Wi-Fi calling is a feature that allows you to make or receive a call using home or office Wi-Fi by ‘tunnelling’ the call from or to your network provider. Yes, you can make and receive calls over Wi-Fi. Voice does not take much bandwidth – 100-120 kbps or 45MB/hr.
In essence, any phone post-2024 will have it.
In Android, look under Settings>Mobile Network>Sim1> Enable Wi-Fi calling. If you are having issues, search for your phone’s make and model and Wi-Fi calling.
On iPhone, go to Settings>Phone>Wi-Fi Calling.
If you move out of Wi-Fi range, the phone automatically switches to mobile data with no dropped calls.
How do you know you are using Wi-Fi calling?
You should see a VoLTE icon in your phone’s status bar. VoLTE simply means making a digital call. It is sometimes called VoWiFi (voice over Wi-Fi). Some phones have a dedicated Wi-Fi calling icon.
Wi-Fi calling only kicks in when the Mobile signal strength is too low. If you live in a good reception area, by all means, enable it, but you may never use it.
Any ups or downsides?
The upsides include
- Making and receiving free calls/text/video calls in mobile blackspots.
- Should work over Satellite broadband services (like StarLink).
- Can have perceptibly better voice quality.
- Should not use your Mobile Data – it uses IMS APN for data that carries signalling and voice.
- Should work with pre- and post-paid plans
- Saves battery.
- Can use Public Wi-Fi if the signal is strong enough.
- Supports 000 emergency calls (but your location may not be precise).
- International roaming is generally supported (depending on the carrier), but you can use VoIP Apps like Google Duo, WhatsApp, etc., over Wi-Fi anyway.
The downsides – more caveats are
- At least a 12/1Mbps NBN internet connection (via an NBN reseller – it does not have to be with Telstra, Vodafone, or Optus)
- Reliable internet (and it is most of the time)
- There should be decent whole-of-home Wi-Fi coverage, preferably using Wi-Fi 6 AX or later
- You may have to enter the area code if it cannot find a number.
- You may have to change router settings to allow IPsec passthrough and Certificate Fragmentation support. Most modern routers default to this.
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Read more about Wi-Fi calling here
2 comments
John Graves
I live within within about 1.5km of mobile towers but close by are overhead power lines and a sub station that allegedly block mobile reception. After much checking with various different phones and all the telcos sims there are many occasions when calls drop out many times and come back after 10 seconds – hence trying wifi calling. Getting 25 download speeds and steady signal calls still drop out and my conclusion is that the telcos lines are overloaded with users that wifi calling won’t overcome this issue. Would like any comments. ps bought a Moto Edge 50 pro after reading your blurb hoping that would fix things but… Noosaville reception !!!!!!
Ray Shaw
Sorry to hear. I bought a Motorola Edge 50 Pro and it is my daily drive! This is curious as Wi-Fi calling simply transmits the call over NBN to a gateway where it joins the Telco network (all mobile calls end up routed on this network until they get to a tower closest to the recipient’s mobile (and vice versa). Voice only needs a few kb/s. The most likely cause is that your Wi-Fi is not stable, and I would look there first. https://cybershack.com.au/guides/fix-wi-fi-blackspots-fast-and-often-at-no-cost/ Feel free to contact me on [email protected] and we can try to identify the issue.