iOS 8: T-Mobile WiFi Calling on 5s issues

Hi Rob,

Well I am glad that its partially working for you but I am still out of luck with no WiFi calling. I changed from iPhone 5S to iPhone 6 and same issue at work place. It works at home but not in the office and that where I need the WiFi calling most. I try to use your strategy about turning on Airplane mode and then WiFi but I can't get to Setting-Phone-WiFi calling option as its grayed out with a label that says Airplane mode on. So I am just wondering how you are able to get around Airplane mode on and WiFi calling on.... still no help from tmobile or apple.

Thanks,

while not in airplane mode

settings

phone

wifi calling

enable.

then you can turn airplane mode on and wifi on and it should say T-Mobile Wifi in the network name.

It was grayed out because airplane mode turns off the cellular radio so you can not make changes to it.

On my ASUS router (RT-N53) I wasn't able to get wifi calling to work until I turned off the router's Quality of Service (QoS) feature.

Here's my update.

For a few days, while in my apartment, I left my phone with cellular off. T-Mo Wi-Fi was stable and worked the entire time. When I left the apartment, sometimes I wouldn't turn cell data back on and you actually still get calls and texts. Just no interwebs.

For a couple days now, I've left cell data on and the T-Mo Wi-Fi hasn't come and gone like it is before. This isn't related to the 8.0.2 update either, since I hadn't updated right away while I was testing this stuff out. I'm not sure what changed, since the signal strength is the same.. but I am assuming other T-Mo users got the text from their HQ that said they are making upgrades or somethingarather? Maybe that had something to do with it?

Anyway, mine seems to be fixed now.. I only hope I didn't jinx it.

FYI..

Not sure if this will work for anyone, but I saw mentioned on a forum somewhere that there was a potential fix.

Since my phone was dropping calls when on wi-fi, I decided to give it a try last night. I haven't had any issues yet today.

Steps.

1 - connect iPhone to iTunes.

2 - select the phone in iTunes, then in the 'Options' section at the bottom of the main panel, select 'Allow wi-fi syncing' on the phone.

3 - click 'Apply'.

There were a few apps that synced over which I deleted, but I'm not getting dropped calls.

tthe only reason why I got the iPhone 6 from t-mobile was to be able to use the wifi calling future and until now I haven't been able to do so. It seems to work in public wifi areas but not in my house. I have one of the fasteat Internet service from Comcast so is nothing related to the Internet. I also have called t-mobile and apple several times and no one can tell me what's going on. I feel very frustrated. I have the impression the the iOS sofware still need a lot of work ahead.

So a quick update. After going for a day with no problems, I ended up turning wi-fi calling off. My calls were going straight to voicemail.

Today, I contacted T-Mobile who put me through to a senior level support person. I directed him to look at the very detailed troubleshooting that ryanfromlaura took the trouble to perform. The support person will be forwarding that info to the engineers and will be calling back to advise if any information is required from me.

Will post back with what I hear. At this point, I'm leaving wi-fi calling off until there is some resolution.

Update: Got a call back from Apple earlier. There are a couple of points which may prove helpful to others.

1 - Apparently one of the issues is might that of the SIM. There are two types of SIMs apparently. 3G and 3GG. The latter being the newest. The newest is the one you want and is shown simply as 60.00 on the SIM card. I confirmed I had the latter, so this was not my issue.

2 - He suggested I update my emergency address in settings-phone-wifi calls. This meant tapping the save button even if the address was already there. You should get a confirmation message saying the address was updated. Before performing this step, my incoming calls were going straight to voicemail. Now they seem to be fine.

Will see how long this stays on. If anyone else can verify this works for them, please post back here. Thanks!

I seem to have solved my wifi calling issues with a T-Mobile rep today. I was told that WiFi calling will not work on a 5ghz network. I blew him off at first and explained how every 5s in my household (2 total) running iOS 8.0.2 had the same issue and all Andriod devices in my house could hold a WiFi call.. I could track the call drops with WiFi network drop outs on the iPhones (could see the wifi icon go away). I have also tried 2 different routers during this troubleshooting, one Apple Airport Extreme (5th Generation?) and after issues with it I went to T-Mobile and got a Cellspot.

