With Rogers and Fido officially announcing support for Wi-Fi Calling on the iPhone, the company also has posted a FAQ page detailing how to setup the feature and what exactly is required.
Image via @matthewmspace
Wi-Fi Calling will enable customers to make calls and texts over Wi-Fi if they do not have a cell signal, or are in areas of poor coverage (i.e. basements, deserted islands, etc).
To enable Wi-Fi Calling, first you need to enable it on via your iPhone 5c/5s or newer, after installing iOS 9 and the accompanied carrier settings update that comes afterwards.
Once that’s complete, just go to: Settings > Phone > Wi-Fi Calling > ON
Your carrier status bar will show “WiFi Rogers” or “WiFi Fido” when Wi-Fi Calling is available for users on a monthly voice and data plan. Incoming and outgoing calls and texts received over Wi-Fi Calling will still deduct from your wireless plan.Rogers says Wi-Fi Calling will consume roughly 75MB of data per hour of voice calling.
Right now, Wi-Fi Calling is officially supported in on 3 and SmarTone in Hong Kong; EE in the United Kingdom; and Sprint and T-Mobile in the U.S. You can now add Rogers and Fido in Canada to the mix.
We’ve reached out to TELUS and Bell to ask if they’ll support this feature, and will update when we hear back.
Apple is set to release iOS 9 to the public on September 16 (and watchOS 2), so that’s when you’ll be able to use Wi-Fi Calling on Rogers. Let us know if you’re going to try this!
Thanks Jonathan
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Really hope Telus would step up to the game and provide this asap. Half of my home doesn’t have coverage from Telus.
The feature seems meh to me
I wonder if I quality will be better than Skype etc
“incoming calls and texts will still deduct from your wireless plan.” what about outgoing calls?
Updated to say outgoing calls too. The FAQ says long distance charges do not apply for outgoing calls to Canadian numbers while in Canada.
I updated to iOS 9.0 and when I go on my phone settings Wifi calling is missing. Try rebooting network settings but still not showing up. I am with Fido and the carrier version is 21.0 Any ideas?
Yea, same thing here. Been running ios 9 since yesterday. Still no carrier update.
Same here too, Running IOS 9.1 beta and nothing.
Ditto
after a cyclical convo with rogers today it looks like the update will drop earliest when the software drops, latest when the new phones come out
and im not kidding when i say it was the most ridiculous conversation ive ever had with tech support
I believe it too! when Tethering became available on the iphone 3g or 3GS.. it escalated to the office of the president because no one knew what was going on.
I’m on 9.1 with Rogers 21.5 and nothing for me either.
Same here.. I’m on iOS 9.1 beta with Rogers 21.5.. and no option for Wi-Fi calling.
You must be on the beta, iOS 9 has yet to be publicly released. When that does, so will the carrier update and wifi calling
(yw gary)
One other interesting thing I’ve noticed on the FAQ is it says that it will prefer the cellular network over wifi if both are available. Also, it won’t seamlessly switch from one to the other. I wonder if this has to do with the lack of VoLTE support.
Precisely, it will only work on the iPhone 6S.
I’ll do my WiFi calling via other apps, as this seems like another cash grab by the big 3.
Installed ios 9 beta today on fido iphone 6 unlocked. no update carrier yet….. no wi-fi calling button on the phone menu either 🙁 i did a network reset too and full hard reset also.
I have an iPhone 5, which is not listed as supported by Rogers but has same internals as the 5c so should be fine. I updated to the GM. No carrier update yet. I think they will publish the carrier update after the official release. Be patient everyone!!! Will be nice to have this feature ubiquitous though. Wind desperately needs to get this feature eh?
While it has the same internals, a 5 != 5c as far as Apple is concerned. You will not be getting Wi-Fi calling, trust me. Same bullshit reason why MMS wouldn’t officially work on the iPhone 2G. Technically capable, but artificially limited.
No, Apple says it supports it no problem. It’s just Rogers that hasn’t explicitly said it supports it. And That’s not the same thing. They only implemented MMS on 3G baseband.
Google search “iPhone 5 wifi calling”. First two links indicate it won’t be happening for you.
If the firmware for your phone supports it and the carrier settings that accompanies it (should be released tomorrow), the option will be there. This isn’t up to Rogers.
I guess you will find out tomorrow.
if activated, will I lose continuity with phone calls?
Carrier update just came in. Filled out the e911 form, turned off cellular and made a call. It actually works. Wow Rogers, I’m impressed, for once.
I tried it and it’s awful. Just like all VOIP calls, it stutters and drops out. I turned it off, and the worst of it is that my status bar STILL says “Wi-Fi Rogers” and my calls from outside my office, which used to be fine until I tried this status, are still dropping. I might as well switch to Wind!
Rogers WIFI calling STILL doesn’t work says i miust call my carrier. Did that and got the run around and a promise to call back that was three weeks ago….
I cannot see this feature on my S7 with rogers 🙁
Also where goes the SIP options to configure a provider like dialcheap ? They restricted the options on their phones it seems…
Chiming in to point out that the FAQ is stating this:
“While in Canada or roaming, if you have Wi-Fi Calling activated, your phone will automatically use the Wi-Fi network instead of a mobile network if both are available.”
So this means that it prefers the Wi-Fi over mobile network, which is the opposite of what was previously stated.