in rural Wales – as long as there’s a WiFi router nearby, you’re golden. Here’s how to set up WiFi Calling on iPhones.
WiFi Calling on iPhone: who supports it, who doesn’t
However, before we get started, there’s a bit of bad news: not all networks support WiFi Calling on iPhones. At the time of writing, the tool was only available to BT Mobile (if you also have a BT landline), EE, FreedomPop (me neither), iD Mobile, O2, Three and Vodafone customers.
You’ll have noticed that several big-hitters are missing from that list – Tesco, Sky, Virgin Mobile and GiffGaff, j’accuse – but WiFi Calling seems such a no-brainer that we hope they’ll catch up eventually.
Unfortunately, the caveats continue: as WiFi Calling is a new innovation, it’s not available on older handsets. This will cause a major migraine for Android users, but iPhone users can feel pretty smug as, depending on the network, all iterations after the iPhone 6 (and, in some cases, even iPhone 5c) are covered.
So, without further ado, here’s how to enable the function. It should take all of ten seconds…
- Make sure that you’re running the latest version of iOS, the iPhone’s operating system
- Connect your phone to the WiFi
- Tap the Settings | Phone | Wi-Fi Calling
- Switch on “Wi-Fi Calling on This iPhone”
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Hi Max,
Can you help me as I am losing the will to live with BT
Moved into our new house 8 years ago, No mobile signal (unless I stood outside with my pants on my head and a wire coat hanger stuck up my backside to get a signal on my mobile. BT installed our phones and broadband, but being 9 km from the exchange and on copper wire we struggled for 6 years to get 0.45mb.
The village switched over to a private 4G network 2 years and BINGO we got 12MB and I could get WiFi calling on my mobile.
Superfast BB came to our village 2 months ago, offering a package to save £20 per month and give us 40mb unlimited speed. I stupidly decided to change.
Now it seems I cant get WiFi calling on my O2 mobile. I have now wasted 2 hrs talking with idiots at BT with no answers to resolve the issue.
I’m back on the hamster wheel of doom with BT.
Can you help Max?
Kindest regards
Adam