Re: How do I force wifi preferred for wifi calling?
RICHAN39
Enthusiast - Level 1

Add me to the list. I'm a longtime Verizon customer who has moved to a more rural location and may have to choose a different carrier because you don't allow me or my wife to force WiFi. I have a motoz4 and my wife has a motoz2. We have constant dropped calls and since I'm "on call" 24/7 I must have access. My wife's phone often can't connect enough to even make a call, but reads the weak signal and won't move over to WiFi. Really bad PR out there for you guys right now. You either didn't think about how this would effect your many customers without good cell strength or you did realize what it would do to them and just didn't care. Either one is not acceptable and a blight on your claim to care about us.

Re: How do I force wifi preferred for wifi calling?
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

Whoa! This is the last thing we want you to feel, Richan39. We certainly do care about our customers. I am a consumer myself so I understand we rely on our service to work so we can communicate with friends, family, and work. I would love to help and figure out what is going on with your service. May I have your nearest intersection and zip code? Are you dropping every phone call? Has it ever worked before? Does your service improve when you leave the area? Please tell me more.  AmberF_VZW

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Re: How do I force wifi preferred for wifi calling?
lessthanzach
Enthusiast - Level 1

This is hilarious.  Going through the pages, a representative CLEARLY stated that WiFi calling was disabled in the US by Verizon, and yet these Verizon reps are still asking people redundant and arbitrary questions about the make and model of their phones.  I'll lay it out as clear as I can:

Issue:

-WiFi calling will not function on ANY DEVICE unless there is ZERO mobile coverage.  

Resolutions attempted:

-Enable WiFi preferred under Phone app - unresolved

-Change setting to make calls over WiFi when available in device network settings - unresolved

-Enable Airplane mode, then toggle WiFi back on, wait 1 minute - WORKS, however it is not ideal and will result in missed calls once leaving the WiFi network area.

Other networks I've used that work correctly for WiFi calling:

-T-Mobile - works

-AT&T - works

The Solution:

-Escalate the issue to the network administration team or whatever team would be responsible for disabling this capability.  WiFi calling should NOT be restricted to the end user.  There are many scenarios when the consumer will not have a reliable Verizon signal at their work or their home and they should be able to enable the feature and its parameters at their discretion to achieve more stable phone call performance.

 

People spend more money on Verizon Wireless than any other carrier out there.  I've sold service for AT&T, Verizon, and other third party resellers since 2006 and am very familiar with the pricing schemes.  Verizon has always had the most reliable network, and they CHARGE for it, big time.  They are also the most restrictive company and anti-consumer company I have ever had the displeasure of using.  If you are to charge that much money for your service, one would think that you would allow your end users to manage their devices and the preferred network they make calls on at their own discretion.  I've never understood why we pay more to get less.  Either pepper every square acre of the continent with cell towers, or let us use our WiFi!

And because you're going to ask anyways, my phone is a Pixel 4 XL, purchased from Verizon.  Network settings have been reset.  The issue exists on ALL WiFi networks.  The issue has always been present.  The issue is present on other smartphones.  I've made sure IMS settings are registered correctly in the secret *#*#4636#*#* menu.  I've tried forcing the settings utilizing ADB commands in powershell.  The only thing I haven't done and will not do, is rooting my phone to use Qualcomm Product Software Tools (QPST) to force the change.  We should not need to root to fix the issue.

However, I will leave a small hint for others, you can semi-workaround this issue by using Tasker, a paid app.  Create a task that enables airplane mode and enables WiFi once your device has connected to your home WiFi network and does the opposite once connection to the network is lost.  This will automate the process, sort of.

Re: How do I force wifi preferred for wifi calling?
Scott5337
Contributor - Level 3

@lessthanzach wrote:

This is hilarious.  Going through the pages, a representative CLEARLY stated that WiFi calling was disabled in the US by Verizon, and yet these Verizon reps are still asking people redundant and arbitrary questions about the make and model of their phones.  I'll lay it out as clear as I can:

Issue:

-WiFi calling will not function on ANY DEVICE unless there is ZERO mobile coverage.  

Resolutions attempted:

-Enable WiFi preferred under Phone app - unresolved

-Change setting to make calls over WiFi when available in device network settings - unresolved

-Enable Airplane mode, then toggle WiFi back on, wait 1 minute - WORKS, however it is not ideal and will result in missed calls once leaving the WiFi network area.

