How Wi-Fi calling can save you money
You might not have noticed, but you聽already have聽a cell tower installed in your house. It just looks suspiciously like your Wi-Fi router.
This year,聽聽in number of minutes of use, according to a recent report by Cisco Systems Inc.聽Cisco predicts that by 2020, Wi-Fi calling will make up more than half of all data-based voice calling.
T-Mobile started letting customers route calls through Wi-Fi way back in 2007. And now that Verizon has added the feature, every member of the Big Four provides聽some form of Wi-Fi calling on some phones. A few smaller carriers, including聽听补苍诲听, are championing a 鈥淲i-Fi first鈥� model that routes as much cellular use through Wi-Fi as possible.
Wi-Fi calling will soon be an important聽part of mobile service, and it can save some customers big money.
What is Wi-Fi calling?
It鈥檚 exactly what聽it sounds like.
When you place a Wi-Fi call, it鈥檚 picked up by your current Wi-Fi network, instead of a nearby cell tower. If you have the feature enabled on your phone, any call you make should be routed through Wi-Fi automatically; there鈥檚 no special button to press or program to use.
The advantages of Wi-Fi calling
For customers, Wi-Fi calling聽can mean better service in places where it鈥檚 usually spotty, such as聽rural areas, certain buildings and basements.聽It聽can be a plus for international travelers, as most carriers allow free Wi-Fi calling and texting back to the U.S. with no pricey聽roaming charges.
For carriers, it means a reduced load on their network hardware.
For these reasons, Lynnette Luna, an industry analyst with Current Analysis, says Wi-Fi will become an integral part of future cellular coverage. 鈥淲e will see Wi-Fi be just another part of the 5G network as users seamlessly move in between the two,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hat may also happen in the 4G world down the road.鈥�
鈥榃i-Fi first鈥�
Some smaller carriers are leveraging Wi-Fi calling to save their customers money. So-called 鈥淲i-Fi first鈥� carriers like Republic Wireless and Google鈥檚 Project Fi keep customers on Wi-Fi for as long as possible, falling back on cell towers only when absolutely necessary.
The transition is meant to be seamless, but customers sometimes聽complain about聽dropped called during the switch.
Project Fi was only recently released to the public, but Republic Wireless has been doing Wi-Fi first since 2011. The company inspires passion: Republic took first place out of 13 prepaid carriers in a recent Consumer Reports customer satisfaction survey.
James Boggs, a Republic customer of two years in Fowler, Ohio, switched to the carrier from Verizon. 鈥淸Verizon] had amazing service, but when your bill hits $300 a month for five lines, and data is extra, it鈥檚 time to switch,鈥� he says.
Verizon鈥檚 service was great, Boggs adds, in all but聽one place: his house. 鈥淚 can actually make phone calls inside my house again with Wi-Fi calling,鈥� he says.
Boggs says he now pays around $12 per month for a single line on Republic. The company says its average customer pays $13.83 per month.
The drawbacks
Wi-Fi-first calling isn鈥檛 for everyone, though.聽In addition to complaints that calls are dropped when transitioning from Wi-Fi to cellular,聽.聽Some users report delays in conversations conducted over Wi-Fi, and call quality may also suffer if many people are piling on to the same hotspot.
Heavy data users and frequent streamers are better off with other arrangements as well.
Republic and Project Fi have聽similar pricing structures, in which聽customers pay a low monthly rate for聽unlimited talk and text and a flat rate for only the data they use. (If you don鈥檛 use all your data in a month, you鈥檙e refunded the balance.) Republic costs $10 per month, with data at $15 per gigabyte. That鈥檚 unlimited talk and text with 1GB of data for $25 per month. No other聽. However, if you use聽4GB of data per month, Republic will cost you $70. The same amount of data costs $40 per month from聽.
Both carriers come with limited phone selection as well, though Republic Wireless is upping its roster from two Android phones to 11 this month. Project Fi currently allows only the Nexus 5X and the Nexus 6P.
Is Wi-Fi calling right for you?
If you鈥檙e already on a Big Four carrier and don鈥檛 get good service in your home or office, put your router to work. Contact your carrier to find out whether Wi-Fi calling can be activated on your phone.
If price is your biggest consideration when choosing a cell plan and you鈥檙e not a heavy data user, Wi-Fi-first carriers are definitely worth a look 鈥� as long as you鈥檙e OK with a limited phone selection and some potential technological hiccups.
Stephen Layton聽is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email:聽slayton@nerdwallet.com.
This article first appeared at .
