iPhone unable to connect via WiFi????

[Lionel Mandrake]

Are the iPhones sold in T-Mobile stores really unable to connect via WiFi?

That's what I was told at a T-Mobile store.

That's unbefuckinglievable!

[NV Whino]

1. Did you get a bargain price

I know Blackberries used to come with either GPS or wifi, or for more money, both. I got a bargain refurbished BB with only GPS. Never used the GPS. Could have used the wifi. Sigh.

[Lionel Mandrake]

6. My Blackberry has wifi.

I don't know whether it has GPS or not. I must have wifi, because my home is in a weak signal area for T-Mobile.

[n2doc]

2. That's bull

All iphones, and all smart phones, can do wifi. I would stay away from that dealer based on that bad information alone.

[onehandle]

3. Crapola from a poorly trained drone. nt

[Sherman A1]

4. Mine connects rather well

Last edited Sat May 25, 2013, 08:29 PM - Edit history (1)

I bought it from Apple & had T-Mobile install the sim card. Works just fine for me.

I will tell you that when I had them do it a couple of months ago, they were not really too well educated on iPhones.

[Lionel Mandrake]

5. Maybe that's because T-Mobile didn't use to have iPhones.

[Sherman A1]

7. That is exactly the reason

the bottom line is that they brought in the product and did not spend the money to train their people. I was rather irritated with them when I left the store, but it seems to work just fine. I did learn later that you do need to turn them off about once per week and reboot them.

[Lionel Mandrake]

8. Update: Maybe the T-Mobile employees know what they're talking about.

A google search on

Wi-Fi iphone t-mobile

yielded several articles which suggest that what the manager at the T-Mobile store told me was not completely wrong. Here are three of the articles:
http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/26/t-mobile-iphone-no-wifi-calling-feature-enabled/
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/03/26/t-mobile-tiptoes-around-data-throttling-iphone-wi-fi-calling
http://www.slashgear.com/t-mobile-iphone-5-wont-support-wifi-calling-26275325/
I don't understand this stuff. I gather from post #4 that the problem, whatever it is, can be avoided by buying an iPhone from Apple, and then getting a SIM card installed by T-Mobile. Or will this procedure cause some other problem overseas? One reason I chose T-Mobile years ago was that they use GSM, which is (or was) standard in Europe.

[onehandle]

9. That's Wi-Fi calling, not Wi-Fi connecting.

Wi-Fi calling is a T-Mobile feature that's primarily used to call internationally. A lot of their phones can't do this.

Download Skype or Google Voice for iPhone to accomplish the same thing.

Or, just use the iPhone as a phone.

You can surf with Wi-Fi, check email, etc just fine.

[Lionel Mandrake]

10. I hadn't realized there was a distinction.

Thanks for clearing this up. Calling home when I'm overseas is exactly what I need to do - preferably without having to pay an exorbitant fee.

When I looked up "Wi-Fi calling" on Wikipedia, my search was redirected to "Generic Access Network". One problem is that I don't understand the Wikipedia article. Therefore I would like to ask some more naive questions.

When a smart phone doesn't have Wi-Fi calling or something equivalent, does that mean it can be used for web surfing and e-mail, but not phoning, via Wi-Fi?

My current phone is a Blackberry Bold 9700. Whenever I'm connected to Wi-Fi, I can make a phone call. I guess this means I already have Wi-Fi calling. The phone uses GSM and works in Europe. If I call home from Europe using Wi-Fi calling, do I just dial the same number of digits I would use when making a local call at home, or do I have to dial something else (e.g., a country code) first?

[we can do it]

11. I don't think its true