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iPhone Verizon wifi calling now offered on ios 9.3?

XTheLancerX said:
No problem. I was quite surprised myself.
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If you think about it, from a tech standpoint, its nothing all that great. FYI: all voice and data is already digital, and going as packets. There is no reason why the packets can't be routed over wifi than cellular towers right (other than a business decision). T-mobile had introduced their Wifi calling way back in 2007 (Yes it worked on a non-smartphone like my old Nokia 6086 :) ) Even in those days, it supported handoff. What it didn't support is ability to connect to wifi using modern standards like WPA2, captive portals, hi-def voice etc. (cause those phones weren't even smartphones to have those features)

But really .. its nothing all that "wow". If at all, we're like 8 years too late to make wifi calling a commodity. Imagine, over the years, the number of people who would have benefited from having wifi calling in their iphones when their AT&T signal sucked :) All those blokes in their high rises in NYC, Houston, etc.

PS: nokia 6086 review here: http://www.cnet.com/products/nokia-6086-t-mobile/
 
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electronicsguy said:
If you think about it, from a tech standpoint, its nothing all that great. FYI: all voice and data is already digital, and going as packets. There is no reason why the packets can't be routed over wifi than cellular towers right (other than a business decision). T-mobile had introduced their Wifi calling way back in 2007 (Yes it worked on a non-smartphone like my old Nokia 6086 :) ) Even in those days, it supported handoff. What it didnt' support is ability to connect to wifi using modern standards like WPA2, captive portals, hi-def voice etc. (cause those phones weren't even smartphones to have those features)

But really .. its nothing all that "wow". If at all, we're like 8 years too late to make wifi calling a commodity. Imagine, over the years, the number of people who would have benefited from having wifi calling in their iphones when their AT&T signal sucked :) All those blokes in their high rises in NYC, Houston, etc.

PS: nokia 6086 review here: http://www.cnet.com/products/nokia-6086-t-mobile/
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I was only really surprised because of how much I had heard that wifi calling won't support handoff and stuff, then when it worked I wasn't expecting it lol but yeah your explanation is pretty interesting and it makes sense. I already was wondering "why wouldn't this work with continuity that makes no sense" when I originally learned it wouldn't work.
 
So my Verizon iPhone 6s+ doesn't have the WiFi calling option on B3 (which did update OTA, which was nice admittingly, yesterday)

I'm thinking my carrier update is messed up, or I'm not on the current version. I'm on Verizon 23.5.4. Is that what you're running WITH the option?
 
digitard said:
So my Verizon iPhone 6s+ doesn't have the WiFi calling option on B3 (which did update OTA, which was nice admittingly, yesterday)

I'm thinking my carrier update is messed up, or I'm not on the current version. I'm on Verizon 23.5.4. Is that what you're running WITH the option?
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Go to the phone settings (not cellular). It should be there. You have the same carrier settings that I have and wifi calling my is an option under settings>phone.
 
Nolander07 said:
Go to the phone settings (not cellular). It should be there. You have the same carrier settings that I have and wifi calling my is an option under settings>phone.
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That was it! Oops.

I thought it'd be under Cellular, or maybe snuck into WIFI.

Got it activated.

Thanks, everyone.
 
I think Wi-Fi calling works like this:

When your signal gets down to one "bar", Wi-Fi calling turns on, and it stays on until your signal gets back up to four "bars", and at this time it will switch back to the cellular tower.
 
Speedman100 said:
I think Wi-Fi calling works like this:

When your signal gets down to one "bar", Wi-Fi calling turns on, and it stays on until your signal gets back up to four "bars", and at this time it will switch back to the cellular tower.
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sure it can work that way, but that's not the only way. you can do it on demand, by switching off cellular completely and keeping wifi only ON. the phone will (should) behave as if its connected to a cellular tower.
 
Speedman100 said:
I think Wi-Fi calling works like this:

When your signal gets down to one "bar", Wi-Fi calling turns on, and it stays on until your signal gets back up to four "bars", and at this time it will switch back to the cellular tower.
Click to expand...

