They offered me a permanent discount as well. I don’t remember what it was now, but my bill is a little over $9 a month including all fees and taxes. Can’t beat that with a stick!
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Hey everyone,
I’m reaching out to see if anyone has any experience with this. I cannot get wi-fi calling to activate on my iPhone XR with the Mobi SIM inserted and activated. I had wi-fi calling working fine with my Boost SIM in the iPhone XR, but now when I try to turn wi-fi on I get an error message: “To allow wi-fi calling on this device, contact Verizon.”
Ironically, the Boost SIM is currently in another phone (Doogee s96 Pro) which couldn’t activate wi-fi calling on Republic by Dish, but now it’s just working all on its own with the Boost SIM: calls, text, MMS, all in Airplane mode, the whole nine yards, which is surprising. Anyway, I’ve been in touch with Mobi support a few times and they’ve basically told me that everything is enabled on their end and there’s nothing else that should be preventing wi-fi calling from activating. Here’s their latest response after saying they would reach out to engineering…
Aloha,
Our engineers have let us know that there is nothing blocking WiFi calling on our end. They’ve advised that it is a device feature that can only be activated within the device. Some suggestions I have for getting that going:
- Make sure your device is fully updated
- Ensure you are connected to both data & wifi for the initial set up
- When it asks for an emergency address, please don’t try to skip this, it will not complete without it
- Ensure that your data & wifi are both working for other things before attempting to activate again
- Confirm that you have at least 3 bars of service when setting up
I’ve done all these steps, except I never get to the part where it asks for an emergency address. I hit the on switch, then hit “Enable,” see a loading circle, then the error message. Additionally, I’ve tried the “Reset Network Settings” option.
Has anyone else run into this problem? Could it be possible I need to put my Boost SIM back into my iPhone and disable wi-fi calling before it will activate with the Mobi SIM?
Good Morning @zfighter,
I happen to have an iPhone XR available to me. It will be later today but I’ll move my Mobi SIM (currently residing in my Pixel 6a) to the iPhone XR and see what happens.
Meanwhile, I suggest you try turning off WiFi, so that you know the phone is using cell when attempting to configure WiFi calling. I am aware my advice is contrary to that which Mobi has suggested. You must register an E911 address with Verizon (Mobi’s network partner) for WiFi calling to work.
For what it’s worth, because WiFi calling is a function of the network itself, I don’t believe this would be a Mobi issue per se. It’s more likely a phone issue, a network (Verizon) issue or some combination of the two.
Hi @zfighter,
In order for WiFi calling to work, the network (in Mobi’s case Verizon) whose WiFi calling you intend to use must have a registered E911 address. If the suggestion in my previous reply didn’t help, perhaps some more information would provide insight.
- Was this iPhone ever locked to a specific carrier (even if it’s now been unlocked)? In other words, was the phone originally purchased from a carrier or was it purchased from Apple or other retailer unlocked?
- You mention it being inserted, so I presume you are using a physical Mobi SIM but, to confirm, are you using a Mobi physical SIM or eSIM?
- What is the iOS version on the phone? To find out:
a. Open Settings
b. Tap General
c. Tap About - What is the version of the carrier bundle on the phone? To find out:
a. Open Settings
b. Tap About
c. Scroll to Carrier
As an aside, do you know which network (AT&T or T-Mobile) your Boost Infinite SIM is using?
- If the first 5 digits of the ICCID are 89014, it’s AT&T.
- If the first 5 digits of the ICCID are 89012, it’s T-Mobile.
- If the first 5 digits of the ICCID are 89015, it’s a DISH “Rainbow” SIM but, as far as I know, no former Republic members were transitioned to a “Rainbow” SIM.
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Thank you for offering your free expert support, Roland! Haha.
It does seem more and more to be an issue specific to my phone.
Okay, so I disabled Wi-Fi and verified an LTE signal by hitting refresh a few times on a web page in Safari. This did not change the error message. Trying the other steps you mentioned below now…
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This iPhone was previously locked to Verizon, purchased and used directly with a Verizon plan.
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This is a physical SIM, not an eSIM.
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I am on iOS version 17.2.1. The first time I tried to enable Wi-Fi calling I was on 17.1, then I updated after support telling me to do so multiple times. I was almost certain this had nothing to do with it, though.
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Carrier version says “Verizon 57.0”
My Boost Infinite SIM shows 89014, so it’s AT&T. It’s the same SIM I received when Republic switched over to Republic by Dish.
I think we have found the source of the problem.
In case you or others reading are interested, I asked this question because there are instances where previously locked iPhones (even once unlocked) will work with a physical SIM but not eSIM. That, however, is not what’s causing your experience with WiFi calling failing.
I concur, it’s not the cause of your issue but updating firmware to the latest version is generally a good idea and troubleshooting 101. 
