Have a low cell signal- Use this iPhone feature called WiFi Calling

Sometimes when your carrier has a low cell signal you can opt for a great feature in your iPhone. It is called WiFi Calling, which lets you use WiFi to make and receive calls and text messages. This wonderful WiFi Calling is great when your iPhone is out of reach of your carrier’s cell signal. The feature isn’t turned on by default, so you have to go into your iPhone’s settings to turn it on.

Simple Go to Settings > Phone > WiFi Calling, and turn on the WiFi calling setting

You will be prompted then to enter your address to register WiFi calling with your carrier. Registration is necessary so that emergency services can come to the address you provided in case they can’t locate you with a cell signal.

After a couple of minutes, WiFi calling will be enabled and you can start using your home’s WiFi connection to make calls and/or send and receive text messages.

With WiFi calling, you can even set up other iCloud-connected devices to make WiFi phone calls and send texts, like your iPad, iPod, and Mac computers. They don’t need to be connected to the WiFi network your iPhone is connected to.

So instead of using your regular network connection, you can make voice calls using either the Wi-Fi you have at home or whatever Wi-Fi hotspot you happen to connect to when you’re out and about. The idea isn’t new: Skype and Google Hangouts, for example, already let you make voice calls using Wi-Fi, rather than your phone connection. What’s different is that a Wi-Fi calling service provided by your telco shouldn’t require a third-party app. In every other way it’s like a normal call though — right down to using phone numbers.

The main benefit is making calls when you have no phone signal. If you live in regional areas, for example, and find it difficult to get a phone signal, you can make calls and send texts using your home Internet connection instead. The same applies for when you’re in those dingy, underground bars where your phone can’t get reception, but can connect to the bar’s Wi-Fi.

This kind of service is baked directly into the phone’s dialler, so you don’t need to fire up an app or connect to a service to use it. Once you lose phone signal, it will automatically switch to Wi-Fi calling.

That also means you don’t need to add contacts to a service as you do with Skype. You’ll already have access to all your existing contacts and, more importantly, none of them will require an app to receive your call.

The idea of Wi-Fi calling got a boost of publicity when the iPhone 6 came out, but there are a lot of other phones on the market that support the feature

In Australia on Feburary 2016 Telstra announced that it would rollout a ‘Voice over WiFi’ service as the complement to Voice over LTE. The service will seamlessly switch between home broadband WiFi and LTE for customers on compatible devices.

Last year Optus  became the first telco to offer a Wi-Fi calling service. Called WiFi Talk, the Optus service requires an iOS or Android app to be downloaded, making it distinct from a “baked-in” service. When using the app, Optus says that “calls and texts are charged to your mobile bill (or deducted from your prepaid balance) with the same inclusions and rates as your Optus mobile plan.”