Except it's not that "loose"... as I noted above... My observations thus far, with the field test mode enabled to see signal as numbers rather than bars... if the signal drops below -110, it switches to wifi... and if the signal goes back up it will switch back to cellular - at something between -110 and -100 -- which is two dots/bars... and will stay on cellular with 3 dots/bars| -100 or better signal.
 
electronicsguy said:
If you think about it, from a tech standpoint, its nothing all that great. FYI: all voice and data is already digital, and going as packets. There is no reason why the packets can't be routed over wifi than cellular towers right (other than a business decision). T-mobile had introduced their Wifi calling way back in 2007 (Yes it worked on a non-smartphone like my old Nokia 6086 :) ) Even in those days, it supported handoff. What it didnt' support is ability to connect to wifi using modern standards like WPA2, captive portals, hi-def voice etc. (cause those phones weren't even smartphones to have those features)

But really .. its nothing all that "wow". If at all, we're like 8 years too late to make wifi calling a commodity. Imagine, over the years, the number of people who would have benefited from having wifi calling in their iphones when their AT&T signal sucked :) All those blokes in their high rises in NYC, Houston, etc.

PS: nokia 6086 review here: http://www.cnet.com/products/nokia-6086-t-mobile/
Click to expand...
I don't think this is accurate. Prior to VOLTE, phone calls were analog. That's why CDMA carriers (like Verizon) cou,d not simultaneously transmit both voice and data. Now, with Voice over LTE (VOLTE), Verizon finally is finally able to transmit both voice and data simultaneously because voice has been transformed into data.
 
gwhizkids said:
I don't think this is accurate. Prior to VOLTE, phone calls were analog. That's why CDMA carriers (like Verizon) cou,d not simultaneously transmit both voice and data. Now, with Voice over LTE (VOLTE), Verizon finally is finally able to transmit both voice and data simultaneously because voice has been transformed into data.
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You're thinking of AMPS which has been out of service for quite a long time now.

CDMA is digital, there's an A>D conversion that takes place. The reasons for no simultaneous voice and data has to do with the number of radios in the device and which can be active at once. Some phones (Galaxy S4?) could run the LTE and 1x/EVDO radio at the same time allowing for both.
 
gwhizkids said:
I don't think this is accurate. Prior to VOLTE, phone calls were analog. That's why CDMA carriers (like Verizon) cou,d not simultaneously transmit both voice and data. Now, with Voice over LTE (VOLTE), Verizon finally is finally able to transmit both voice and data simultaneously because voice has been transformed into data.
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Not beating you up, just correcting, from a long-time VZW customer. The name of the tech that VZW used for simultaneous digital voice and data is SVDO (Simultaneous Voice and EV-DO). VZW enabled it on several handsets, the first of which was their HTC Thunderbolt. Sprint also employed SVDO, the first of which was the HTC Evo 4G. Both were LTE-capable but could also perform simultaneous voice and data over the digital 3G networks available at the time - around 2010, years before VoLTE was available.

VZW programmed SVDO to be disabled in many of their handsets after LTE became available, but that's ancient history now... I don't care about Sprint, since they suck bigtime (don't flame me for this, but you Sprint users know I'm right...).
 
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The carriers aside, however, one big impediment to wifi calling has been the FCC rule requiring phones to have RTT technology. Currently, that only works over standard cellular tower connections. Both major carriers are working on replacement tech for this and the FCC just granted a waiver allowing them to deploy wifi calling prior to the rollout of the replacement for RTT (expected, I believe, in 2017). Now before everyone says, "but, but T-Mobile, Sprint...!!!", the conventional thinking is that they actually broke the rule but may have such small footprints that the FCC didn't care or, at least, take notice.
 
gwhizkids said:
The carriers aside, however, one big impediment to wifi calling has been the FCC rule requiring phones to have RTT technology. Currently, that only works over standard cellular tower connections. Both major carriers are working on replacement tech for this and the FCC just granted a waiver allowing them to deploy wifi calling prior to the rollout of the replacement for RTT (expected, I believe, in 2017). Now before everyone says, "but, but T-Mobile, Sprint...!!!", the conventional thinking is that they actually broke the rule but may have such small footprints that the FCC didn't care or, at least, take notice.
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Didn't AT&T and Verizon apply for and received waivers from FCC in relation to some regulations surrounding WiFi calling?
 
gwhizkids said:
The carriers aside, however, one big impediment to wifi calling has been the FCC rule requiring phones to have RTT technology. Currently, that only works over standard cellular tower connections. Both major carriers are working on replacement tech for this and the FCC just granted a waiver allowing them to deploy wifi calling prior to the rollout of the replacement for RTT (expected, I believe, in 2017). ...
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That's a temporary and limited waiver for adhering to TTY. ATTWS recommended to the FCC late last year a switch to RTT, but RTT isn't "official" yet. The FCC has admitted the limitations of any implementation of TTY over cellular but the agency hasn't changed its requirements - hence, the temporary waivers issued to ATTWS and VZW.

