mobile phones, network providers, wifi calling

snaddon

This may lie outside the usual areas of coverage, but I don't know where else to send it, and it is relevant to the content about mobile phones in your MSE post. Perhaps someone can suggest a better place to send it.

I live in a place which receives no reliable mobile phone signal from any provider. Moving from my previous mobile network provider (Giffgaff) who doesn't provide wifi calling to one who does seemed the obvious solution, so I chose Smarty, only to find that Smarty does not support my existing phone, a Doro 8050. Another move therefore seems necessary, and I am considering Lebara, who (I believe) piggyback on Vodaphone. In order to inform myself better I asked the following question of Doro itself, and received the following reply.

My question was: Please can you tell me which mobile network providers support wifi calling on Doro phones. Having just bought two Doro 8050 phones, which I understand are wifi-calling capable, I am dismayed that I cannot find any networks that support them.

Doro's answer was: Dear Sir, We thank you for choosing DORO. For a phone to use wifi calling it needs to be purchased through a network provider with their software on it. For example, the 8050 would need to have been purchased with EE, O2, or Vodafone's software on it. We also have the 8100 which can use wifi calling if purchased through EE, O2, Vodafone, SKY, and iD mobile. Best regards, [First Name] [First letter of the Last Name] DORO TECHNICAL SUPPORT support.uk@doro.com 0800 026 5479. Should you require further information please contact us on the DORO Technical Support : 0800 026 5479

This is the first that I have heard or read of any restriction limiting wifi calling to phones bought from the provider of the network on which one proposes to use them. Is Doro's answer correct? If it is, cannot this be seen as a restrictive practice, or is there some subtlety justifying it that I am not aware of? I had hoped that it would be a simple matter to move an existing phone to another provider in order to avail of wifi calling, but perhaps I am just naive.

facade

I'm with EE, I bought my motorola 'phone sim free from Argos, and as soon as I put in the EE sim it downloaded something, had to be powercycled and now WIFI calling works (sort of*).

Maybe it is dependant on the phone model, but I'd expect that if a Doro bought from EE works, then an identical  simfree Doro put onto EE would too.

Be careful of cheap 'n cheerful carriers who use the major networks, they often don't offer the same features as the parent- if they did, no-one would pay extra for the parent!

* it isn't brilliant, but then again neither is the landline (Virgin) or the cellular network.  You'd think that well into the 21st century telephony would work a bit better than it did in 1990

flaneurs_lobster

The only sensible piece of advice I've been given about ensuring that your phone will work with any network's wi-fi calling implementation is buy an iPhone, they always work. Apple don't let the networks muck with their OS so if the network want Apple phones to work on their network (which of course they all will) then they configure it to be so. 

Otherwise it is a consumer-unfriendly mess. The regulator should probably step in but it's probably way down the list of priorities.

I have not, nor will I, buy an iPhone.

debitcardmayhem

Try whatsapp.
EDIT  forgot doro doesn’t do apps, my bad

flaneurs_lobster

debitcardmayhem said:

Try whatsapp.

That's great until your bank wants to send you a OTP or your doctor needs a word or your kid's school want to talk.....

km1500

Rather than call Doro, call your network provider (O2 or whoever) and see if they support WiFi calling on your Doro. If they say it needs some bit of software ask if that can be added or does it mean you have to have originally bought it from them.

labp04

This MSE link identifies which providers offer Wi-Fi calling https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheap-mobile-finder/sim-only-filters/

Neil49

If you purchased your Doro from Giffgaff then it will be unlocked and can be used on any network.

Giffgaff use the O2 network and O2 offer WiFi calling. Note however, you have to get O2 to enable the feature, it doesn't happen automatically. You can either phone them up or go into a store (if you have one nearby). 

I've never had problems getting WiFi calling up and running with Three so take a look at them and operators that use their network.

KxMx

Lebara is patchy with which devices wifi calling will work on. 
My phone, bought sim free, didn't work with the service initially despite telling me it was activated for my account. I gave ul. 
8 months on I randomly tried it again and it worked, I'd just had a phone update (not the Android version) so possibly something got reconfigured during that. 

snaddon

I can now report that the two Doro 8050 phones that I bought do indeed make and receive wifi-calling calls on the Lebara network. The information that I received from Doro, that "For a phone to use wifi calling it needs to be purchased through a network provider with their software on it", is therefore erroneous, whether through incompetence or from a desire to discourage potential customers from buying phones except through them. I bought my phones on-line from a third party at a vastly reduced price.

flaneurs_lobster

Please share your source of cheap Doro phones. What did you pay?