wifi calling ios 14

I just got off a long chat with Verizon and learned the following. Cutting and pasting what they told me.

This is a known issue. The alert states:

“Some customers with iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone 12 Pro, or iPhone 12 Pro Max may be experiencing issues with making or receiving calls on Wi-Fi calling. Users may also experience drop calls with Wi-Fi calling.”

“Apple is currently working on this issue and will be releasing the fix in an upcoming software update, although we don't have an exact date as to when that update will be released. Some routers broadcast both a 5GHz and 2.4GHz signal. The 5GHz connection will be faster but have a shorter range. Have you tried connecting and using wi-fi calling with both of these signals from your router (if available)?”

I stand corrected. Range seems to be the issue. I have two routers in my house. If I use the 5Ghz and stay close to the router, all is good. If I move away and reconnect. I drop the Wifi call. Every-time. If I use the 2.4GHz router, I can go where I dropped the call while on 5GHz.

So it seems that while on 5GHz I need to stay closer to the router. Spain in the last post seems to be 100% correct.

Just updated a 7+ to 14.4 today and so far it seems to be fixed. Still need to test more but I can walk all over the house and into the basement with no cell service and outside of the house until there’s no WiFi and it seems to seamlessly transition from cell to WiFi calling and change bands smoothly too. Just slight blips in voice when a change is made but the call always stays connected. Try 14.4 and let us all know your results.

This may have already been mentioned but, with T-Mo's assistance, we made some changes that have helped my wife's new iPhone 12 to drop fewer calls on Wi-Fi. Apple support was not actually helpful on this. Her iPhone 6 on iOS 12.xx was rock solid, but the 12 has been a nightmare. Running iOS 14.3, and then 14.4. Up until these (2) below fixes, we were ready to return the iPhone 12 for a refund and revert to the 6.

1. Disable Wi-Fi Assist. - Settings->Cellular->Wi-Fi Assist - you have to scroll waaay down to the bottom, past all the apps, and slide the toggle off.
   1. If iOS 14 decides it thinks your Wi-Fi is weak, or it doesn't think it's secure (like a bridge Wi-Fi access point) Wi-Fi Assist will try to shift your call to cellular data.
   2. Cellular reception is very poor a number of parts of my house, which coincides with where it would consistently drop Wi-Fi calls. So, it would decide to shift from Wi-Fi to a poor cellular connection, and drop the call.
2. Avoid Bridged Wi-Fi connections - We have a FIOS gateway w/Wi-Fi on both 2.4 and 5gHz. It has relatively poor coverage, so it's augmented with a Netgear dual band router, set-up in bridge mode. This makes the Netgear, with it's much longer coverage, effectively a Wi-Fi access point. For some reason, iOS 14 seems to not like bridge mode. If we keep the iPhone 12 set to remain connected to the FIOS gateway Wi-Fi , and not to the bridged Netgear Wi-Fi, it seems to work pretty well. I realize this may not be viable for folks with mesh network Wi-Fi.

Finally got it fixed on my 2020 SE (after fighting with it dropping out on me for 2 months)!!! My WiFi Calling was dropping out multiple times a day as I moved around the house, many times unbeknownst to me until I happened to look at my phone. After much reading and research, I logged into my Router/Access Point, went to the WiFi options and used the Band Steering options to force my phone to the 2.4Ghz band. You'll have to disable Private Address for your Wi-Fi Network in Wi-Fi Settings on your phone so it keeps the same MAC Address for that to work. To avoid doing that, I could have disabled Band Steering in my router and given each Wireless Network a unique SSID (your router may or may not have similar options).

Second (as @RCAddiction recommended), I disabled WiFi Assist on my phone by going to Settings->Cellular->Wi-Fi Assist - scrolling waaay down to the bottom, past all the apps, and slid the toggle off. I sometimes had an issue when my phone wasn't in airplane mode that it would switch to Cellular during a call, then drop the call because I have next to no Cellular service at my home (even though I had strong WiFi those times....go figure).