I follow FierceWireless.com, and they've provided plenty of reporting and analysis on this issue.
 
Speedman100 said:
I think Wi-Fi calling works like this:

When your signal gets down to one "bar", Wi-Fi calling turns on, and it stays on until your signal gets back up to four "bars", and at this time it will switch back to the cellular tower.
Click to expand...

i have between 2 to 3 bars more or less in my house and it enables wifi calling on it's own and does handoffs just fine.
 
gwhizkids said:
I don't think this is accurate. Prior to VOLTE, phone calls were analog. That's why CDMA carriers (like Verizon) cou,d not simultaneously transmit both voice and data. Now, with Voice over LTE (VOLTE), Verizon finally is finally able to transmit both voice and data simultaneously because voice has been transformed into data.
Click to expand...

You're really not up to date on tech stuff. Analog phones were wayyyy old. GSM and CDMA are digital standards not analog. even in non-smartphones, which had no data access, voice still went packetized. read up on the GSM standard.
 
electronicsguy said:
You're really not up to date on tech stuff. Analog phones were wayyyy old. GSM and CDMA are digital standards not analog. even in non-smartphones, which had no data access, voice still went packetized. read up on the GSM standard.
Click to expand...
No offense intended, but there's no reason to further chide anyone regarding VZW's network tech - that poster made a mistake in this regard, and that's been made clear in this thread, and it's time to move on. Most of us know that VZW shut down its AMPS network in February 2008 (about 8 years ago, this month) - very old news in the schema of tech - and also not the poster's point. This, coming from a US-based VZW customer since 3/2006.
 
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campyguy said:
No offense intended, but there's no reason to further chide anyone regarding VZW's network tech - that poster made a mistake in this regard, and that's been made clear in this thread, and it's time to move on. Most of us know that VZW shut down its AMPS network in February 2008 (about 8 years ago, this month) - very old news in the schema of tech - and also not the poster's point. This, coming from a US-based VZW customer since 3/2006.
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excuse me. there was no chiding. the poster was wrong about the facts, so the facts were presented and a suggestion for further reading.
 
As usual, this whole thread turned into bantering about the technology behind Verizon's network. Ok. Wifi calling will be offered on 9.3. From what the beta folks are saying, it works great. Pretty much it....
 
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Shark5150 said:
As usual, this whole thread turned into bantering about the technology behind Verizon's network. Ok. Wifi calling will be offered on 9.3. From what the beta folks are saying, it works great. Pretty much it....
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Here's my input, in relation to your post. VZW has offered wifi-based calling already via its (pretty crappy) Messages+ app for several weeks now - sometimes the iOS app's calling feature works, and sometimes it doesn't.

When I connect to another VZW customer, the voice quality is OK. When I connect to a non-VZW customer or a landline, the voice quality is subpar - muffled as most of VZW's calls are. I can take the same iPhone, put a ATTWS SIM in it and make the same calls (on and off network) and the voice quality is much better - intelligible, actually. The ****** call quality follows my VZW SIM - even with the same unlocked devices. IMHO, VZW is purposely gimping their handsets, and look to Android Central to see that it's not just me or iOS devices.
 
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campyguy said:
Here's my input, in relation to your post. VZW has offered wifi-based calling already via its (pretty crappy) Messages+ app for several weeks now - sometimes the iOS app's calling feature works, and sometimes it doesn't.

When I connect to another VZW customer, the voice quality is OK. When I connect to a non-VZW customer or a landline, the voice quality is subpar - muffled as most of VZW's calls are. I can take the same iPhone, put a ATTWS SIM in it and make the same calls (on and off network) and the voice quality is much better - intelligible, actually. The ****** call quality follows my VZW SIM - even with the same unlocked devices. IMHO, VZW is purposely gimping their handsets, and look to Android Central to see that it's not just me or iOS devices.
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My buddy is running beta 9.3 and he said it's flawless. Crystal clear. Handoff between LTE and wifi is unnoticeable.
 
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