SMS over Wifi Calling

[Chris_K]

Hey everyone. I have some fantastic news to share on a network functionality customers have been asking about for a while. We’re excited to confirm that we’re now expanding the Wifi Calling capability to also work with SMS. This means customers who are using Wifi Calling will also be able to send and receive text messages over a wifi network if they are using a compatible device.

What devices and when?
The service launched on select handsets on 10th January 2022 and we’ve been monitoring the stability first before announcing it here on the Community. Right now the service is only available on the Samsung Galaxy S20 family – the regular S20, S20 Plus and S20 Ultra.

We will be rolling out capability to more handsets but cannot confirm exact dates at this time.

How do I activate the feature?
Customers with a compatible device will need to have the Wifi and 4G Calling service provisioned on their account and will need to update their device to the latest software version.

Note that the update for the S20 family of devices will come in the form of a ‘System configuration update’. Your device will notify you when the update is available, and you will be asked to apply the update. The device will then restart, and the update will be applied. At this point, SMS over Wifi Calling should now work as expected.

Why can’t all current Wifi Calling handsets support SMS over Wifi Calling?
Each device that supports Wifi Calling today will need to receive a software update in order for SMS over Wifi Calling to work. There are some handsets we support today that are now too old to receive software updates and therefor will not become compatible with SMS over Wifi Calling. Newer devices will receive updates, but it will take time for the manufacturers to develop and release the software, for which we have no further details or ETA – but we’ll continue to work closely with manufacturers to help implement this.

I’ll update this thread as and when new devices become compatible with SMS over Wifi Calling.

[martinmanyhats]

After a long chat with Support this afternoon, they have confirmed that only the already known S20 models from Samsung are compatible, and that none of those are currently available from their online store. Sigh.

[madasaf1sh]

@martinmanyhats 

I wouldn't hold much hope out, as having watched implementations on other networks globally the SMSoWIFI is as flakey as hell, and not a brilliant solution...

It will work 75% of the time from what testing I have done.

[martinmanyhats]

That would still be better than standing out in the road hoping for enough signal for a 2FA code. Hey ho.

[madasaf1sh]

Totally agree anything is better than that   unless you can find a pub or coffee shop to sit in

[Chick_Lunchbox]

Just become available on my Pixel 5. Hope the comments above about reliability have been ironed out during this long rollout. 

[jonsie]

I've had no problems on my Samsung

[Luke30]

Do you know will I be able to ever use sms in WiFi calling with my handset that I use?

[VWB]

When will this be rolled out to iPhones?

[Enlli]

@VWB Not a question that we on the forum can answer as we are just customers 

No doubt it will require a carrier update from Apple

[MI5]

---

@VWB wrote:

When will this be rolled out to iPhones?

---

Assuming you are using the latest iOS version it should be working now.