topic Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset in Archived Posts

Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

JoeN — Thu, 30 Jul 2020 15:08:17 GMT

I've been with EE for a few weeks. One of the features that pulled me to move to EE from O2 was "Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" which allows devices on the same iCloud account to make and receive calls on my EE number, whilst my phone is offline. I understand that EE call this service "Smart Number".

When I first moved to EE, this feature was working fine. As advertised, I could make and receive calls on my EE number from both of my Macs, even if I turned my phone off. Last night, I was troubleshooting an issue on my iPhone with BT Wi-Fi and I reset the network settings on my phone. Since then, I've been able to re-enable "Wi-Fi Calling on This iPhone", but not the option below for "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" (Smart Number). This is different to the normal "Allow Calls on Other Devices" which requires that my iPhone be online and on the same Wi-Fi network as the device that I'm trying to make/receive a call from/to.

This was working fine, but now, for the life of me, I cannot re-enable it. When I try to, it shows the message:

Wi-Fi Calling
To allow Wi-Fi calling on this account, contact EE.

So, as I'm asked to, I contacted EE and spoke to a guy in tech support. From the word go, it seemed like this was the first time he'd heard of this feature. He left me on hold and spoke to another team and came back and said that this feature has been removed due to fraud. He said that this feature was never even officially supported by EE. Note that this feature was announced on EE's media portal here.

There appears to be no correspondence from EE online to say that this feature has been decommissioned. On the contrary, EE's website still talks about how to use it, how to set it up on various devices and even lists what types of operating systems are supported.

I don't fully believe that this feature has been turned off. If it has, it's really annoying as it was a useful feature for me as I live in an area where phone signal is sometimes hard to find and I sometimes don't have my phone on me, but I'm usually connected to Wi-Fi. This feature was therefore something that pulled me to join EE.

Does anyone know what's going on with this feature? Is it working still? Has it officially been decommissioned? If so, is there some correspondence to back this up and when is the EE website going to be updated to stop misleading new customers to think that this is a supported feature?

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

Christopher_G — Thu, 30 Jul 2020 16:02:31 GMT

Hi @JoeN.

Welcome to the community.

As far as I'm aware, and that I can see, Smart Number is still an active service.

The guidance that I've found for setting it up says to make sure that you have all of the devices that you're looking to set up with you, connected to the same WiFi with Facetime set up on them too.

Then, on your iPhone, go to Settings > Phone > Calls on other devices (switch ON) > Then Add WiFi calling For Other Devices.

Is that where it's saying "To allow Wi-Fi calling on this account, contact EE"?

Chris

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

JoeN — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 10:24:07 GMT

Hi Chris, thanks for your reply.

The guidance that I've found for setting it up says to make sure that you have all of the devices that you're looking to set up with you, connected to the same WiFi with Facetime set up on them too.

I can confirm that I have all three devices on my desk; they're all connected to my home Wi-Fi network and they're all signed in to the same iCloud account in FaceTime.

Then, on your iPhone, go to Settings > Phone > Calls on other devices (switch ON) > Then Add WiFi calling For Other Devices.

Is that where it's saying "To allow Wi-Fi calling on this account, contact EE"?

Yep. When I try to toggle on "Add WiFi Calling For Other Devices", that's when I get the message below:

Thanks,

Joe

EDIT: For some reason my screenshots aren't displaying here. I was trying to confirm in the screenshots the option that I was enabling ("Add WiFi Calling For Other Devices") and the error message that's displayed ("To allow Wi-Fi calling on this account, contact EE").

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

Chris_B — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 10:25:00 GMT

@JoeN Sign out of all your devices then turn off and restart them, now sign back in to your all your devices. I had this usually week and this is how I sorted it.

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

JoeN — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 10:28:56 GMT

Thanks. I've already signed out of iCloud on my iPhone, then restarted it and then signed back in to iCloud, then restarted my iPhone again (for good measure) and still can't enable this option on the iPhone. I've not tried signing out of iCloud on the other devices, as the issue appears to be on the iPhone as that's where I can't turn this option on. I guess I could try it anyway...

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

Chris_B — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 10:31:53 GMT

@JoeN I might if even removed them from my Apple account. And then signed back in on them. ( sorry I just can not remember if that exactly what I did )

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

bristolian — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 11:55:30 GMT

@JoeN wrote:

EDIT: For some reason my screenshots aren't displaying here. I was trying to confirm in the screenshots the option that I was enabling ("Add WiFi Calling For Other Devices") and the error message that's displayed ("To allow Wi-Fi calling on this account, contact EE").

