VoWifi and VoLTE on O2

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I'm new to these Forums (this is my first post) so apologies if this has already been asked, I have tried to look but couldnt find what I was looking for.

I live in a rural area and although this is not unique to O2 my signal is very broken and unreliable. A couple of years ago i defected from EE to O2 as O2 do have a better signal for me at work.

Recently I've read that EE and Vodafone have both gone live on VoWifi, something that would make all my rural problems at home disappear, and although I dont want to leave O2, its something I wont have much choice over unless O2 have plans to bring us VoWifi (and VoLTE).

I am willing to be patient as long as i know it is likely to roll out by the end of the year. Please, can anyone confirm if this is being planned to roll out imminently.

I appreciate we have TuGo, and this has proved priceless when travelling abroad, but it does fall short when compared to Vodafone and EE's VoWifi and is not enough on its own to keep me on O2.

I have found something on the internet that says its coming, but would like more concrete confirmation about it. A link to what I found is below:

http://news.o2.co.uk/2015/12/10/year-life-o2-network/

Please, can anyone confirm VoWifi will be on the O2 network anytime soon.

Many thanks 

[Cleoriff]

Hi @Anonymous Welcome to the forum...I haven't heard anything about this but will mention @Toby the Head of Community. He may be able to answer tomorrow ..

[jonsie]

As far as we know there are no immediate plans although wifi calling on iphones was talked about a good while ago. Nothing came of that either so if it's important to you, I would be looking at general coverage of the the other networks.

[MI5]

VoLTE will most definitely be coming but VoWiFi is restricted to Tugo only on O2, at least that's what we have always been told by O2.
Remember also that O2 has an obligation to Ofcom to provide 98% coverage by the end of 2017 so there are still some big network improvements to come in the next 18 months.

[Anonymous]

Not to be dense, but what is the difference between VoWiFiVoLTE and TuGo. To be fair, I have only used TuGo, the other two I looked at on their websites but by the description they seems to do the same?

[gmarkj]

VoWiFi - voice over WiFi (uses WiFi to send/receive voice call)
VoLTE - voice over LTE [4G data connection] (uses mobile data to send/receive voice call).
The main difference is the implementation. VoWiFi and VoLTE are meant to be built in functions of the phone, while Tu is a 3rd party app.
For instance, iPhones have the ability to make VoLTE calls without an additional app.

[Anonymous]

Ah there we go, so it jus thte intergration into the handset. There was was a big thing on the EE community boards about the firmaware your phone comes with, i'm guessing you need a certain version or above for it to work.

cheers

[gmarkj]

Don't take that as gospel, that's just what I have read/remembered...
It has also been said that making called using VoLTE provides a more detailed sound, much like the difference between stereo and surround when watching TV/film

[Anonymous]

Its still more help than the marketing blurb, as it all looked the same to me.

[MI5]

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@gmarkj wrote:
For instance, iPhones have the ability to make VoLTE calls without an additional app.

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That would need to say VoWiFi to be correct.

VoLTE will be native to all phones, VoWiFi is native to iPhones on EE and Voda whilst O2 uses Tu (app) to achieve a similar function ("similar" chosen deliberately as it isn't the same thing at all really).