Wifi calling on Note 9

[NozMaximus]

I bought a Note 9 from Samsung a month ago and have been trying to get Wifi Calling to work, but to no avail.  Doesn't look like the Note 9 is listed on Fido's site on list of Samsung devices supporting Wifi Calling.  And at Step 3 "Click here to regiter for Wi-Fi Calling or to update your existing Emergency Address", it takes me a page indicating my device is not supported.

This device is 3 months old now, when should I expect this to be an officially supported device?

[Zxaz]

Nozmaximus....dont lose your time on phone for any help!!  here the true in your case

first..your phone is fully supported!!  i didn"t personally read anywhere that rogers/fido now support phone they didn"t sell

so..your problem is that your phone imei is not registered on their rolleyes system...since your phone is not registered...volte/wi-fi calling just dont work...in fact your phone is simply blocked from these feature...here"s the problem,  the customer service are not allowed to register your phone (imei) in their system..because of the rogers/fido politic...

so to make a long story short....to have these feature you gonna have to change your provider!!!  i personally experienced with 3 other provider...and all of them will give you these feature without any king of problem!!

so your the judge....

[NozMaximus]

Finally sorted this out and got it working, all thanks to a friend that works for... well, one of the other carriers.  Explained my problem to him, and he had a hunch as to what might be causing my problem.  His hunch was my phone wasn't provisioned properly when I first turned on my phone with the Fido sim in it (most likely due to provisioning it at home where have very little to no reception).

Most recent update of Note 9 Firmware supports re-provisioning to any carrier on the fly without having to hard reset anything.  He recommended that I simply get another carrier's SIM card.  Put it in my phone.  Turn it on.  Wait a bit.  Make a call or two.  Remove it.  Put my own sim back in.

Well I asked a co-worker for their Roger's SIM for 5 mins.  Shut my phone down.  Popped in SIM.  Turned phone on.  Made couple of calls.  Shut phone down again.  Turned own phone back on.  1st thing I noticed was when I made a call with my own sim, VoLTE was now working.  I also got a weird "HD" symbol when making phone calls.  Don't know what HD calling is.  Anyways.  Then I hopped on the WiFi at work and tried to enable WiFi Calling.  Worked like charm.  Worked at home too when I got home in the evening.

Long story short, just putting this out there because it might help someone.  Your Unlocked phones may no provision properly if you insert your sim card into your new phone for the first time in an area that doesn't have good reception.

Good luck folks.

PS. This re-provisioning is a new feature that is only a few months old.  So you need to make sure you have the most recent FW update for your phone.  Without this, the phone needs to be wiped, (not just factory reset), but wiped of provisioning data as well, that is not exactly easy.

[danthemanx]

Hi @NozMaximus I don't think that is entirely true. It's true that if you put someone else's SIM for a while it will provision IMS services which will let you use VoLTE and Wifi Calling but I've tried this in the past and it only works temporarily. Meaning after 10-15 minutes of putting your real SIM back in your phone, the network will end up deactivating these features again.

I've tested this many times before and it always deactivates VoLTE and Wifi calling again after a certain period.

[NozMaximus]

There's two factors involved.

1.  Did you use a sim from a different carrier?

2.  What firmware was your phone running?  This re-provisioning feature has only come about within the last couple of months.  Before that, there was a crazy dance of various radio and factory resets to do to bring your phone into a state that it is ready to accept a new provisioning.

This is still working for me BTW.  Over 2 days later.

[danthemanx]

@NozMaximus so I tried putting my SIM into a Fido purchased phone, trying the features. Taking my sim back and putting it in my non Fido purchased phone. IMS will be Provisioned for a bit but then it gets deactivated again.

You're saying put a Rogers sim in my non Fido phone?

Also what is your Samsung phone's CSC set to? FMC or RWC (Fido or Rogers)?

[NozMaximus]

Correct.  You have your Samsung unlocked phone, and your Fido SIM. 

1) Take Fido Sim out. 

2) Put in any other carrier's sim (Rogers, telus...etc). 

3) Turn phone on. 

4) Wait a few mins. 