This is the most recent version of Verizon’s carrier bundle. On iPhones, outdated carrier bundles can cause issues though this too isn’t the cause for your experience.
It would seem at some level in their systems Verizon still sees your iPhone XR as linked to their native service. Resolving this would likely require Mobi’s engineers to contact Verizon on your behalf. My experience is Mobi would be willing to do so but a successful resolution is going to require cooperation from Verizon.
I suggest going back to Mobi support with the information your phone was previously locked to Verizon’s service and ask if the engineers would be able to help. While they see nothing on their end causing the experience, I’m willing to bet there is something on Verizon’s end that is.
Interesting, I’m surprised an AT&T network SIM gets WiFi calling on the Doogee.
Thanks, Roland. Will do.
I was so surprised. Do you think it could be because Wi-Fi calling was first activated with that SIM on another phone? I literally stuck the SIM in the Doogee, powered it on, and Wi-Fi everything was just working. I didn’t even hit any switches.
I read over this sentence of mine and realized how ridiculous it sounds.
Hi @zfighter,
Please let us know how it goes?
Regarding the Doogee phone, AT&T uses a restrictive whitelist as to which phones are deemed compatible on their network and what features (such as WiFi calling) are supported on a particular otherwise compatible phone. Given Doogee phones aren’t wildly popular in the U.S., I’m pleasantly surprised AT&T deems it to be compatible at all and more pleasantly surprised it’s supported for WiFi calling.
It appears their engineering team is out of their depth on this issue.
We reached out to our Internal Network Engineer team again, and they looked into the “carrier end” (Verizon Network), and advised us that they cannot see anything blocking your ability to use Wi-Fi calling.
I know you stated you used two different Wi-Fi networks, how many bars for your mobile data did you have while trying with each Wi-Fi network? Which iOS is your device running on?
This is a shot, and it would have reset when you reset your network settings, but could you try to “forget” the Wi-Fi network that you are trying to set up Wi-Fi calling with, and complete a SIM pull by:
Turning your device OFF
Remove your SIM card
Turn your device ON for 5 minutes
Turn your device back OFF
Place your SIM card back in
Let your device connect to our Mobi network for about 10-15 minutesAfter that is completed, try to connect to your Wi-Fi again and turn on Wi-Fi calling, with a strong connection to both cellular data and Wi-Fi. I would also maybe consider restarting your router, if you haven’t already done so.
Did all this to no avail.
Next, they told me to check that the Carrier version was updated (like you did, Roland). Now they’re recommending a factory reset of the phone. Not a big fan of that option. Wouldn’t using the “Reset all Settings” option be enough for troubleshooting purposes? I’ve never even signed into this phone and have made no downloads from the app store. Even resetting all settings would just prove annoying more than anything.
I have tremendous respect for Mobi’s engineers and their customer support in general. I am not, however, convinced, they are going to be able to see what is causing your phone not to work with Verizon’s WiFi calling. I believe only Verizon itself is going to be able to figure that out. My hope is Mobi’s engineers would speak with their counterparts at Verizon for that purpose.
Yes, it’s disruptive but there’s a chance a factory reset (particularly if the phone hasn’t been reset since it was used with Verizon’s service) would sort things for you. Reset All Settings is slightly less disruptive but not much. That said, there would be nothing to lose in trying it first.
If you don’t mind my asking, is there a reason you won’t use iCloud on the iPhone? It’s very easy to back up an iPhone via iCloud making it much easier though not necessarily less time consuming to deal with a reset.
It’s also possible to back up an iPhone locally to a computer. It can be done using either a Mac or a PC:
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(I attempted to reply with the below message through an email reply, but it doesn’t seem to have worked. If it ends up duplicated, that would be why. Anyway…)
I had factory reset the phone shortly before putting in the Boost SIM, which is part of why I was hoping that wouldn’t be necessary.
Okay, so I tried to just reset all settings but it didn’t help. So I decided to just factory reset the phone. After that, I was finally able to successfully activate Wi-Fi calling! Really didn’t want to have to do that, but I’m glad it wasn’t for nothing. Another +1 to Mobi’s customer support AND engineering team for sticking with me. Is it normal, though, to have to factory reset for WiFi calling to work when switching carriers?
Not using iCloud has been more of a personal experiment to see if I can get by with a more basic phone for calls, emails, and texting, but that also has WiFi calling/texting capabilities (my whole reason for using Republic Wireless in the first place). I’m finding the iPhone does very well with these basics. I may eventually end up signing into iCloud in the end, but we’ll see. Going on month 5 I think without it.
I thought of doing the local backup to iTunes, but I was mostly covered already since my contacts and email are still being pulled down from Google, so the only thing I really lost, aside from the settings, was text messages that I didn’t need.