WiFi Calling

You can think of WiFI-C as an alternate way of placing calls. The cell phone will always prefer a cellular connection over WiFi. This is more of a function of cellular calling than anything else.The only way to ge around that at present is to enable Airplane Mode to turn off the cellular radio. From what I understand AT&T/Apple is working on a feature to toggle Airplane Mode/WiFi Calling.

Understood & agree.   But there is some heurestic at which point it favors WiFi over a weak cell signal.  For example, if I see ONE AT&T bar, it does connect as AT&T WiFi.  But with Two it does not.  (obviously it has more signal strength info than the bars I see.)  But at two bars, I still have spotty service.  WiFi would work better.  I simply think it would be way more useful if they made it a bit more aggressive for when they favor WiFi.  Or make it configurable.  I realize I can turn on Airplane mode to force the issue - but realistically no one is going to remember to do that every single time. 

The current WiFi calling is a good start, but this would make it much better.

I have no argument for that and I do agree. Hopefully WiFi-C will become more robust as time goes by but that will probably depend on the phone mfrs to implement updates that will be more discriminatory in how the phone handles the detected signals and chooses which one to prefer. The MicroCell transmits pretty much a fixed signal depending on detected macrocell (tower) so it's up to the phone to make the connection decision.

Hi, Does anyone have any idea when this will be turned on for the Note 5?

There is no ETA that I am aware of for the Android-based devices and there is no information available at this time which Android-based devices will be WiFi capable. The problem is the Android OS and its many iterations.

Actually I disagree with your statement regarding "the many iterations of the Android OS" having anything to do with this.  Why does t-mobile and Sprint have wifi calling on their Note 5, running the same version as I have (5.1.1) ?

Maybe this has more to do with the fact that if AT&T activates it, it will be less revenue for them for the rediculous amount of money they charge for a mini cell device as opposed to most of the other carriers who give them away free.

@schulzjt

@schulzjt wrote:

Actually I disagree with your statement regarding "the many iterations of the Android OS" having anything to do with this.  Why does t-mobile and Sprint have wifi calling on their Note 5, running the same version as I have (5.1.1) ?

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T-mobile and sprint have much smaller coverage area with tower.  They got permission from the FCC ages ago to use wifi calling.

There is nothing wrong with your phone.  ATT applied to the FCC for wifi calling and got a yes for iPhone only and a no for other devices.

ATT has also applied for FM radio use and expects to be approved.

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@schulzjt wrote:

Actually I disagree with your statement regarding "the many iterations of the Android OS" having anything to do with this.  Why does t-mobile and Sprint have wifi calling on their Note 5, running the same version as I have (5.1.1) ?

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AT&T probably piles on more carrier specific "stuff" than the other carriers so it is going to take longer to optimize the AT&T specific Android OS. It's coming, it will just take longer.

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@schulzjt wrote:

Maybe this has more to do with the fact that if AT&T activates it, it will be less revenue for them for the rediculous amount of money they charge for a mini cell device as opposed to most of the other carriers who give them away free.

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that statement might be true if they did not release it for apple first which ATT has more running on there system than other carriers.

Also it does have to do with the many oems and phones running android.  With android 6.0 coming to the newer devices I can see ATT waiting till those updates to push it out.  Also ATT is not using the same protocals that sprint and tmobile use for WIFI calling.