US wireless carrier T-Mobile is rolling out support for WiFi calling on all the phones the company sells. Pick up a Personal CellSpot from T-Mobile for a $25 refundable deposit and swap your phone for a model that supports the feature (or just buy one that does) and you get free calling and text-messaging while you’re within range of the 802.11ac WiFi router.
This means you don’t lose a signal when you go down to your basement, or anywhere else in the house where you might have a dead zone. You can also use WiFi calling when you’re overseas even if you don’t have roaming.
T-Mobile isn’t the only US carrier planning to offer WiFi calling. It’s just the first to roll it out at this kind of scale.
CNET and Light Reading report that AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega says his company will also launch WiFi calling. But AT&T is waiting until next year to do that.
Part of the reason is that AT&T hasn’t started offering Voice over LTE (VoLTE) service yet, which means that calls can be dropped when your phone tries to hand them off from cellular to WiFi or vice versa. When AT&T begins offering VoLTE service, essentially all calls will be routed over a data network — and that means you’ll be able to start a call using your WiFi connection at home and keep talking on the same call when you leave the house.
Accoding to de la Vega, AT&T doesn’t feel an urgent need to launch its WiFi calling service because the company is comfortable with the network coverage it provides. So even though it’s coming, don’t expect AT&T to be as giddy about it as T-Mobile seems to be.
I hope Sprint/Virgin/Boost follows and offers WiFi calling soon. I’m on the edge of service, and I don’t get good reception in parts of my house. Not that I make that many phone calls anymore, but it’s annoying not to be able to hear the other person when I do.
It’s great to see T-Mobile putting pressure on the big boys. There’s little doubt that AT&T would not be making this move if they weren’t feeling the pressure. They would much prefer their customers to forget that wi-fi is a thing:
Wi-Fi is Threatening AT&T and Verizon Wireless’ 4G Data Money Party; Wi-Fi Usage Conquers 4G
Should the title of the article reflect that it mentions T-Mobile first then AT&T or have it just on AT&T?
Actually magicJack has been offering a calling app for wifi for some time now.