Question

WIFI Calling Preferences Being Forced to Cellular Preferred

  • 10 October 2020
  • 83 replies
  • 31279 views
J
Userlevel 3
Badge

I am experiencing my WIFI Calling Preferences always being forced to “cellular preferred”, as are others.   I live in an area with poor T-mobile mobile data signal and this recent behavior makes my phone unable to make and receive calls and text messages.   I believe the problem only started happening after the next to last T-Mobile software update.  Everything was fine for my first 5 months of ownership.  A Google search shows posts of other users experiencing the same issue, but no options other than a tedious workaround of manually switching the phone to Airplane mode and changing the WIFI calling preferences back to “WIFI preferred”.  I have to do this kind of process each time I enter and leave my home, and sometimes have to reboot my phone as well.   The times I’ve forgotten, I’ve missed package deliveries and went to a doctor appointment when the doctor had left a message that he was out sick.  This appears to be a carrier specific issue as far as I can see.   I even tried replacing my rock solid Netgear R6400 router with an ASUS AX3000 router with no resulting changes.   I’m in a small apartment only 10 feet from the router, with a very strong WIFI signal.  I have two Samsung Galaxy S20 phones (March 2020) which both exhibit the exact same behavior.   I spoke with T-Mobile Tech support which appeared to be clueless about this issue other than to send me two new S20 phones under warranty to my T-Mobile store.   I do not have high confidence in this approach but will try the new phones and report back. 

Does anyone know anything more?   I am not aware of T-Mobile publicly acknowledging this issue.

83 replies

M
Badge

 

D

I am experiencing my WIFI Calling Preferences always being forced to “cellular preferred”, as are others.   I live in an area with poor T-mobile mobile data signal and this recent behavior makes my phone unable to make and receive calls and text messages.   I believe the problem only started happening after the next to last T-Mobile software update.  Everything was fine for my first 5 months of ownership.  A Google search shows posts of other users experiencing the same issue, but no options other than a tedious workaround of manually switching the phone to Airplane mode and changing the WIFI calling preferences back to “WIFI preferred”.  I have to do this kind of process each time I enter and leave my home, and sometimes have to reboot my phone as well.   The times I’ve forgotten, I’ve missed package deliveries and went to a doctor appointment when the doctor had left a message that he was out sick.  This appears to be a carrier specific issue as far as I can see.   I even tried replacing my rock solid Netgear R6400 router with an ASUS AX3000 router with no resulting changes.   I’m in a small apartment only 10 feet from the router, with a very strong WIFI signal.  I have two Samsung Galaxy S20 phones (March 2020) which both exhibit the exact same behavior.   I spoke with T-Mobile Tech support which appeared to be clueless about this issue other than to send me two new S20 phones under warranty to my T-Mobile store.   I do not have high confidence in this approach but will try the new phones and report back. 

Does anyone know anything more?   I am not aware of T-Mobile publicly acknowledging this issue.

Yes, still having this issue though less often for the past six months or so. I thought it was fixed but has gone back to switching to cellular preferred lately.   It seems to change sometimes when there is no wifi, but does not change back when I get home with good wifi, but very poor cellular.   So, yeah, makes no sense and very detrimental if you forget to check it every time you get home.   I'm likely to leave T-Mobile due to this issue.   

 

And no I don't know any more about what T-Mobile has done.  I got tired of calling and reporting this issue a year ago.

J

So frustrating to find such an old thread, on a topic that has not been answered.

We live outside cell-signal range. Way back when, Wi-Fi calling was THE reason we had T-Mobile in the first place.

And we are still being frustrated by automatic resetting to "cellular preferred" MULTIPLE TIMES DAILY, disrupting our communications. 

T

Very frustrating that this issue has persisted for years and across multiple devices. I usually only think to check the setting when my call quality is bad, and sure enough it's switched back to "cellular preferred". 

P

I have this same problem with my Samsung 13 5G.  I called T-Mobile’s ‘technical’ support line, and they had the audacity to say that wifi calling is only supported on the iPhone. This was idiotic, and I vainly tried to argue with them that they were mistaken, but, for the technical support agent on the phone, ‘the script is always right’.

Very frustrating.

N

Still an issue and could be an easy fix if T-Mobile actually addressed it. A simple added feature to select preferred networks based on location. I need Wi-Fi calling at home. Is it really that difficult to have a home location set with an option to specify a network preference based on that location? Home -> use cellular, use wifi, use strongest network.

 

Duh T-Mobile. Let's actually do a little engineering and not let issues founder for years. 

S

I agree that it is likely some TMo bloat/firmware that is doing this since the VZW phone I was using didn’t have the problem.

Yes, I knew that they were likely just trying to get rid of me.  Since I’m retired I can take the time to go to Level 2/Manager support.  That is a task for this week now that I’ve done my research.

In the mean time I’m trying the Tasker hack that is supposed to automatically turn wi-fi preferred on if anything turns it off.  I don’t know yet if that is going to help, but it is worth a try. 

Samsung support said that this isn’t their problem since all wi-fi calling features are carrier specific.  I had to try.

I don’t know if there is a root for the S22 yet.  Even if there is I probably won’t do it yet since with a new model there is often a flurry of stock firmware updates for the first few months.  I’ve read that there is one coming.

I don’t believe T-mo bloatware is the issue here.
I have an unlocked S22 Ultra, purchased directly from Samsung.
I’m using Mint mobile, which uses T-mo towers, and I’m having this ongoing issue.

K
Userlevel 1
Badge

I know that this is an old thread.  However, they ARE STILL DOING THIS.  It is hard to understand why.  I don’t know what it “buys” them, except a lot of customer annoyance.

Reply


New badge winners

  • Curious George
    soojin.m00nhas earned the badge Curious George
  • Curious George
    msctchrhas earned the badge Curious George
  • Curious George
    VolvoCarhas earned the badge Curious George
  • Curious George
    dadachiphas earned the badge Curious George
  • Curious George
    Mannyb32has earned the badge Curious George
Show all badges
Terms & Conditions