The long awaited rollout of the Nougat update for the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge has kickstarted a new service for Telstra, with the ability to make and receive calls over Wi-Fi.
VoWiFi on Telstra first showed up back in November, but has officially now launched with the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, as well as Samsung S6 and S6 Edge which are just the first phones to support the service.
Telstra Director for Device Management, Andrew Volard says that it will extend to more handsets in the future
Within the year we’re going to see native Wi-Fi calling extend to even more Australians, as it becomes a standard feature for new smartphone devices and as the technology is rolled-out with smartphone operating software updates.
Wi-Fi calling allows customers to transfer calls without interruption from the Telstra 4G network to Wi-Fi seamlessly. The calls can even use the Telstra Air Wi-Fi hotspots around Australia if required, a handy feature for anyone in poor reception areas. Telstra has said on their FAQ that ‘Data consumed over your Telstra Home Broadband Wi-Fi connection is unmetered’ – though if you use another provider this will affect your monthly download limit.
Calls are made in HD quality and are secured using SHA2 encryption so there’s good news there, however sending SMS/MMS is unfortunately not supported whilst Wi-Fi Calling.
The Nougat update is heading out to Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge owners over the next week, while Galaxy S6 and S6 edge owners are able to use it with the latest update on Marshmallow according to the Telstra update site.
If you’ve been in a relatively poor reception area you can now use your WiFi to help you out of a jam, and best of all that data isn’t metered…at least on a Telstra broadband connection.
