After rolling out its voice over WiFi service in Delhi-NCR earlier this month, Bharti Airtel Monday expanded the service to Mumbai, Kolkata, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu.
In yet another industry first, Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), India’s largest integrated telecommunications company, recently launched its voice over Wi-Fi service – ‘Airtel Wi-Fi Calling’. The technology is designed to enhance voice calling experience for Airtel smartphone customers, especially when they are indoors. With this service, customers with Wi-Fi at home or office will get excellent signal quality indoors. After rolling out its voice over WiFi service in Delhi-NCR earlier this month, Bharti Airtel has expanded the service to Mumbai, Kolkata, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu.
Airtel and Reliance Jio both were testing Wi-Fi calling for their subscribers. Airtel is now rolling out Wi-Fi calling for its prepaid and postpaid subscribers across India as part of the general availability of the feature. The Wi-Fi calling will let Airtel users make use of the Wi-Fi network in their homes to make calls using VoIP, instead of relying on cellular connectivity. This seems like a good feature, although the limit, for now, is that the feature is going to work only with Wi-Fi powered by Airtel Xstream Fiber and on select smartphones.
There will be no extra charge for calls made over ‘Airtel Wi-Fi Calling’ and the application consumes minimal data. The service is currently available to Airtel customers in Delhi NCR and will be gradually rolled out across India.
Airtel Wi-Fi Calling Features
This enables Airtel smartphone customers to switch seamlessly from LTE to Wi-Fi-based calling when they are inside their homes/offices. Customers can make voice calls from Airtel Wi-Fi Calling at no extra charge. Currently, this service is exclusively available in Delhi/NCR. Airtel has mentioned that it will be rolled out across the country in the coming days.
How to Activate Airtel Wi-Fi Calling
- Airtel Wi-Fi Calling does not require any app and can be configured on the smartphone
- Check smartphone compatibility on airtel.in/wifi-calling
- Upgrade device operating software to the latest version that supports Wi-Fi Calling*
- Go to Settings http://airtel.in/wifi-callingon your mobile phone and Switch On Wi-Fi Calling
- Keep VoLTE switched on as well for a seamless experience
Supported smartphones For Airtel Wi-Fi Calling
- Apple: All iPhone series starting 6s and above
- Xiaomi: Redmi K20, Redmi K20 Pro & POCO F1
- Samsung: J6, A10s, On6, M30s
- OnePlus: All models of OnePlus 7 Series
Having said that, Airtel is working with all leading smartphone brands to roll out compatibility with ‘Airtel Wi-Fi Calling’.
Supported Broadband for Airtel Wi-Fi Calling
The service is currently compatible with Airtel Xstream Fiber home broadband and will soon be compatible with all broadband services and Wi-Fi hotspots.
It is important to note that Airtel is not the only telecom provider working on Wi-Fi calling feature for its subscribers. Jio is also working on a similar feature and is expected to bring that to its users soon
