Vodafone UK Finally Starts to Add SMS Support to WiFi Calling

It’s been a long.. time coming, but Vodafone has now confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that they’ve finally started to add the ability to send and receive text (SMS) messages via Wi-Fi Calling, which is important news for those who no longer have the option of using a femtocell based Sure Signal (3G) router. Just O2 left to go.

The Sure Signal (v3) is a small device that plugs into a fixed line broadband ISP network (minimum speed required of 1Mbps), which enables it to harness your home internet connection to boost an indoor 3G mobile signal using the 2100MHz band. Such devices have been useful for people who live in locations with either a weak indoor mobile signal or no signal at all, but sadly Vodafone stopped selling them on 30th April 2020.

Instead, the operator has been busy promoting the use of Wi-Fi Calling (VoWiFi), which has been available for several years and enables consumers with a supporting Smartphone to harness their home WiFi connection in order to make mobile voice calls.

The catch is that, until now, Vodafone hasn’t been able to add SMS support to Wi-Fi Calling like EE and Three UK – despite promising it since 2018, which created a problem for those whose main alternative would have been the retired Sure Signal kit. We raised this issue last year (here) and the operator informed us that they aimed to add support by the end of 2020. In fairness, it’s a complex feature to implement and requires a lot of testing.

However, over the past couple of weeks, we have begun to receive reports of SMS starting to work via Vodafone’s Wi-Fi Calling feature, most particularly following the recent iOS v14.3 update to Apple’s modern iPhones. Some Android phones running v11 of the operating system have also reported success and the operator has now confirmed this.

A Spokesperson for Vodafone told ISPreview.co.uk:

“I can confirm, we do now support SMS over Wi-Fi. Since December, it has been enabled on Apple devices supporting iOS 14 (iPhone 6S and above), on Google Pixel 3 (and above), and is being delivered to Samsung devices supporting Android 11 (with the feature being added as part of the Android update).

We will be working with other manufacturers to bring the feature to additional devices where support is available as we proceed through the year.”

The news makes for a welcome start to 2021 as many services use SMS as part of two-factor authentication (e.g. banks, Vodafone’s own account system etc.) and a lot of those don’t work with alternatives like WhatsApp or Apple’s iMessage (many people still don’t use those platforms in general). Obviously, it will still take time to reach more devices, but this is still a good start.

Meanwhile Vodafone has begun informing Sure Signal customers that they’ll be “retiring Sure Signal from our network throughout 2021 and will switch the service off completely in September 2021” (here). We believe this will occur in phases (customers will be given 60 days’ notice), with some devices being disabled as soon as next month. “This means you won’t be able to use Sure Signal anymore, or register a device to use it,” said Vodafone.

Now spare a thought for those on O2, which is now the only primary mobile operator lacking SMS support via Wi-Fi Calling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCSTri-Q08k