Why is Vodafone's wifi calling so difficult?

[voda89]

We've just bought 3x Samsung S20 FE 5G's, put the EE sim in one and wifi calling instantly works, the other two are going on Vodafone and Asda Mobile (also vodafone) and neither have wifi calling. Why can't you just make it seemless like EE manage to do? Or at least have a webpage where we can enter our number to get the APN and OTA Wifi calling settings sent to us, this used to be a thing 15+ years ago so why isn't it now?

I know I can go through a convoluted process with vodafone support to get it sent to me as I had to do it a few months ago after I reset my Mate 20 Pro, but why is it needed? Also will Asda support be able to do it or would vodafone do it on their behalf? If you google S20 FE Wifi calling loads of the google results are people on vodafone/asda having issues, not a good look at all for the network.

Thanks

[BandOfBrothers]

I totally understand and appreciate your viewpoint on this @voda89 

Sometimes we see a post from a person with an issue which maybe due to Vodafones statement found here https://www.vodafone.co.uk/network/calling-features/wi-fi-calling that state's  " All these phones support both WiFi and 4G Calling when bought from us. Please note that phones bought from other UK network providers and third parties are unlikely to support Vodafone WiFi and 4G Calling – with the exception of iPhones, which should work regardless " 

But then we see people who like you have purchased their phone's elsewhere where either it just works from the GetGo or a person asks Vodafone Support to send the OTA which then usually means it may work.

The above statement from Vodafone has been on their page for sometime but I do think for a better customer journey they could look at letting the service just work or allow a better support option than having to contact support in hope they get an agent who has the applicable knowledge to know how and which OTA ' over the air configuration  ' to send.

It could be down to other phone's with android software because they are open sourced have their own flavour of software in them, and like with Samsung phone's they also have their own CsC in them which may affect how some services behave.

iPhones being the exception as their software cannot be altered by anyone other than Apple so theirs not as many flavours of iOS for Vodafone to test and know features work, which is probably why they show them as an exception in the above statement.

I wish you all the best. Take care.  😎 

[hrym]

FWIW, my wife's phone is a Sony L3 which was bought SIM free and received wifi calling out of the box.   It looks as though most devices on the approved list will work regardless of where you buy them.   Some people have also reported success with getting the settings sent for a similar (approved) device in the same model range - ie running the same version of the OS.

[voda89]

We did get the settings in the end, but Asda took 10 days, Vodafone got it working fairly quickly, but it had to be done for each sim and wasn't blanket applied to the phone. The family member decided against the first tariff they ordered so it was cancelled and they were told to order another, which they did, but that had no wifi calling until calls to vodafone again. It really should be just enabled by default and the config automatically sent to new devices on connection like used to happen in the old days, we've gone backwards in that regard. Ironically I put my sim card in an old sony dumbphone the other day and vodafone immediately text the config settings for the phone to accept and save, yet in a smart phone you just get a text to a webpage to manually do it yourself.