Calling over WiFi restrictions with network providers

jimbojohn55

Basically I bought a new phone directly from Motorola, a G60s one of their recent models for about £180, I have a monthly sim only deal with Virgin that uses the (Vodaphone) network, recently reception has not been great inside the house so I was keen to get a phone with the ability to use WiFi calling - if no signal it automatically lets you use your home WiFi (broadband) to make and recieve calls.

Got the phone, popped in the Virgin sim ..........and no wifi calling option

Contacted Motorla - they confirmed that the phone does as I thought support WiFi calling 

Contacted Virgin - they confirmed that WiFi calling was not enabled for some phones (including mine)

Started to research this issue, there is a way to open the hidden menus in android so you can see the background settings, indeed there was a hidden WiFi calling toggle switch but it was greyed out. Turns out then when you pop your sim in a phone it picks up certain permissions to enable or in this case disable features of your phone, as soon as the sim went in it removed the WiFi calling option from my phones menu. 

At this point I dug deeper into what certain networks let your phone do - turns out its very mixed

If you buy a particular model of phone from a network provider such as Virgin, EE, O2, Three etc they can choose to let you use WiFi calling, however if you buy the exact same phone elsewhere and pop their sim in they seem to turn off WiFi calling, just because you were not willing to be overcharged  by them for a phone and sim deal.

The fact is that network providers are disabling features of your phone because you didn't buy it from them 

The joke is that WiFi calling still uses your contract minutes, so why do they disable it apart from pushing you to buy your phone directly from them

No network should have the right to switch off features of your phone, this is shady practice of the worst kind by the networks!

alanjones60

Three do wifi calling for every 1. Payg or contract. Weather you bought phone from them or not.
I had a samsung s7 bought from 02,got it unlocked,put three sim in and it worked. No problems

PHK

I think this is more a Virgin/Vodafone issue as they were late to WiFi Calling. 

I agree that when there is a standard, Providers shouldn’t be able to limit them to certain handsets. 

No provider is perfect. eg they might provide visual voicemail for iPhones but not for Android. 

giraffe69

Quite a few of the larger phone companies act this way. They have a list of phones which is, typically, woefully out of date and they often say that if on the list it will work if you buy it from them and probably not if you don't.

I need wifi calling because there is little or no signal inside my house. As it happens the phone I bought (from Amazon) works with wifi calling and Vodafone. I was contemplating moving to BT mobile a while ago and one reason I didn't was that is was just impossible to get a clear answer concerning what would and would not work.

k_man

Vodafone, or Vodafone MVNOs do seem to be the most inconsistent for WiFi calling.

I had similar finding to OP after an Asda (Vodafone) SIM WiFi calling only works in some mobiles.

On investigation, my searches found most complaints seem to centre on Vodafone

ID (Three), and Three SIMs work in every mobile I have tried (that support WiFi calling of course).

Supatramp

Virgin/Vodafone, or is it O2, don't support WiFi calling on the Moto G8 Plus, but I just switched to BT/EE and hey presto, it does.  So now I'm a happy chappy

Vodafone and O2 have a habit of going 'down' in my neighbourhood, EE seldom, but if/when they do, I have a solution.

oldagetraveller1

Totally irrelevant, but I can confirm that Lebara(Vodafone) do support WiFiCalling on my cheapish and cheerful Poco (Xiaomi)phones.

d123

oldagetraveller1 said:

Totally irrelevant, but I can confirm that Lebara(Vodafone) do support WiFiCalling on my cheapish and cheerful Poco (Xiaomi)phones.

Is this something that recently started working? 

Lebara weren't offering WiFiCalling as recently as January.

RogerBareford

jimbojohn55 said:

Basically I bought a new phone directly from Motorola, a G60s one of their recent models for about £180, I have a monthly sim only deal with Virgin that uses the (Vodaphone) network, recently reception has not been great inside the house so I was keen to get a phone with the ability to use WiFi calling - if no signal it automatically lets you use your home WiFi (broadband) to make and recieve calls.

Got the phone, popped in the Virgin sim ..........and no wifi calling option

Contacted Motorla - they confirmed that the phone does as I thought support WiFi calling 

Contacted Virgin - they confirmed that WiFi calling was not enabled for some phones (including mine)

Started to research this issue, there is a way to open the hidden menus in android so you can see the background settings, indeed there was a hidden WiFi calling toggle switch but it was greyed out. Turns out then when you pop your sim in a phone it picks up certain permissions to enable or in this case disable features of your phone, as soon as the sim went in it removed the WiFi calling option from my phones menu. 

At this point I dug deeper into what certain networks let your phone do - turns out its very mixed

If you buy a particular model of phone from a network provider such as Virgin, EE, O2, Three etc they can choose to let you use WiFi calling, however if you buy the exact same phone elsewhere and pop their sim in they seem to turn off WiFi calling, just because you were not willing to be overcharged  by them for a phone and sim deal.

The fact is that network providers are disabling features of your phone because you didn't buy it from them 

The joke is that WiFi calling still uses your contract minutes, so why do they disable it apart from pushing you to buy your phone directly from them

No network should have the right to switch off features of your phone, this is shady practice of the worst kind by the networks!

I had this issue with a Samsung Phone so i found the network specific firmware for the phone and re-flashed it and then the Wi-Fi calling was activated.

So might be worth having a look to see if this is something that can also be done using Motorola phones.

Supatramp

I recently switched from Virgin to EE. With Virgin, I had no WiFi calling, with EE I do.

Obviously, I didn't buy my handset from Virgin or EE, it's a Moto G8 Plus.

oldagetraveller1

d123 said:

oldagetraveller1 said:

Totally irrelevant, but I can confirm that Lebara(Vodafone) do support WiFiCalling on my cheapish and cheerful Poco (Xiaomi)phones.

Is this something that recently started working? 

Lebara weren't offering WiFiCalling as recently as January.

It's not often I am right, but I'm wrong again!

You are perfectly correct, they don't.