Is Wifi calling real?
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My cell service near Lander WY is gone from bad to gone; in trying to resort to Wifi calling I made sure it was activated at Verizon and turned on at my phone. I won't work. The problem isn't phone specific, neither our Apple and Android can make or accept calls.
My question is this: Apple facetime works flawlessly, both audio and vidio over our good, fast WifI. Wifi calling will not work on either phone. Why one and not the other?
Verizon support is not helpful.... don't you like it when you have to start from square one each time you call? Reset, update, on and on...
Solved! Go to Correct Answer
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WiFi calling is very different than Facetime or Duo. WiFi calling just routes the call using VOIP over the carrier's network. So you are still using the Verizon network to make the call, just connecting to the network with WiFi vs cell signal. With modern Verizon phones they are designed to always use the cell signal, always. If you have even the faintest cell signal your phone will try to use that and not WiFi calling. I helped test WiFi calling on a Droid years ago, on Verizon, and the only way to make it work during the test period was to turn off cell data forcing the phone to use WiFi only for everything. With apps like Facetime and Duo you are using their app to make the call over WiFi, not connecting to the Verizon network at all. It's completely different technology. You don't have to look at the screen when using Facetime or Duo and use the video functionality, you can still just talk and not worry about looking at each other.
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In my experience built-in WiFi calling is never very good, poor quality, etc. But Google Meet (formerly named Duo) works very well over the same WiFi connection. If the other person has a Google account maybe try asking them to setup Meet on their phone and try that. Meet works much better for my family compared to the built-in WiFi video calling.
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Thanks but I'm not interested in video calling; I just want to make and receive a simple phone call and I haven't been able to (with rare exceptions and poor quality) all summer. I would think that if Wifi calling actually worked it would suffice in leu of poor cell service. In my mind, if Facetime (video and audio) works flawlessly why can't Wifi calling work? Why does VZ hype something with no value? It would be better to know Wifi wasn't real than to trying to troubleshoot it all summer.
Thanks,
Charlie
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WiFi calling is very different than Facetime or Duo. WiFi calling just routes the call using VOIP over the carrier's network. So you are still using the Verizon network to make the call, just connecting to the network with WiFi vs cell signal. With modern Verizon phones they are designed to always use the cell signal, always. If you have even the faintest cell signal your phone will try to use that and not WiFi calling. I helped test WiFi calling on a Droid years ago, on Verizon, and the only way to make it work during the test period was to turn off cell data forcing the phone to use WiFi only for everything. With apps like Facetime and Duo you are using their app to make the call over WiFi, not connecting to the Verizon network at all. It's completely different technology. You don't have to look at the screen when using Facetime or Duo and use the video functionality, you can still just talk and not worry about looking at each other.
