Enhanced Wifi Calling vs. Personal Cell Spot - T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S 4

What's better? A galaxyS4 w/ Enhanced WiFi Calling or w/o WiFi calling and Personal Cell Spot?
I've read the Enhanced WiFi calling solves the network handoff problem between VoLTE & VoIP/SIP-based WiFi calling over myhome network.
From what I understand, the Personal Cell Spot is essentially a router with the same enhanced WiFi calling SW, but has a low power LTE signal so the phone doesn't need to have or use WiFi calling? Because of this, it seems to also handle the network hand off problem.
So, if I have a Galaxy S4 that is updated to NH7 with Enhanced WiFi calling, do I go with that, or do I get a free personal cell spot and get 5bars in my home?
If they're about the same, any other pro & cons? LTE is more power hungry than WiFi right? But you'd be offloading some VoIP/SIP stuff to the personal cell spot too?
Thoughts? I'm looking for a technical discussion. Thanks.

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Wifi Calling

Does the Wifi Calling app save more battery? I've noticed the network signal turns off when I enable Wifi Calling
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Yes, saves LOTS of battery. Big difference when wifi calling is on.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App
Expanding on OP:
Does WiFi automatically supersede data as well? And if so, is there battery saving in that case?
alpharomero said:
Expanding on OP:
Does WiFi automatically supersede data as well? And if so, is there battery saving in that case?
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When you turn on WiFi, all data goes through WiFi assuming that there is a good signal on it (aka if WiFi is so bad there is no data throughput, the phone will turn mobile data back on). The phone will always choose WiFi and turn off mobile data. Some/most people say that this saves battery because the phone isn't always searching for mobile data. I'd say that this is more true if you're in a situation where there is poor/low 3G reception but good WiFi reception. I almost never use WiFi because I get full bars and good 3G speed at home. I see no reason to use WiFi in this situation as my phone isn't searching for better networks.
As far as WiFi Calling goes, in the settings of the app you can choose to have the phone "Prefer WiFi"/"Prefer Cellular"/"WiFi Only". Same thing here. If I use WiFi calling, I choose "Prefer WiFi" because if for some reason my WiFi goes down while I'm not using the phone I want the mobile network to come on so I can receive calls without having to toggle back. A situation I could see where "WiFi Only" would be applicable is if you're traveling and want to use WiFi for calls if you have a data-only prepay SIM, or if you're in an area with only Roaming coverage and you would want to just use WiFi to make calls.

Wifi calling - preferences - disable cellular radio

Searched for other threads but didn't find anything that specifically addressed this. It's probably old news to many but I hope this helps out other noobs.
In Galaxy S2, enable wifi-calling and you can change the connection preferences to
1. Wifi preferred
2. Cellular preferred
3. Wifi-only.
Options 1 and 2 are self-explanatory, but I didn't quite understand why anyone would want to select 3 over 1, until I tried it out.
When I selected wifi-only, the cellular voice signal bars are dark. I think this setting essentially disable cellular voice radio.
This is important if you travel abroad and want to use the wifi calling feature because wifi-calling cannot be enabled with airplane mode on. Also I don't think wifi-calling works with a non t-mobile sim card.
I'm on Wifi-Preferred and my radio is always disabled automatically
From the company that makes the wifi-calling tech for T-mobile
http://www.wificalling.net/help/
It is possible to configure the Wi-Fi Calling Application to enable calls over Wi-Fi only, essentially keeping the phone off the cellular network. If you set the Connection Preference to Wi-Fi ONLY, the application will work over Wi-Fi and, when you go out of range of a Wi-Fi signal, will NOT accept or make calls on the cellular network. This is similar to putting the phone into AIRPLANE mode with Wi-Fi Calling.
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Will it support T-Mobile WiFi Calling?

