My wife works in a large building and cannot seem to get proper connection inside. She has to often restart her phone for it to work. Earlier this year, someone told me that this is because the type of signal Tmo uses. He also said that Tmo was going to install a different type of network that will reach inside large buildings. Is this true and if so what is the status of this?

The higher the frequency, the most difficult it is for the signal to penetrate buildings and travel far distances. T-Mobile uses 1700/1900/2100 MHz for most of their network. T-Mobile purchased a large chunk of 700MHz spectrum to be used on their network, which will greatly help for rural access and in buildings. Not sure if that includes the DFW area.

Unfortunately, most T-Mobile phones won't have the 700 MHz (IIRC, LTE band 12) frequency except the absolute newest ones.

The 700 MHz frequency won't go live until late 2014 or early 2015.

If your wife can connect to a wifi network inside the building, she can utilize WiFi calling if her phone has it.

On the other hand, tower placement and spacing matter a lot more than the frequency used.

If your wife's phone supports T-mobile's wifi calling, she should be sure to turn that on and connect to wifi.

The iPhone doesn't support wifi calling but I believe iOS 8 will introduce the feature. Carriers will have to do something on their backends to enable it, so I wouldn't expect it right away.

We got the phone from ATT, so can't do wifi calling.

If I buy a Tmo phone and then go elsewhere, can I use the wifi calling?

WiFi Calling on iOS 8 is only available on T-Mobile in the US and EE in the UK.

No, the carrier has to support it. I believe T-mobile's protocol is a standard one called UMA, so any carrier that supports UMA calling should work. In the US, Tmo is the only one.

If you wait till the apple event is over shortly, there should be an update on iOS8 and wifi calling. Hoping it covers not just TMO but other networks????


PS - ignore my comment, looks like U2 is closing the event and only 6 and iWatch announced this time around.....

Have a Galaxy S2.

They did a brief segway during the iPhone 6 announcement to talk about iOS 8, with an even briefer blurb about WiFi Calling.

I thought TMO was mving away from UMA? (Note that it's now an industry standard -- but renamed to GAN for "Generic Access Network")

I don't know all the tekkie details but you are right. TMO no longer uses the older UMA technology and migrated to another wifi calling platform. That is why they coin it WiFi calling these days whereas in the past it was called UMA.

Essentially accomplishes the same thing but not necessarily with the hardware requirements. I think that is why iOS 8 with wifi calling will work on current iphone 5s models [i hope ]

I believe the word you're looking for is segu�. Segway is "a two-wheeled motorized personal vehicle consisting of a platform for the feet mounted above an axle and an upright post surmounted by handles."

Not that it's a huge deal, but the iP6 still doesn't support 700MHz Band 12 Block A. Bad news for those inside buildings and rural customers looking for future coverage. Perhaps in a future update.

I upgraded my wife's iPhone to iOS 8 (GM seed) last night. We switched to T-Mo about 2 months ago when VZW's announced "network optimization" policy was targeted at Grandfathered Unlimited customers like my 5 lines were.

For the most part T-Mo has been great. We are in the STL suburbs and their coverage certainly is not as robust as Big Red, but when they do have good coverage, my LTE speed tests on my Note 3 indicate it is faster, which really shocked me. Plus, the monthly cost for the service is lower than it was with VZW.

However, the coverage and call quality experience for my wife has been mixed while she was on iOS 7 with her new 5s. Their signal is pretty lackluster in our subdivision, and we had to get a cell booster unit from them (free of charge). That did help some indoors, but it is the older model, and applies only to voice and HSPA, and not LTE.

WiFi calling for me on the Note 3 has been fantastic. The call quality is way better than typical, and almost HD-like. I also know that T-Mo supports VoLTE under certain circumstances, also providing superior performance when off of WiFi. But, remember this applies not only to T-Mo at this time, but also to devices they sell with their firmware image. You cannot, for example, bring an AT&T GSM Android device to T-Mo and expect to get WiFi calling to work.

As of right now, on iOS, Wifi calling is only supported on the 5s and 6 running iOS 8 or later, and on T-Mobile. I don't think the other carriers have worked out the support yet with Apple, but I would be surprised if wasn't.

I forgot to add a couple of things:

1. The WiFi calling is great, but if you find yourself in an environment where there are restrictions on the availability of the WiFi to a personal device (such as in my office) it may not be a huge help when the providers own signal cannot penetrate the building well. Nothing frosts me more than people that just blindly assume that "free" WiFi (without restrictions) is as ubiquitous as water.

2. Starting 9/17, T-Mo will be offering Personal Cellspot devices (think Home WiFi Router) that will augment WiFi calling performance substantially.