I asked him if the Samsung devices that my kids use were 2.4ghz only and the answer is yes. I put all laptops and computer and tablets and apple tv's and all other devices in my house that will take a 5ghz signal on the 5ghz network on the Cellspot. I then put the iPhones on the 2.4ghz network. I can now hold a call on the iPhones with this set up. Had a 45 min call with a bank today. No issues.

Now if this is a real thing that WiFi calling will only work on a 2.4ghz network or if iOS 8.0.2 has issues with a 5ghz network? Who knows...

I’ve done some further testing since after having a stable wifi connection, my battery was draining pretty quickly.

I disconnected the the ethernet cable from my iMac and connected to the 5ghz wifi on the TMO cellspot. Ran Speedtest and got the same really low results as with when connecting using iPad or iPhone. Connecting the same iMac to the 2.4ghz had the same success as the iOS devices. So, this wasn’t necessarily an iOS issue for me. I wasn’t expecting that.

I decided to reconnect my Airport Extreme and test both frequencies on that router. Speedtest ran fine every time on both frequencies on iMac, iPhone and iPad.

I then switched back to the TMO Cellspot router and tested all three there. Again, problems on the 5ghz network on the TMO cellspot. I unplugged power to both modem and cellspot, then reconnected. Since then, I’ve had no battery drain issues, and no wifi calling issues.

For example, I unplugged my phone at about 8 this morning. I’ve downloaded two apps and demo’d one showing a brief movie clip (from an Air Video server on a Mini). I’ve made one brief phone call and am still at 99% at 11:20am. I was at 100% at 11:13am. All this while wi-fi calling is turned on using the 5ghz frequency.

On iPhone 6.

robroy90 wrote:

Here is the latest update from last night's visit to the Apple Store:

Spoke to a Genius and she did some checking, and did a rather interesting test. She put the phone into Airplane mode, and then just turned back on WiFi only, leaving off the cellular radio.

We then placed a test call there in the store from my phone to the 5s. It worked. This proves to me that the feature definitely works, and appears to be properly configured on the phone and T-Mobile's back end. The phone does have Carrier Update v17.1 - but I also was having trouble finding the switch in settings to specifically enable WiFi calling, so perhaps the carrier update removed that switch? It is either that or I am not looking in the right place. For those who can still see it, exactly what are the steps to get there so I can check to see if it has been pulled from mine due to the carrier update?

So, after leaving the Apple store, I then went home to try this same test on my home LAN/WiFi that has the Cisco Firewall at the border. I put the phone into Airplane mode again, and then just turned on the WiFi radio only, leaving the cellular radio off. Much to my surprise, the WiFi call worked there as well.

This tells me that my theory on the TCP/UDP ports was probably incorrect. I made no further changes to the firewall, and the 5s appears to have used the available open ports just like my Android phones do. In one sense, this is good because it tells me more specific firewall rule changes are apparently not necessary.

However, this is bad because it then tells me that there must be issues with the algorithm that Apple/T-Mo use on the phone to determine when a call is made or taken which radio to use. It seems to me that under iOS 8.0 and the current carrier settings the phone must be set to prefer a weak cell signal over even a strong WiFi signal. I can't think of any other explanation, because if the cellular radio is unavailable, the WiFi calls are pristine and seem to work well.

At this point, my wife has a workaround, but it is a huge pain. She has to remember to put the phone into Airplane mode when she gets home, and turn it off when she leaves the house. I sincerely hope that future iOS 8.x and/or carrier updates address this and set the phone to either ignore the cellular radio for calls for Wifi, or use it only after an attempt of a WiFi call fails.

I see this exact same problem on an iPhone 6 bought from T-Mobile yesterday. I had hoped that wifi calling would fix any issue with bad reception at my house but so far it's useless unless in airplane mode but with wifi on. In areas with an LTE signal, the T-Mobile call clarity is great.

Try the 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz network setting that I listed above. I don't have to put my iPhone 5s into airplane mode and can make and hold very long calls as long as the iPhone 5s is on a 2.4GHz wifi network. If I put it on the 5GHz network in my house calls drop like crazy.