Does the network I chose for Fairphone 4 matter? UK

[freddyb]

Hi, I am new android phones and contracts - I feel like a dinosaur! - and have had an O2 pay as you go for years. Now I have to step up and get a new phone and contract! Can you help please?
Is there a better network for a UK person using a Fairphone4?
thanks so much

[anon9989719]

Hi welcome to the forum.

Simples.
O2 is good for for you EE is great for me 3 is well gee I’m on three

So don’t sweat whatever you get, but PAYG doesn’t do W-i-Fi which is all that matters to I

[nickalcock]

I’ve found iD (a 3 virtual provider) to be pretty good – decent coverage (excluding only the London Underground) and responsive: they even added the Fairphone 4 to their wifi-calling-allowed list pretty fast when I asked. Oh, and pretty cheap (£7.50 for 12GiB/month plus 12GiB/month carryover from the previous month). They’re also unusual in this post-Brexit era in that that they provide international roaming to the EU without having to pay extra: not the whole allowance, but 1/3 of it, which is likely to be enough for most purposes!

[augheyh]

Hi,
I have a new FP4 and I have just moved house to find that I have rubbish signal with Giffgaff. Giffgaff don’t support wifi calling and so I want to switch to another network who do support wifi calling. However, none that I have asked (O2, vodaphone, smarty) can confirm whether they can support wifi calling with a FP4. So, my question is, does anyone have wifi calling working on their FP4 and if so, which network are you with? Thanks so much

[anon9989719]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

I have a that daughter uses EE on the FP4

I don’t think the model is significant

I use EE on FP3

O2 won’t work on PAYG

iD a version of 3 has been mentioned, will find a link

Pretty sure Vodafone will but wouldn’t use them . . . .

[yvmuell]

Have a look at this thread

WiFI calling on Virgin UK FP4

Hi have just set up a FP4 ,chose it because Virgin UK support WIFi calling and I have no mobile reception at home - so phone useless to me otherwise. The WiFi calling on the dropdown at top of screen remains greyed out. If I go somewhere with reception I can make calls, but WIFI calling still remains greyed out. Also the contacts on my SIM are not recognised, only the ones I transferred using Google Play account. Virgin say it is a problem for Fairphone, and Fairphone support say I to ask BT sh…

[sandkeeper]

I’m with Honest Mobile - they’re a small network that uses Three for coverage. They also sell the Fairphone 4, and claim to be ‘carbon negative’, planting trees and offsetting emissions.

I can 100% confirm that WiFi calling works with them.

[RSpliet]

I recently switched from Three to O2, my motivation being eSIM + EU data roaming from my bundle. My experience is that O2’s network has worse coverage where I live, whereas Three tends to do well in London but has dreadful coverage in most of Cambridge. Otherwise O2 has been working fine with my FP4. I do have WiFi calling and VoLTE turned on, and O2 confirms that the network should support this and enable this for my device. However, I make so few calls that I don’t actually know whether it works. I do recall having Three WiFi calling when I was still with them, and that too worked fine. Getting WiFi working on the tube was a bit of a pain with O2, as you have to use the phone on a different O2 hotspot first before you get to use the Virgin Underground network. I’ve not had any success with the underground WiFi Extra network.

[RSpliet]

Adding to my earlier information: I’ve found that WiFi calling was working for me on the 13th of September with O2 for an outbound call, and I used it a few times before that. However, right now it doesn’t seem to work. My contact with O2 so far on the matter has been less than stellar, partially because I can only contact them by phone but the network coverage isn’t great and… WiFi calling doesn’t work. Several failed calls from their tech team later they resorted to sending me a (non-reply) e-mail with the following:

Called back but no contact i have checked what handset you are using the Fairphone 4 and that is not a compatable handset with wifi calling on O2

Which given how it was working just a few months ago is obviously not a satisfactory answer. To be continued.

[RSpliet]

I seem to have wifi calling back on O2 No idea what changed, could this have come as part of the November Play Services update? Actually, I guess that’s a slightly off-topic question. I think the take-away is “it works, but not supported super-officially and could break at any time”.