No Option to Prefer Wifi Calling

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Level 1

4 points

No Option to Prefer Wifi Calling

I have been working with our Corp iPhones on Verizon service with users that are in a building with little to no cellular service.

What we are finding is the users phones are preferring cellular over Wi-Fi calling when Wi-Fi signal is better than the cellular and the calls keep failing.

If force it to use Wi-Fi calling by turning on airplane mode phone goes over to Wi-Fi calling and all works but as soon as you turn that off the phone will slowly switch back over to Cellular.

We have over 100+ tickets now for this since I believe ios 17 came out and that the option to prefer one over the other has been removed.

So far only work around is to have users turn on airplane mode when in the building. But that really isn't a good long term fix or solution. And everything I see Apple says this should work but in our case it is not.

Has anyone else seen this?

iPhone 16 Pro, iOS 18

Posted on Sep 3, 2025 12:53 PM

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Answer 1

brbo

Level 8

38,431 points

Sep 7, 2025 7:54 PM in response to Clarkie86

Re: No Option to Prefer Wifi Calling

Seems Apple Support's online article helps to set things up so Wi-fi Calling is mainly in operation

Make a call with Wi-Fi Calling - Apple Support

Also: If you haven't seen and used it already:

"You can use Wi-Fi Assist with most apps, including Safari, Apple Music, Mail, Maps and more."

Apple support's online article has some tips, and amongst them is info. on turning wi-fi assist on or off::

About Wi-Fi Assist - Apple Support

Eg: says:

"Turn Wi-Fi Assist on or off

Wi-Fi Assist is turned on by default. If you don’t want your iOS device to stay connected to the internet when you have a poor Wi-Fi connection, you can turn off Wi-Fi Assist.

Go to Settings > Cellular or Settings > Mobile Data. Then scroll down and tap the slider for Wi-Fi Assist."

and says:

"Learn more

Wi-Fi Assist won’t automatically switch to mobile data if you’re roaming.
Wi-Fi Assist will only work when you have apps running in the foreground and won’t be activated with background downloading of content.
Wi-Fi Assist won’t be activated with some third-party apps that stream audio or video or download attachments, for example an email app, as they may use large amounts of data.

There's more info. in the above linked article itself.

___________________________

Re: Has anyone else seen this?

As we are all Apple users, like yourself, in this community, no-one here has access to feedback on issues sent to Apple. So, if no-one replies to you directly here, we have no way of knowing for sure.

Apple's feedback website: Product Feedback - Apple

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