It certainly seems there's an issue maintaining active Wi-Fi Calling when switching between bands/data sources on iOS 14.x. Making the above changes should prevent that from happening in the vast majority of cases. Of course, that assumes you have the ability and permissions to edit the settings of your Wi-Fi Network device. If you're on someone else's network then you're likely out of luck. I wish there was an option to force a specific band when connecting to a dual-band network in iOS!

i think you are correct. The problem I see is that the range is much to short. Once I get away from the router more than 20 feet I start dropping calls on Wifi calling while connected to 5GHz channel. On 2.4GHz there seems to be no limit. No dropped calls.

There must be a software issue that needs to be corrected. That short of a distance should never be a problem.

Does your network have both 2.4GHz and 5GHz? If yes the problem may be a range issue with 5GHz channel. I would test it by staying as close as you can to your router. Test to see if your phone drops Wifi calls. If not make another call while not so close. I have found that at some point as I move away my call drop. I think was is really happening, it that it is trying to jump to 2.4GHz channel as the 5GHz gets weak.

I to have a Mesh network which is very fast throughout my entire house. So I could not see why it would drop the channel. If I force it to stay on the 2.4GHz I do not drop calls. If I stay close to the router with 5GHz. channel, I do not loose calls.

I originally Bought My first iPhone when they switched too full screens Never liked the Home Button. Bought the XS Max with a 256 Storage drive cause I figured it would be my primary device and it was worked fantastic for everything until I did my first update after that Phone calls (WiFi enabled would drop calls on the hour almost exactly ) went to apple for help it took 3 trips and 2 months before they even would admit there was a problem. After calling everytime I had a dropped call and screen shorting every call they finally made me an appointment so I went to My appointment at the apple store back in late February of 2020 literally the weekend they closed down all stores for COVID and Because Apple Gave me a Loaner (iPhone 8 with 32GB ) they couldn’t send my phone back to me till the Stores opened up again they emailed me when it went in for service 35 minutes later they emailed me to say it was fixed this was Tuesday the day after the stores Closed Throughout the United States Then in June They finally opened the store near me almost 5 months later I finally Got my XS Max Back and the phone still dropped calls like They were Bad Habits !!! But Only when WiFi calling was enabled I spent a the next few months documenting every dropped call I have Verizon and checked with them to see if my dropped calls were showing in there system they told me it only looked as if I had ended the call I continued to argue with Apple who continued to run my Analytics letting the Broken Device do it’s diagnostics and tell them my device wasn’t Broken (things that make you go hmmm)

I suffered with that mess till the iPhone 12 came out than waited till they finally released the 12 Pro Max finally an iPhone that works as it should calls were fantastic (WiFi enabled and everything ) you could actually hear the difference between Mobil Data and WiFi my WiFi is GB speed so it was fantastic for a month till I updated the first Update I started to notice little I’ll call them “Matrix Sounds” when Neo touches the Mirror in the Matrix his voice goes all Appleistic my phone is now 2 months old and calls drop like the XS Max did so basically it’s the handoff between WiFi and Mobil it’s not the Hardware cause it worked fine and I get great scores with Hardware it’s no doubt one hundreds percent the Software but hey I can make a poop emoji with a Mask so I got that going for me. as far as making a phone call with no Mythical 5G (I live close enough to Boston MM wave is only on 2 or 3 streets and Wideband 5G is just 4G with a slight boost) none of which matters for the problem which is apple not paying any attention to transfer in the software they did something right in the beginning cause when the phone was new and the XS Max for that matter handoff worked just fine it wasn’t until I updated that my calls went down the drain. Next time I’ll just keep what ever iOS comes with the phone I’m not wasting a minute with this device contacting apple it’s like dealing with an insurance company just deny the claim till the customer goes away I really miss the Jobs days when customers mattered to apple not just the bottom line

for all of you that have a dropping calls issue I am almost positive it’s handoff between WiFi and Mobil it’s something in the software not the hardware and if you turn off WiFi Calling you will get a normal long lasting call unfortunately that does nothing if you have crap signal like I do you can try going to your carrier maybe it’s VZ and get a home range extender but I’m not shelling out for another line on my bill and more hardware just for apple mistakes there is always VOIP through Messenger and Google Voice for what it’s worth hope some of this helps some of you

