While over-the-top, or OTT, services such as Skype and FaceTime have offered Wi-Fi calls for a few time, they don’t have to face all of the same FCC restrictions and regulations applied to carriers.
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If Verizon can get its waiver, then it will be able to support “true” Wi-Fi calling-iOS and Android devices would both be able to make calls over Wi-Fi through their native dialers, rather than needing a supplemental app to do so. Because the technology is so old, it does not work well with Wi-Fi. The FCC has not seen fit to punish the two operators, while it has given AT&T until December 31st 2017 to offer Wi-Fi calling while a replacement for TTY (called RTT) is being tested. As such, AT&T gleefully threw Sprint and T-Mobile under the bus by claiming that neither had applied for such permission.
In the Friday filing, Verizon requested the “prompt approval” of “a waiver of any applicable TTY-related requirements for its IP-enabled wireless services identical to and subject to the same conditions as the waiver recently granted to AT&T”. The nation’s largest carrier added that it is asking for one ” out of an abundance of caution”. To make matters worse, according to AT&T, the FCC was taking months to approve the carrier’s outstanding petition to the FCC.
Wi-Fi calling – the iPhone feature Apple introduced in iOS 8 – is a really handy feature, routing phone calls over Wi-Fi when the mobile signal is poor or non-existent.
Verizon pledged to meet the same conditions established in AT&T’s waiver, namely to inform affected customers that VoIP and WiFi calling do not support TTY calls to emergency services, and to provide them with alternative means of reaching them.
Verizon plans to research and deploy RTT (real-time text) technology, a successor to TTY.
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For Verizon, that’s likely coming in the form of RTT, or real-time text, reports FierceWireless, which says that AT&T’s waiver expires at the end of 2017. AT&T asked the FCC to grant it a waiver to switch on the service, and now Verizon has done the same.
