WiFi Calling.

[gangrene]

No carrier on the planet has perfect indoor coverage.

 

Sprint should license the technology from its MVNO Republic Wireless and have it built into all of its future Android handsets.

 

Its absolutely awesome, it completely eliminates the need for an AirRave and more importantly, its like taking your own AirRave with you to OTHER places that have poor indoor coverage. Brownstone apartment buildings, homes near unfortunate geographic features, sports stadiums, industrial or office settings, lower levels of a shopping mall. etc.

 

There are tons of places that have poor indoor signal penetration and an available wifi network, it really is that good of a feature, you quickly start to view it as indispensable once you get used to having it on your phone.

Edited December 2, 2012 by gangrene

[supert0nes]

I've been using grooveip lite+ google voice. Works fantastic so far.

[supert0nes]

Sprint, as a national carrier, will take years to vet any technology that allows you to make calls outside of their network. They don't like losing control in any way and wifi calling takes the control out of their hands when making calls. One reason is actually quality. They don't want to have to diagnose a dropped phone call because you were torrenting Game of Thrones. It's an unknown and national carriers are very hesitant to jump in and support it. T-Mobile is the first because they have the least coverage and customers and will do a lot more to make their customers happy than other carriers.

 

WIFI calling is actually a pretty standardized technology. It's just that the carriers still have enough spectrum that they see it as a last resort.

[pyroscott]

Sprint isn't going to allow garbage wifi connections ruin the sparkling reputation their voice service has earned. I've made calls over my wifi, which is really fast and low latency, and they were garbage. If people want to call on wifi, there are apps to allow it, no reason for sprint to put their name on substandard voip.

 

Here is a speed test of my wifi for reference:

 

[Thomas L.]

No carrier on the planet has perfect indoor coverage.

 

Sprint should license the technology from its MVNO Republic Wireless and have it built into all of its future Android handsets.

 

Its absolutely awesome, it completely eliminates the need for an AirRave and more importantly, its like taking your own AirRave with you to OTHER places that have poor indoor coverage. Brownstone apartment buildings, homes near unfortunate geographic features, sports stadiums, industrial or office settings, lower levels of a shopping mall. etc.

 

There are tons of places that have poor indoor signal penetration and an available wifi network, it really is that good of a feature, you quickly start to view it as indispensable once you get used to having it on your phone.

 

The idea of a decent reliable official wifi calling tech that allows you to use your number and is totally integrated, as T-Mobile has had and other companies like Republic Wireless offer would be an awesome advantage. Full bars wherever you can get WiFi would be awesome!!!

[Thomas L.]

Sprint isn't going to allow garbage wifi connections ruin the sparkling reputation their voice service has earned. I've made calls over my wifi, which is really fast and low latency, and they were garbage. If people want to call on wifi, there are apps to allow it, no reason for sprint to put their name on substandard voip.

 

Here is a speed test of my wifi for reference:

 

 

I think if they had a GAN/UMA based system like T-Mobile and some other providers, it would be great and alleviate a lot of those concerns. GAN/UMA essentially makes your phone it's own femtocell (like its own Airave) over wifi, Sprint's network would just see you as connected to another base station

[gangrene]

Sprint, as a national carrier, will take years to vet any technology that allows you to make calls outside of their network. They don't like losing control in any way and wifi calling takes the control out of their hands when making calls. One reason is actually quality. They don't want to have to diagnose a dropped phone call because you were torrenting Game of Thrones. It's an unknown and national carriers are very hesitant to jump in and support it. T-Mobile is the first because they have the least coverage and customers and will do a lot more to make their customers happy than other carriers.

 

WIFI calling is actually a pretty standardized technology. It's just that the carriers still have enough spectrum that they see it as a last resort.

 

I fail to see how carrier implemented WiFi calling takes control out of their hands anymore than using an AirRave would, which in itself is a clunky, round about way of routing calls over a third party internet connection. An AirRave isn't immune to those same kind of external network performance issues. When talking about control, ultimately it would be Sprint's implementation, using Sprint approved encryption schemes and ultimately connecting to Sprint approved VOIP servers.

 

T-mobile has had it for years through various implementations of the UMA standard, but quality issues are minimal on the Sprint side. I've had a Republic Wireless phone that I've been using as a second line for almost a year and its been outstanding, the feature set is absolutely mature enough to be implemented on the post-paid side.

Edited December 2, 2012 by gangrene

[supert0nes]

Airrave has to authorize and meet Sprint standards.. It might even have to pass speed/latency tests and have a ec/lo ratio. Also, when you leave wifi and go into the carrier network is it a seamless voice transition?

[gangrene]

Airrave has to authorize and meet Sprint standards.. It might even have to pass speed/latency tests and have a ec/lo ratio. Also, when you leave wifi and go into the carrier network is it a seamless voice transition?

 

RW/T-mobile UMA won't enable (you'll get a red icon) if you're on a bad WIFI connection that doesn't meet minimum performance standards, there's some sort of connection testing going on when the feature is initiated.

 

A warning pops up that the user is about to leave the WiFI coverage zone and the call ends.

 

Seamless hand-off is pretty much an impossibility as I understand it, but regardless the feature is so useful, you're more or less talking about the complete elimination of all indoor coverage gaps.

Edited December 2, 2012 by gangrene

[pyroscott]

Not going to happen, so you guys might as well stop wishing. Or you can wish in one hand and crap in the other and see what gets filled first.

[Bob Newhart]

T-Mobile wifi's application is pretty bad, unstable and is very visibly intrusive when running.

 

Plus....... when enabled, the phone still is looking for a signal, so the phone battery dies just as fast, if not faster when in an area of no signal. If its in an area of marginal ATT signal, the battery dies even faster, as its roaming and is searching for a home signal.

 

Airave is much better than their wifi calling.

 

If you want to use your phone on wifi, use the free apps that are free to use such as Vonage or T-Mobiles Bobsled.

[dmchssc]

I have a pbxes.org account set up with my Sprint-integrated Google voice account. Using CSipSimple or the built in SIP client on some ROMs, I can do WiFi calls using my Sprint number. I've found that using SIP provides a much better experience than using something like GrooveIP. Latency is better, and the connection is much more robust. It can even do hard-handoffs between WiFi APs and cellular data. Audio is lost for the time without data, but the call doesn't immediately drop. In my experience, the interruption is typically less than half a second.