FYI images need to manually approved before they're publicly displayed. That should all be done now.

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

JoeN — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 12:27:59 GMT

@bristolian Thanks

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

JoeN — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 12:36:37 GMT

@Chris_B I've just done these steps, but I still get the same error:

Signed out of iCloud on all of my devices
Made sure that none of my devices were on my Apple account
Turned all devices off
Turned iPhone on
Signed in to iCloud on iPhone
Waited 2 mins
Enabled "Wi-Fi Calling on This iPhone"
At this point, the "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" option was not available -- it just didn't show up
I signed in to iCloud on one of my Macs
Waited 2 mins
On my iPhone, "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" was available, so I tried to turn it on, but I got the same error as previously posted.
I ensured that "Allow Calls on Other Devices" was switched on, and it was already on. I assume that when I signed in to iCloud on my Mac, FaceTime attempted to turn this on automatically. Note: This is the basic Wi-Fi calling feature where your phone has to be on and connected to the same network and not "Allow Calls on Other Devices".
I signed in to iCloud on another Mac and I'm still unable to re-enable "Allow Calls on Other Devices".

I've gone in to a bit of detail here, in a hope that it will help. Sorry if it's a bit too verbose...

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

Katie_B — Sun, 02 Aug 2020 06:43:29 GMT

Thanks for confirming @JoeNyland.

I have sent you a private message for more details.

Katie 🙂

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

JoeN — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 10:51:44 GMT

Someone from the social team contacted me about this and they put me in touch with an engineer who re-provisioned my account on the backend. Following that and another network reset on my end, this is now sorted. I can now make calls on my Macs over Wi-Fi using my EE number, even when my iPhone is out of power or just offline in some way.

The engineer I spoke to was a great help; if it wasn't for him, I'd still be scratching my head on this issue.

Thank you!

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

Leanne_T — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 11:10:44 GMT

Thanks for coming back and letting us know @JoeN

Have a lovely weekend.

Leanne.

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

Jack_Hennety — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 12:17:26 GMT

I am having an identical problem. 'Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices' cannot be enabled. When attempting to do so, error 'To allow Wi-Fi calling in this account, contact EE.' is thrown.

Wi-Fi Calling is already enabled successfully.

My wife's iPhone, also on EE, does not do this. It's enabled fine on hers.

How would one go about contacting an engineer?

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

Leanne_T — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 12:23:29 GMT

Hi @Jack_Hennety

Thanks for coming here.

If you get on touch with our Tech Gurus on 150, they will be able to get this looked into for you.

Leanne.

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

Jack_Hennety — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 20:05:56 GMT

Update, because it’ll be useful to someone somewhere.

I did ring 150 and while the agent I spoke to was very pleasant and very helpful, the advice she received when referring my query upwards was plain wrong. I said as much, which put her in an awkward position but she remained very helpful. I asked if I would be able to be called back by a tier 2, 3, 4 whatever agent but in order for that to happen, the agent needed to raise a complaint.

After she did, things improved greatly and I was put through to a support agent who did know exactly what this feature is and how to go about fixing it. I mentioned this thread and they agreed to immediately re-provision my account profile. They did warn me that though it could potentially fix the problem straight away, it could also take up to 24 hours to take effect.

Sure enough it didn’t have an immediate effect (even after a reboot), but around 5 hours later I tried another reboot and lo and behold, I could activate the feature successfully.

So thanks go out to the chap that helped me.

It’s clear that this is very much a niche feature that is not well understood by many EE staff. Anyone calling with this problem will have to contend with that. But they are receptive to suggestions and if you ask to email them this thread by way of explanation, you should get success eventually. It’s just a pity that it basically has to become a complaint before you can speak to the right person.

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

Katie_B — Sat, 08 Aug 2020 06:51:55 GMT

Hi @Jack_Hennety.

Thanks for coming back and letting us know.

I am happy to hear this has been resolved.

Have a great weekend,

Katie 🙂

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

djgee — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 16:30:51 GMT

Hi all,

Just wanted to share that I was experiencing this exact issue, and all I needed to do to fix it was reset network settings. Specifically, that's (in iOS 15):

Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Network Settings.

After this, the phone rebooted, then I was able to toggle on 'Add WiFi Calling For Other Devices' without issue. Note that resetting your network settings will clear any stored wi-fi network settings, so you'll need to re-enter those.

Re: Can't re-enable "Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices" after iPhone reset

Katie_B — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 07:47:41 GMT

Hi @djgee.

Thanks for coming to the community and sharing this with us.

Katie.