Disclaimer - this is one possible solution, for a specific scenario. This post does not aim to resolve all possible WiFi Calling issues.
Posting this here for people who have been trying to resolve issues with WiFi calling not working on Airtel, it took me a really long while to figure this out.
Problem: Handset is configured correctly for WiFi Calling, have Airtel v-fiber/Xstream broadband at home. Handset does not show the VoWiFi icon at home, but shows the icon when I visit a friend. ViWiFi does not work over my own Airtel home broadband, but works with someone else's Airtel broadband.
Solution TL;DR: Check router DNS settings
Details:
VoWiFi was launched and I was could enable the settiing on my iPhone 7, however the VoWiFi indication (network name changes to AirTel WiFi on an iPhone) never showed up on my mobile handset. In the interim, i visited a friend who has AirTel broadband too, and on connecting to his home internet, VoWiFi showed up as active. Did my research online, found that my home router might not be allowing traffic on UDP ports 4500 and port 500. Experimented with my router, set up port forwarding rules, and still couldnt get WiFi calling to work. Called Airtel moble customer care and Airtel broadband customer care, got passed from department to department with no luck, spent several minutes on multiple occasions with customer care and got fed up. Was told by customer care executives that there is no option on their CRM software to register complaints for WiFi calling, they remotely checked my router and found everything to be set up correctly too.
The Solution:
Randomly while browsing forums where people reported such issues with T-Mobile and Verizon, I chanced upon a post which set my head ticking. I remember having changed the DNS servers configured on the home router a few years ago. I had changed the primary and secondary DNS servers from the default Airtel provided DNS server addresses to Google DNS (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4). I called up customer care, got Airtel's primary and secondary DNS server addresses for vFiber in New Delhi (202.56.215.54, 202.56.215.55) restarted my router, disabled and re-enabled Wifi calling on my mobile phone and restarted that too for good measure..
.... and voila VoWiFi!!
I guess for this particular scenario, the issue would be automatically resolved when Airtel opens up WiFi calling to other ISPs because apparently as of now in my area only their own DNS servers are able to look up the Wifi Calling servers. Hope this post helps someone else too.
Posting this here for people who have been trying to resolve issues with WiFi calling not working on Airtel, it took me a really long while to figure this out.
Problem: Handset is configured correctly for WiFi Calling, have Airtel v-fiber/Xstream broadband at home. Handset does not show the VoWiFi icon at home, but shows the icon when I visit a friend. ViWiFi does not work over my own Airtel home broadband, but works with someone else's Airtel broadband.
Solution TL;DR: Check router DNS settings
Details:
VoWiFi was launched and I was could enable the settiing on my iPhone 7, however the VoWiFi indication (network name changes to AirTel WiFi on an iPhone) never showed up on my mobile handset. In the interim, i visited a friend who has AirTel broadband too, and on connecting to his home internet, VoWiFi showed up as active. Did my research online, found that my home router might not be allowing traffic on UDP ports 4500 and port 500. Experimented with my router, set up port forwarding rules, and still couldnt get WiFi calling to work. Called Airtel moble customer care and Airtel broadband customer care, got passed from department to department with no luck, spent several minutes on multiple occasions with customer care and got fed up. Was told by customer care executives that there is no option on their CRM software to register complaints for WiFi calling, they remotely checked my router and found everything to be set up correctly too.
The Solution:
Randomly while browsing forums where people reported such issues with T-Mobile and Verizon, I chanced upon a post which set my head ticking. I remember having changed the DNS servers configured on the home router a few years ago. I had changed the primary and secondary DNS servers from the default Airtel provided DNS server addresses to Google DNS (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4). I called up customer care, got Airtel's primary and secondary DNS server addresses for vFiber in New Delhi (202.56.215.54, 202.56.215.55) restarted my router, disabled and re-enabled Wifi calling on my mobile phone and restarted that too for good measure..
.... and voila VoWiFi!!
I guess for this particular scenario, the issue would be automatically resolved when Airtel opens up WiFi calling to other ISPs because apparently as of now in my area only their own DNS servers are able to look up the Wifi Calling servers. Hope this post helps someone else too.