Other networks I've used that work correctly for WiFi calling:

-T-Mobile - works

-AT&T - works

The Solution:

-Escalate the issue to the network administration team or whatever team would be responsible for disabling this capability.  WiFi calling should NOT be restricted to the end user.  There are many scenarios when the consumer will not have a reliable Verizon signal at their work or their home and they should be able to enable the feature and its parameters at their discretion to achieve more stable phone call performance.

 

People spend more money on Verizon Wireless than any other carrier out there.  I've sold service for AT&T, Verizon, and other third party resellers since 2006 and am very familiar with the pricing schemes.  Verizon has always had the most reliable network, and they CHARGE for it, big time.  They are also the most restrictive company and anti-consumer company I have ever had the displeasure of using.  If you are to charge that much money for your service, one would think that you would allow your end users to manage their devices and the preferred network they make calls on at their own discretion.  I've never understood why we pay more to get less.  Either pepper every square acre of the continent with cell towers, or let us use our WiFi!

And because you're going to ask anyways, my phone is a Pixel 4 XL, purchased from Verizon.  Network settings have been reset.  The issue exists on ALL WiFi networks.  The issue has always been present.  The issue is present on other smartphones.  I've made sure IMS settings are registered correctly in the secret *#*#4636#*#* menu.  I've tried forcing the settings utilizing ADB commands in powershell.  The only thing I haven't done and will not do, is rooting my phone to use Qualcomm Product Software Tools (QPST) to force the change.  We should not need to root to fix the issue.

However, I will leave a small hint for others, you can semi-workaround this issue by using Tasker, a paid app.  Create a task that enables airplane mode and enables WiFi once your device has connected to your home WiFi network and does the opposite once connection to the network is lost.  This will automate the process, sort of.


I am not saying this is right, and agree that WiFi calling should automatically kick-in when the signal is very low; or we should have options to make it kick-in automatically.  But what I can say is that it has worked this way on Verizon since WiFi calling was implemented.  I was part of the test group that first tested it years ago and the only way to force WiFi calling was to put the phone in Airplane Mode > then turn on WiFi and use WiFi calling.  I don't think they have really changed anything since it has been implemented.....the phone will always try to connect via cell signal no matter how weak it is.

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Re: How do I force wifi preferred for wifi calling?
nbindo11
Enthusiast - Level 1

This is absolutely untrue.  Just as stated by the original poster to this forum in 2018, WiFi preferred calling worked very will until a Verizon Android update, which killed the functionality of this option.

I work in a steel building, and the Verizon signal drops to 1 or no bars when in the building.

Still, Wifi calling rarely, if ever, kicks in, and I have to run to a window whenever I receive a call, or else the caller can't hear me very well, or the call drops entirely.

 

Get your act together, Verizon, do something right for your customers.

I have been a Verizon wireless customer since you rolled out this service, and was a Bell Atlantic customer before that.  I guess I'm switching to T-Mobile after 28 years of being a customer.

Sad, really...

Re: How do I force wifi preferred for wifi calling?
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

nbindo11, we certainly don't want to see you go! Do you only have issues with Wi-Fi Calling in the steel building you work in? What make and model phone do you have? 

 

TionnaB_VZW

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Re: How do I force wifi preferred for wifi calling?
kkeller1218
Enthusiast - Level 1

Watching this thread over the years has been comical.  I have no idea what their motives are, but Verizon clearly hobbles wifi calling for Android.  

I solved this issue by switching to iPhone.  It just works there.  I believe it is because Verizon can't change Apple source code.  Its a lousy solution but it works.  I'm not a big fan of Apple, in fact i think most of their stuff that is supposed to "just work" doesn't and I feel that Android is a far superior OS.  But wifi calling does work, all the time, every time.

Re: How do I force wifi preferred for wifi calling?
NMShane
Enthusiast - Level 1

You know what's worse than not having this feature?  All the lying.  In the roaming preferences in Wi-Fi Call settings, it explains two options: Wi-Fi - "If Wi-Fi is unavailable, use mobile network" OR Mobile - "If mobile network is unavailable, use Wi-Fi".

 

All of the complaints on this thread are because we want the first option, but Verizon has made it so that we only get the second option regardless of what we chose.  So why lie about there being two options?

 

It's insult to injury when the Verizon reps come on here and say "We're sorry" or "What type of Android do you have?" as opposed to forwarding the issue to the developers so that it can be fixed.

Re: How do I force wifi preferred for wifi calling?
KH-OrnEsh
Moderator Emeritus
Due to the age of this thread, it will be locked in order to keep discussions current. If you have the same or a similar question/issue we invite you to start a new thread on the topic.