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

[JoeN]

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?

[JoeN]

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!

[Leanne_T]

Thanks for coming back and letting us know @JoeN

Have a lovely weekend.

Leanne.

[Jack_Hennety]

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?

[Leanne_T]

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.

[Jack_Hennety]

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.

[Katie_B]

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 🙂

[djgee]

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.

[Katie_B]

Hi @djgee. 

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

Katie.