Three launching 4G and Wifi Calling (VoWifi and VoLTE)

It looks like 3 have blocked the use of WiFi calling when roaming. This is one of the major benefits of WiFi calling - to avoid high roaming charges, particularly outside EU. They also make no mention of whether texting is supported (important for 2FA messages), so I suspect that they haven't got it working? The list of supported handsets is very limited. Launching 5 years later than Eir, and they still only offer a half-baked service!

vodafone started vo wifi this week

After all the delays and planning I expected more and full device support Samsung and iPhone listed at least support all the phone currently in their own store.

Sales rep telling me sense April they are taking their time to make sure they don't make the same mistakes as the other operators 😂

That thread is hilarious! They must be geo-blocking either on IP address or (last known) roaming network. They can't deny both and yet admit that they are geo-blocking the service. This could be particularly important for customers in Ireland who are near the border with Northern Ireland.

Interestingly i was in Wales a month ago and wifi calling worked on the hotel wifi. I’m with Vodafone that’s supposed to be geo locked.

I now have 5g access but no wifi calling or volte access on Xiaomi handset

Three might have made a business decision not to destroy roaming revenue for their branches in other countries? Vodafone also don't support WiFi calling while roaming - perhaps for the same reason?. Eir (including their GoMo brand) are the only network in Ireland to support WiFi calling when roaming, and they also support SMS over WiFi calling. Perhaps it is time for you to change to a network that fully supports WiFi calling?

That's interesting. Are you certain that you are able to receive "native" SMS, and not just RCS? Most person-to-person texting is already on RCS, which is already possible over WiFi without WiFi Calling, whereas most 2FA and B2C texts from businesses are still native SMS. Have you tried getting a 2FA message over WiFi Calling?

Apple iMessage is similar to RCS, in that it works over WiFi as well as mobile. However it only works within the Apple walled garden. Apple are supposed to be modifying it, so that it will work properly with RCS, so that you can interwork with Android. If you are able to send text messages to other iPhones, they could be going over iMessage? If you can send text messages to Android phones over WiFi Calling, then Three have definitely got text messaging working. Eir have had this since they launched in 2017, but Vodafone still don't have text messaging working. While person-to-person text messaging is in decline, Business to consumer text messaging is still very important - for 2FA messages etc. It will be interesting to see if Apple now list Three as having WiFi Calling - the Apple site currently only lists Eir and Vodafone in Ireland as supporting WiFi Calling.

That's good if they finally have SMS working properly. You clearly understand the different scenarios.

Three's issue with not allowing use while roaming is probably a business decision rather than a technical failure like their problem with SMS. Since they operate in other markets, they may not want to trash their own roaming revenues. None of the UK networks allow WiFi calling when roaming, and most of the major business policies are probably determined on the "mainland". The local Three office in Ireland is unlikely to be allowed to deviate from policy in UK. Eir likely has more autonomy, and they don't have to worry about roaming losses abroad, hence they have allowed use abroad from the start, as do the US networks such as ATT & T-Mobile.

So overall, who's the best network for general coverage and WiFi calling these days? Eir?

I find Eir's 4G and 5G is the most consistent of the three operators. The speedtest figures won't blow you away but it'll work. Rarely see 3G anymore and very rarely have a call drop out. They've done a huge amount of work in the last 2 years - their network before that was dreadful, calls would often be garbled and regularly drop altogether when on the move. Now they're throwing up monopoles everywhere, especially rural areas as their own OpenEir and the government's NBI fibre network expands.

Three - you'll get a speedtest of 1.4Gbps on 5G and then you step inside a building down the road and you've 4G but practically zero data connectivity. Still a few areas with 3G only and I often find data unusable on 3G regardless of how good the signal. Quite a few areas I'm in where calls are almost guaranteed to drop as you pass through. However they are still very much building out their network and, like Eir, seem to be following fibre rollouts with monopoles so I would expect in time their network will continue to get better and if they can get Eir's stability with their best-case headline speeds they're onto a winner.

Vodafone - I would have said they were the most consistent up until about 3 years ago. Sure, they had lots of areas still stuck on 3G but their 3G was often still fast enough to not notice. Call quality was perfect and rarely a dropped call. Now as they turn 3G off it's like being back on Meteor in the early 2000's with EDGE more and more common (effectively unusable data), impossible to maintain a call without dropping when on the move anymore, and 5G practically non-existent. They don't appear to be building out many new sites, don't seem to be into using monopoles at all, and seem very slow to refarm ex-3G frequencies over to 4G.

I got a prepay 3 SIM today for some testing and it doesn't let me enable Wi-Fi calling. The option is there but it tells me to contact 3. Is it only supported on billpay plans? iPhone 13 on the latest iOS 18 beta.

I had the same problem, it let me enable it over 4G, not over Wifi for whatever reason, no issues since.

Working for me on Sky Mobile and on Three. Nice to finally have sms too.