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WiFi Calling

macpiper

By macpiper,
in Princess Cruises

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MissP22

MissP22

Posted
Posted
30 minutes ago, Userclown said:

Still cannot understand why my wifi calling works on every wifi system I have ever connected to but will not work on Princess! Anybody have an idea?

 

I received a call on the ship ( I have WhatsApp) from a friend who has VOIP and doesn't have WhatsApp without any charges. My android phone was always in airplane mode with data turned on.

My assumption is that there are no charges since his phone & mine are communicating over Wi-Fi. 

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Userclown

Userclown

Posted
Posted

Funny! We are on Pine Island, small world. My IPhone 8 works fine everywhere in the world except Princess. Like I said before, I would get wifi calling for a few minutes very early in the morning some times. Nobody to call at that hour so it does me no good. It’s a conundrum for sure.

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Mflem1278

Mflem1278

Posted
Posted (edited)

I used a Samsung Z Flip phone back in January for Wi-Fi calling on the ship in the Caribbean. I have a small local company (from SW Iowa) as a carrier.  So I don't have AT&T or Verizon or anyone like that.  It worked perfectly.  And my husband called me several times from Iowa and it picked up everytime.  I did have PRINCESS PLUS so I left the phone on most of the time.  PS - the lady at our local phone company office set up the WI-FI calling for me when I purchased the phone. 

Edited by Mflem1278
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  • 3 months later...
Loveh2ofl

Loveh2ofl

Posted
Posted
8 minutes ago, rjack22 said:

I too am interested in wifi calling onboard.   Sounds like it will work.   What about texting?   Does that work through wifi?    I am not interested in installing Whatsapp.

My husband has verizon prepaid - wifi calling (and texting) worked for him;  I have att prepaid - while wifi calling works ashore was never able to get it to work on Princess.  Both of our phones, obviously, support wifi calling.  A family member on ATT postpaid was unable to get wifi calling to work aboard either.  I too do not want to install whatsapp.  I would like zoom mtgs to work however - haven't tried.

 

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MissP22

MissP22

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Loveh2ofl said:

My husband has verizon prepaid - wifi calling (and texting) worked for him;  I have att prepaid - while wifi calling works ashore was never able to get it to work on Princess.  Both of our phones, obviously, support wifi calling.  A family member on ATT postpaid was unable to get wifi calling to work aboard either.  I too do not want to install whatsapp.  I would like zoom mtgs to work however - haven't tried.

 

Zoom works without WhatsApp installed but I don't know about calling another phone on the ship. I do know that their texting between phones isn't worth the time since you don't get any audible tone to let you know you have a message. Hence the WhatsApp app. 

I installed it last cruise & haven't used it since. 

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NavyVeteran

NavyVeteran

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, rjack22 said:

I too am interested in wifi calling onboard.   Sounds like it will work.   What about texting?   Does that work through wifi?    I am not interested in installing Whatsapp.

Texting will work from an iPhone to another iPhone, since iPhone uses iMessage to send texts, and iMessage uses data - not text. I don't know about texts between an iPhone and an Android or between two Androids.

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Loveh2ofl

Loveh2ofl

Posted
Posted
20 minutes ago, NavyVeteran said:

Texting will work from an iPhone to another iPhone, since iPhone uses iMessage to send texts, and iMessage uses data - not text. I don't know about texts between an iPhone and an Android or between two Androids.

Well my husband and I are using android phones.  I-phone didn't work either for my relative.

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Charles4515

Charles4515

Posted
Posted (edited)
11 minutes ago, Loveh2ofl said:

Well my husband and I are using android phones.  I-phone didn't work either for my relative.

Texting on WiFi calling has worked every time for me with my iPhone and that has been a whole lot of cruises. There are some Android phones that some carriers have not enabled WiFi calling for.

Edited by Charles4515
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konatyme

konatyme

Posted
Posted

We have Samsung Galaxy S21s and Verizon. Verizon told me that we should be able to put phones in airplane mode, then turn Wi-Fi on (on the phones), and  then enter the code/password that Princess gives us for using our Wi-Fi package, and it should work. We are not "smart phone- smart" and have only had smartphones for about a year, so we'll see what happens!

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Loveh2ofl

Loveh2ofl

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, konatyme said:

We have Samsung Galaxy S21s and Verizon. Verizon told me that we should be able to put phones in airplane mode, then turn Wi-Fi on (on the phones), and  then enter the code/password that Princess gives us for using our Wi-Fi package, and it should work. We are not "smart phone- smart" and have only had smartphones for about a year, so we'll see what happens!

I'm sure you'll be fine since Verizon worked on my husband's galaxy phone doing exactly as you describe.

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UT-Volsfan

UT-Volsfan

Posted
Posted

For texting it depends which app you are using.  The default Messages app on our Verizon S10 phones would not work onboard, but we switched to the Message+app and got them able to work when we connected to the ship's wifi without further issues.

 

As far as using our phones for Wifi calling, it was hit or miss using our phones. Sometimes we would get calls, but making calls was more difficult.  Finally installed a Wifi calling app (Talkatone) instead of the built-in settings on our phones, and did not have trouble making calls on board. It does not use your cell phone number (it gives you a different number) which is the biggest issue using it.

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SiliconCruiser

SiliconCruiser

Posted
Posted

I had no problems using Wi-Fi for phone calls, though most of the people I know tend to text rather than call (mostly old folks too!)  My wife called a couple of times to find out where I was, and then there was a call concerning the extended warranty on my car ...

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Loveh2ofl

Loveh2ofl

Posted
Posted
39 minutes ago, SiliconCruiser said:

I had no problems using Wi-Fi for phone calls, though most of the people I know tend to text rather than call (mostly old folks too!)  My wife called a couple of times to find out where I was, and then there was a call concerning the extended warranty on my car ...

Who is your wireless provider and android or i-phone?

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SiliconCruiser

SiliconCruiser

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, wec931 said:

WIFi calling is hit or miss. On my cruise in 2019 we had a strong signal. We were able to call and receive calls. A cruise I took in July 2022 had terrible signal and WIFi calling did not work

The receivers on ships depend upon satellite communications, so the closer the ship is to the equator, the greater your chance for decent reception.  People should not expect the Giga-bit bandwidth they might get at home, so if they don't plan on Zoom meetings or streaming video content, they're less likely to be disappointed.  But it is still faster than modems, and at times might be close to highly throttled (slowed) DSL speeds.   I measured .3 mbps the time that bothered to check the speed.

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MissP22

MissP22

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, NavyVeteran said:

Texting will work from an iPhone to another iPhone, since iPhone uses iMessage to send texts, and iMessage uses data - not text. I don't know about texts between an iPhone and an Android or between two Androids.

Does your iPhone give you an audible alert when receiving a text message on the ship ? 

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MissP22

MissP22

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

The same alerts and rings you get at home.

 

 

Thanks.

With my old android phone I could test message but wouldn't receive any audible indications, so I started using WhatsApp for messaging & calling. 

It appears that their system lets everyone use their phones with the same features they have at home.

 

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mjmalino

mjmalino

Posted
Posted
18 hours ago, rjack22 said:

I too am interested in wifi calling onboard.   Sounds like it will work.   What about texting?   Does that work through wifi?    I am not interested in installing Whatsapp.

We have android phones (google Pixel's) and had not issues with using the wifi calling for either calls or texts

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