How to Enable Wi-Fi Calling on Your iPhone

How to Enable Wi-Fi Calling on
Your iPhone

Wi-Fi calling allows your iPhone to
place and receive phone calls and text
messages over a Wi-Fi network. If you
have a weak cellular signal but a solid
Wi-Fi signal, your iPhone will
automatically switch over and route
calls and texts via Wi-Fi.
Apple added support for Wi-Fi calling to
the iPhone with iOS 8, and it’s
gradually becoming supported on more and
more carriers, including the latest
addition of Verizon on iOS 9.3. You can
only use this if your cellular
carrier supports it.
What You Need to Know
This is disabled by default, so you’ll
have to enable it before it will do
anything. Once you’ve enabled it, it
will “just work” and your phone will
automatically switch to Wi-Fi when
necessary. You’ll see this indicated in
the status bar — for example, it will
say “T-Mobile Wi-Fi” rather than “T-
Mobile LTE” if you’re using T-Mobile
and your phone is currently connected to
Wi-Fi rather than the LTE cellular
network. Dial a number or send a text
message in the normal way while “Wi-
Fi” appears in your status bar and it
will connect over the Wi-Fi connection
instead of the cellular one.
It’ll automatically switch between
cellular and Wi-Fi networks as you move
out of an area covered by Wi-Fi, so you
don’t have to do anything different or
even think about it.
This only works if your carrier has
enabled the necessary support on their
end. The carrier has to be able to
automatically route calls and texts to
you over the Internet.
What You’ll Need
You’ll just need two things to use this
feature:
A carrier that supports Wi-Fi calling :
In the US, T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T
support this. Verizon is also supported
as long as you’re running iOS 9.3 or
higher. Bell and Rogers support it in
Canada, EE and Vodaphone support it in
the UK, and 3 and SmarTone support it
on Hong Kong. More carriers should
support it in the future.
An iPhone 5c or newer : Older iPhones
don’t support this. You’ll need an
iPhone 5c, 5s, 6, 6s, or a newer model
to use this feature.
How to Enable Wi-Fi Calling
To enable Wi-Fi calling, open the
Settings app on your iPhone, scroll
down, and tap Phone. Tap “Wi-Fi
Calling” under Calls and activate the
“Wi-Fi Calling on This iPhone” slider.
You should also tap “Update Emergency
Address” and ensure your carrier has a
correct address. If you ever dial 911
over a Wi-Fi network , the emergency
responders will see your call associated
with the emergency address you enter
here.
If you ever encounter a problem with Wi-
Fi calling, you can visit this screen
again and disable it with a quick tap.
Using Wi-Fi Calling Along With
Continuity
Wi-Fi calling doesn’t usually work
with the Continuity feature . You won’t
be able to place or receive calls on
your Mac or another iOS device like an
iPad if you enable Wi-Fi calling.
Apple is slowly recitying this. If you
have iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan, you can
now use the standard Continuity features
along with Wi-Fi Calling — assuming
you’re with T-Mobile in the US. No
other carriers yet support this.
You can enable this feature from the
Phone screen in the Settings app. Under
the Wi-Fi calling option on the Phone
screen, tap “Calls on Other Devices.”
Tap “Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other
Devices” and other devices signed in
with your iCloud account will be able to
place and receive calls normally even
with Wi-Fi calling enabled. Again,
carriers will have to go out of their
way to support this — currently, only
T-Mobile in the US allows this.
Wi-Fi calling isn’t a whizz-
bang feature you’ll notice a lot after
you enable it, but it makes your iPhone
work much better in areas with low
cellular reception but a solid Wi-Fi
signal.
Some Android devices also have a feature
like this one. If they do, it’s
generally baked into the phone as part
of the cellular carrier’s customizations
and is activated in a different way on
each phone. Apple is taking the lead in
rolling it out in a standardized way
different carriers can support, and you
can use it even if you buy an unlocked
phone and bring it to a carrier of your
choice.