How do I set up WiFi Calling on iPhone?

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”

READ NEXT: How can you stop kids using WiFi at the dinner table?