Will it support T-Mobile Wi-Fi Calling? I know Android M supports WiFi calling natively but will the carriers (T-Mobile in particular) need to do anything to allow it?
WiFi calling is very useful to me at home where cell signal is very poor.
sirxdroid said:
Will it support T-Mobile Wi-Fi Calling? I know Android M supports WiFi calling natively but will the carriers (T-Mobile in particular) need to do anything to allow it?
WiFi calling is very useful to me at home where cell signal is very poor.
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Out of the box, at this moment, I don't think it does. However T-Mobile got it working on the Nexus 6 so I don't see why they couldn't add it with an update either before or after they ship. Think positive :thumbup:
Edit: found this from another thread in general section
"It’s also worth mentioning that*T-Mobile has already said*that the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P should have Wi-Fi Calling support at launch. While it’s expected to be turned off by default, T-Mo has said that after you pop in your SIM and hook onto the network, you should be able to turn the feature on."
Google or T-Mobile said via Twitter or the AMA or somewhere that it does support WiFi calling out of the box, but you need to set it to be on when you get your device - it isn't on by default.
The TBD support is for T-Mobile VoLTE/Band 12, which Google said they hope will be ready to go by ship day.
Ajfink said:
Google or T-Mobile said via Twitter or the AMA or somewhere that it does support WiFi calling out of the box, but you need to set it to be on when you get your device - it isn't on by default.
The TBD support is for T-Mobile VoLTE/Band 12, which Google said they hope will be ready to go by ship day.
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Excellent. Both will help.
Do texts go over wifi as well with wifi calling enabled? At work I only have access to wifi or Sprint (because I am in a basement of a building) and it has a Sprint DAS antenna system installed. I was thinking of switching to Project Fi due to it being on Sprint's network but if texts can go over wifi with T-mobile I would probably go with them since it would open me up to a huge choice of phones in the future (I kind of want to try a windows phone sometime)
Evo_Shift said:
Do texts go over wifi as well with wifi calling enabled? At work I only have access to wifi or Sprint (because I am in a basement of a building) and it has a Sprint DAS antenna system installed. I was thinking of switching to Project Fi due to it being on Sprint's network but if texts can go over wifi with T-mobile I would probably go with them since it would open me up to a huge choice of phones in the future (I kind of want to try a windows phone sometime)
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Yes, texts will go over wifi. Hurry with that Windows phone, before the platform dies completely
Here's the Twitter post where I saw confirmation from T-Mobile on Wi-Fi calling: https://twitter.com/TMobile/status/648919023158206464
The initial question was on band 12 support (hoping we get this soon), but below there's a question on Wi-Fi calling to which they said yes. This was one of the main reasons I'm switching to one of the new Nexus phones - most phones support it on their stock ROMs, but once you get sick of stock and switch to a custom ROM you have to give up Wi-Fi calling.
Question for those of you on T-Mobile...
We all know WiFi calling is enabled, BUT, has anyone seen or regularly sees any kind of indicator that they're actually connected through WiFi calling when on a call?
I have seen twice on the signal tile, it say "T-Mobile WiFi calling". But that's it. I have the setting set to WiFi preferred and I even have the T-Mobile WiFi calling Asus router, but I don't know if it's actually using WiFi calling it not.
If I have zero signal indicated on the signal tile, but WiFi on, I'll get a message telling me to connect to a wireless network when I try to place calls.
I'm also assuming that means the signal indicator tile serves a dual purpose in regards to also showing WiFi signal strength. Because when I'm on WiFi, if I switch on " cellular preferred" (in WiFi calling settings), I'll see the LTE symbol next to the signal icon in the tile, but If I switch to "WiFi preferred", any cellular symbol (LTE, H, 3G) goes away.
On a side note, if you're in airplane mode, you can't make a phone call, even with WiFi on. On my S6 edge, I could, as long as I was connected to T-Mobile WiFi calling. But the phone would let you know with a status bar icon.
I really need WiFi calling in some places at work and I dumped the S6E partly because of the 5X utilizing WiFi calling, so that's why I've wasted all you folk's time in reading this long post. ☺
Well, son of a *****, look what finally popped up...
It was enabled by default as soon as I booted with the TMO sim and ran the update.
Great to read...looking forward to trying it out when it arrives.
minnemike said:
It was enabled by default as soon as I booted with the TMO sim and ran the update.
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As was mine, but it didn't seem to want to work. I had "cellular preferred" set, but it seemed to hold onto the cell signal too much and not want to switch over. I set it to "WiFi preferred" but it still wasn't connecting yesterday. Today however, it's been all good with WiFi preferred. So it might have just been my work's network yesterday.
I still got to see if the phone will hand off the call to cellular before I leave it on WiFi preferred. I'm guessing it only will if I'm on band 12, but I'll test it anyways.

WiFi calling turning on and off by itself

I have a metroPCS unlocked Snapdragon S9, and I have my WiFi calling set to cellular preferred, but my WiFi calling keeps turning itself on and off all the time. I like WiFi calling and find it useful, but I have had problems with latency and poor call quality, so I don't want to use WiFi calling unless the cellular network isn't available. But my phone just keeps turning WiFi calling on and off by itself when I have the preference set to use the cellular network by default. I get excellent reception at home and most places I go to, so I don't understand why WiFi calling is on when I have it set to use the cell network by default.
Has anyone else had this problem? Does anyone know a solution short of disabling WiFi calling entirely?

Question Verizon prefer wifi calling?

I was using the note 20 ultra prior to this and had wifi calling enabled. In my home, even if the call started on the network it would handoff to wifi as the connection is far better.
On this pixel 6 pro it does not handoff and my call always drop when at home. I have toggle airplane mode then turn on wifi to use wifi calling. In the settings verizon defaults the phone to prefer mobile calling which defeats the purpose. Is there any way to prefer wifi calling. The previous adb method seems to be patched. Also both the note 20 ultra and this phone are unlocked bought from their respective companies.

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