What Is Wi-Fi Calling, and Should You Use It?

Gandalf_The_Grey

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Apr 24, 2016
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If your home or office has spotty cellular coverage, Wi-Fi calling is a nifty little solution that can make your life a lot easier. Here’s everything you need to know about Wi-Fi calling, and how to start using it.

Voice Calls Over Wi-Fi

As its name suggests, Wi-Fi calling or VoWiFi (short for Voice over Wi-Fi) is a feature that allows you to call or text over Wi-Fi.

Calling over Wi-Fi and the internet is nothing new. For years, we have used apps and services like Skype and WhatsApp to send messages or make calls over the internet. But what separates Wi-Fi calling from these apps is only the medium of last-mile connectivity. Everything else stays the same. Instead of using the cellular service to send or receive voice calls from the carrier’s network, your phone uses Wi-Fi. You still use the same dialer, same text messaging app, and same contacts list. Everything works seamlessly.

Once you have activated the Wi-Fi calling option on your smartphone, it automatically kicks in when your cellular service is limited or unavailable. All your calls and texts are routed over the internet using Wi-Fi. Depending on the carrier, your phone may even keep Wi-Fi calling feature active when you are in an area with good cellular service but connected to a Wi-Fi network. It helps carriers reduce network congestion while providing better voice service to you.

However, when you move out of the Wi-Fi coverage, calls and texts switch back to the cellular network. All this happens smoothly, and ideally, you shouldn’t experience any dropped calls or other issues due to the switch.

Why Would You Want It?

There are multiple benefits to using the Wi-Fi Calling feature on your smartphone. Most importantly, it allows you to make or receive calls even when you have poor or non-existent network coverage. So it can be beneficial if you live or work in an area with poor outdoor or indoor cellular service.

Another good thing about Wi-Fi calling is that you don’t need to do anything apart from enabling the feature. All your calls and texts function as they would if you used the cellular network. And since the feature is baked right into the phone’s dialer, no additional downloads are necessary, and all your contacts are available whether or not they are using Wi-Fi calling.

More than that, you get a better voice quality than what you would get if you were calling on limited cellular service. Additionally, Wi-Fi calling doesn’t even consume that much data. A typical voice call is around 1MB per minute. So assuming you have a decent internet plan and aren’t talking for hours on end, you don’t have to worry about data charges.

Simply put, Wi-Fi calling is a no-brainer. It has several benefits and probably won’t cost you anything.
 

Razza

Level 4
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Aug 12, 2014
163
Both sims in my dual phone support Wi-Fi calling, when I tested it in the past it was unreliable it was 50/50 if incoming calls would work or just get dropped and sent to voicemail, not sure if was a issue with the network or bug due to using dual sims, I do use 4g calling (Volte) which seem to work fine.
 

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