5) Make a couple of call on the non-Fido sim.  

6) Shut your phone down.

7) Pop your Fido sim back in.

😎Turn your phone on.

9) Wait a minute or two.

10) Make some calls, VoLTE should work now.

11) Wifi Calling should work now.

But again, this re-provisioning is a recent firmware feature.  Build number should end in CSE3 for Note 9.

And yes, I'm set to FMC (Fido).

[danthemanx]

Perfect. Will definitely try this! Hope it works.

I have FMC set as well with an unlocked Samsung S9 on latest build CSEA.

When you make the couple of calls with non-Fido sim, is VoLTE already showing? Or it'll only show when you put your Fido sim back in I guess?

[NozMaximus]

You know what, I wish I pad more attention during that part, but I didn't look to see how the call was going out.

Sorry I don't have an answer as to how the calls were made when I put the Rogers sim in my phone.

[danthemanx]

That's fine as long as the end result is provisioned IMS services...

[NozMaximus]

Good luck. 😬. Hopefully works out for you as well. 

[danthemanx]

Just tried exact steps described. It doesn't work so I'm not sure how you achieved what you say you did.

Used Rogers sim and everything. IMS services still not registered.

[NozMaximus]

@danthemanx,

How long have you been with FIDO?  Is your current phone the only one you have used with FIDO?  Or did you have a previous phone?

[danthemanx]

@NozMaximus,

I've been with Fido since 2015. Had a Note 5 and a Videotron S7 that, for some reason, was able to get VoLTE working on somehow.

Why?

[NozMaximus]

@danthemanx , if your SIM card was used in an older phone, that somehow triggered an incorrect provisioning, you may need a new sim card as well.

I missed mentioning this, but I did get a new sim card at a store as well, because after spending lots of time with Fido tech support, to see why it worked for my wife's S7, but not my phone, one difference is that her SIM card was provisioned for VoLTE, and mine wasn't.  Now, when we first joined Fido a couple of years ago, my wife has the S7, and I had an international Note 4.  We got the SIMs together, but somehow mine was a LTE only SIM, while my wife's was a VoLTE SIM. They look identical.  Everything was activated at the same time.

So, before swapping SIMs with a non-Fido SIM to trigger the re-provisioning, I did get a new SIM card.  Sorry for forgetting to mention this.  I forgot this steps because I've done so many different things to try and get this working.

It doesn't cost anything, so worth a shot.

[danthemanx]

A VoLTE sim card?? I've never heard that before.. So you went to Fido and said you wanted a new sim and that was free of charge?

[NozMaximus]

Yup.

I was explaining how I talked to tech support and they mentioned my current SIM card isn't provisioned right.... they didn't even let me finish my sentence and just handed me a new card at the Costco booth.

I don't think there is any charge for a new SIM card unless you call in to activate it.  If you activate online, no charge.  At least not that I know of?  I'll find out at the end of my billing cycle lol

[danthemanx]

@NozMaximus 

No such thing as a Volte sim.

If the phone is not purchased through Fido, the IMEI is not in their system as a Fido purchased phone so it doesn't provision IMS services. That's it. No magical sim.

[NozMaximus]

@danthemanx ,

I'm just relaying the information I was given, and recalling steps I went through.  Anyways, too bad you can't get your setup working.  Alas, perhaps another carrier is your only option left.  That or a new "Fido" phone.

Good luck.

[FidoFaiza]

Hi @NozMaximus, 

Interesting findings! Thanks for keeping the Community in the loop. 

[Cawtau]

Hello NozMaximus,

  Welcome to the community!

  While I do not have a timeline as to when Wifi-calling will be available for the Note 9 (or if it even will be available), you should note that there have been discussions about customers not being able to use certain services (ie voLTE and/or Wifi-calling) with phones/devices not purchased from Fido because the IMEIs were not in Fido's inventory database. That said, someone was able to get Wifi-calling with their Note 8 purchased from Samsung Canada to work (see here). Unfortunately, it appears some others were not. It's possible that Wifi-calling won't work on your phone even when it does become available for the Note 9.

Hope this helps

Cheers