Thanks @Three_Shane1. I'm glad to hear that wifi calling is imminent. Three UK has offered wifi calling since 2017. I am a customer also of Three UK in addition to Three Ireland, so I can give an insight as to what it's like.
Given that it is usually possible to choose one’s location at the time of making a call, but difficult to choose one’s location at the time of receiving a call, I find that wifi calling is much more useful for receiving calls rather than making calls. I find that wifi calling massively reduces battery drain on standby because my phone connects to Three via nearby wifi instead of via a much more distant mobile transmitter.
Three UK's implementation of wifi calling has an extremely annoying deliberate restriction, which I hope Three Ireland will not replicate. Although wifi calling naturally functions worldwide and is agnostic to location because it is IP-based, Three UK deliberately blocks its wifi calling servers from being accessed from IP addresses that it perceives, correctly or incorrectly, as being outside the UK. This has two adverse impacts:
If you are underground or otherwise out of mobile coverage while abroad, then you can't make or receive calls at all, despite being connected to wifi.
Three UK misidentifies IP addresses that are physically in the UK as being outside the UK, and it blocks those IP addresses. This happens, for example, when a multinational business is based abroad but allocates IP addresses to local offices around the world. Even though IP geolocating services identify the IP address as being physically in the UK, Three UK instead looks up the non-UK postal address of the owner of the IP address and blocks it. This means that UK employees working in a UK office can't use wifi calling while at work, which causes missed incoming calls, broken speech and increased battery drain. In contrast, the other UK networks that similarly block non-UK IP addresses don't seem to suffer this problem.
Three Ireland, please don't copy Three UK by geo-blocking non-Irish IP addresses. This would avoidably cause a terrible user experience for customers in Ireland, and would result for example in customers being unable to receive calls via wifi in a large building in Belfast despite being able to do so in Dublin. The user experience should be as consistent as possible throughout the island of Ireland.
@NFH Glad to see you're able to login again 😊 Thanks for giving your perspective on Three UK's WiFi calling service. I'll pass along your feedback as there are some great points made.
Is there an ETA on when testing will be done? I prefer Three over Vodafone when it comes to mobile data as three seems to be much more reliable and faster but a lack of VoLTE is a deal breaker. I’m alright without wi-fi calling as long as there’s coverage but VoLTE is a must. I’m happy to hear that it’s final stages but a time frame would be nice. I appreciate the work being done just looking forward to the release
@Krzysztof_02940 currently we don't have a exact timeframe for when the testing will be finished. As with any testing we need to make sure no new issues appear that could further delay the launch. As soon as there is any new information regarding a launch date I'll be sure to let you all know.
Are there still plans to introduce VoLTE as well especially if the 3G network is being shut down next year as rumoured - I haven't seen any updates on this as everything seems to have been about WiFi Calling
@pizzahead77 Not to worry we're working on both WiFi Calling and VoLTE at the same time. Keep your 👀 on this board as we'll have some news in the next week with an update on WiFi Calling and VoLTE.
There have been articles talking about Three UK retiring their 3G service. We don't have any plans to retire our 3G service.
