Why does some people's iPhone show an actual "Wifi" text instead of the wifi icon st the top left corner of their screen?

Question

Why does some people's iPhone show an actual "Wifi" text instead of the wifi icon st the top left corner of their screen?

So like normally you would have this wireless icon symbol at the top left of your screen showing you're connected to wifi. But I see some people actually not only has the icon, but the left side of the icon actually shows a "wifi" text. Why is that? How can I make my phone look like that too? Example, normal people would see this when connected to wifi: their cellular signal strength, carrier name and then the wifi symbol/icon. But some people actually shows this: cellular strength, carrier name, an actual WIFI text, and then the wifi symbol. Why is that? Thanks! I thought it might have something to do with enabling wifi calling, but I enabled that feature and still didn't get the wifi text at the top left corner. So I'm really curious.

Posted on Aug 1, 2017 10:04 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 1, 2017 10:11 AM in response to s1391437164aa

Hi, s1391437164aa

Some carriers support a newer called called "Wi-Fi Calling" which eliminates the need for a cell network to place or receive calls. Having this feature turned on will indicate next to the cell signal bars when WiFi will be used in place of a cell network. For example, my Verizon iPhone supports Wi-Fi Calling. When the feature is turned off, I see "Verizon" in the upper left corner. When the feature is turned on, I see VZW Wi-Fi in the upper left corner instead.

To see if your carrier supports Wi-Fi Calling, go to Settings > Phone > Wi-Fi Calling or contact them directly

Hope this helps!

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Answer 2

Aug 3, 2017 8:13 PM in response to s1391437164aa

Anytime you are connected to wifi with the wifi calling feature turned on, your phone will prioritize this over cellular, regardless of LTE signal strength. If you turned on the feature, are connected to wifi and still do not see the indicator in the top left, I would contact Verizon customer care to manually provision the feature onto your account.

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Answer 3

Aug 1, 2017 10:55 AM in response to grannersteven93

Hi, thank you for your response, so I have iphone 7 and I too have Verizon. But when I went into the wifi calling settings and turned it on, it still doesn't show VZW wifi for some reason. Do you know why this might be?

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Answer 4

Aug 1, 2017 11:10 AM in response to s1391437164aa

s1391437164aa wrote:

Hi, thank you for your response, so I have iphone 7 and I too have Verizon. But when I went into the wifi calling settings and turned it on, it still doesn't show VZW wifi for some reason. Do you know why this might be?

From KiltedTim's post above:

You will only see that if you are connected to WiFi and the LTE cellular signal you're getting is weak or nonexistent.

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Answer 5

KiltedTim

Level 10

228,384 points

Aug 1, 2017 10:10 AM in response to s1391437164aa

They see that because they have WiFi calling turned on and because of a poor cellular signal, WiFi calling has been enabled.

You will only see that if you are connected to WiFi and the LTE cellular signal you're getting is weak or nonexistent.

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Answer 6

Aug 3, 2017 8:09 PM in response to grannersteven93

I went to a place that has extreme weak signal, there's only 1 bar of signal and sometimes won't even have data. And the wifi text still doesn't show up. I think that might not be the problem?

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