Okay, I have had the pain/benefit of eliminating many of the issues in this thread and narrowing it down to an iPhone issue. Here is the deal:

1. Had an iPhone 8 (no problems with WiFi calling) and upgraded to the iPhone 12. I have Verizon (irrelevant, as you will see below).
2. Calls immediately started dropping. 4-6 per day.
3. I had a Linksys WiFi router.
4. I upgraded to the newest Xfinity WiFi router.
5. Calls continued to drop at the same rate.
6. I installed the Eero Pro.
7. Calls continued to drop at the same rate.

In short, it is a bug in how the iPhone is handling the WiFi calling, not the type of WiFi and not the service provider (i.e., Verizon). Even if the issue is when Verizon's cell service drops to zero, it is still how the phone is handling that - not a Verizon issue. Apple, HELP US OUT! It is hard enough to work from home. Having to turn WiFi off to make calls, then on again to download stuff, then off again to make calls - c'mon guys!

I am not sure rang is the issue. I have been playing around with different settings. I have found if I go to settings and then screen time and turn it off. Wifi calling seems to work. In the past I lost connection within 6 min.

After turning off screen time. I would not loose a call while on Wifi calling. Only made about 6 calls. No dropping. I have not tried to turn screen time on again. But so far this is the longest I had a connection. 25 min+

Bridge mode removes a layer of translation between your phone and the Internet. When bridge mode is off, the Xfinity modem is performing "NAT", or Network Address Translation, between your modem's public IP address and the Xfinity's LAN network. By default, the Xfinity modem also performs basic firewall functions.

When you have an Eero, or similar product like a non-Xfinity WiFi router, the Eero is also performing NAT between the Xfinity LAN and the Eero LAN, and it also has its own firewall. So you wind up with "Double NAT" and a double firewall which is not only a potential performance issue, it can confuse network applications, like the iPhone's WiFi calling feature, which are used to being only one "hop" away from the Internet.

Bridge mode turns off the Xfinity modem's NAT and firewall, vastly simplifying the network topology, and letting the Eero have direct access to the Internet.

So my theory is that removing the extra firewall and NAT is helping with the dropped calls issue.

I hope that helps!

I believe, and have always believed. That the problem is the phone is switching from 5GHz channel to 2.4GHz channel. when range (not speed) becomes an issue. I have another router that I connected to my Xfinity router. Not Bridge mode. Just a cable from my router to the Xfinity router. It has a different SSID name. And it only has 2.4GHz channel. When I connect my phone to that router, I do not drop calls in the same place in my house I was dropping before. And have not dropped a call at all. So I think that software 14.x.x does not deal with 5GHz/2.4GHz in the same way that software 13 and below did. And it may have something to do with the 5G hardware in the new phones which requires different software.

In any case I think Apple needs to address it.

Again not sure we are talking about the same problem. I only drop calls with WiFi calling on. If I turn that off. I do not drop calls when I am on cellar only. So for me that sounds like a different problem. I think that the problem is a range issue. Not speed. My router has both 2.4 and 5GHZ channels. I think that when I move out of range of the 5 (which should not be as short as it is) and my phone tries to connect to 2.4 is when I drop calls.

so I think there is two issues. 5GHz Wifi range is very very short on the this 14.x.x and the software does have a problem when it jumps from one to another channel.

I have read posts that even earlier phones 10, and 11 with 14.x.x are having the same problem.

I had a 10 before this 12. But not with 14.x.x. Worked great. Have not changed anything except the phone and and the software.

yesterday I tried a suggestion from Verizon that so far 🤞is working.

reset network settings

soft reset phone

I’ve gone some more research and it does appear this issue is caused by a mesh network. I am pursuing a standard router and turning my Eero nodes into wired access points. 🤞

I will report back with the results.