Did Lyca Mobile UK Quietly Introduce 4G Calling and WiFi Calling? UPDATE
Customers of mobile operator Lyca Mobile, which is a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) on EE’s platform in the UK, have spotted that the company has finally introduced support for two popular service features – Wi-Fi Calling and 4G Calling (VoLTE) – as part of the recent 3G switch-off.
In short, 4G Calling is a marketing term for Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) technology, which simply means that any calls you make or receive will stay on the 4G mobile network (signal allowing) rather than dropping back to 2G. Meanwhile, WiFi Calling enables consumers with a supporting Smartphone to harness their home broadband ISP or other WiFi connection to make mobile voice calls, instead of using your mobile network.
Most mobile operators usually make a specific news announcement when such features are introduced, although in Lyca’s case the development was easily overlooked because it was subtly contained within the operator’s general 3G switch-off page (credits to Ryan for spotting). A number of other customers have since reported the features going live on their devices (example).
UPDATE 24th April 2024
Lyca has now largely removed the mentions of Wi-Fi Calling and 4G Calling (VoLTE) from their 3G switch-off page, although 4G Calling does still seem to be working for some customers.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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For me, Wi-Fi and 4G calling was enabled a while ago.
Not yet enabled for me
Your phone needs to support it. Lebara has WiFi calling, never worked for me. Switched to iD mobile, works there.
Also needs to be enabled on the phone. On my Samsung it was in the call settings, On my Xiaomi it’s in the sim settings.
4 weeks of not receiving calls or SMS messages.
When making phonecalls i would loose internet.
I guessed the lack of 4G calling was part of the problem.
Finally able to leave them today and ported to smarty…
Customer services are awful and the issue i was facing is the same for so many of their customers, just a quick look on their social media or trust pilot shows this.
DO NOT USE THEM!!!
I totally agree, stay away from them. I needed Lyca to reissue my emsin which is just an email with a QR code. So instead of just sending the email and QR code they said I needed to purchase another esim plan and then port my number (which is already with them) over to the new esim. At that point I just asked for a PAC code and within minutes started the port process to another provider.
i signed up recently, their 5G is shocking. Everyone claims it’s not capped or restricted but with an EE sim and a Lyca sim in the same handset, one gives 80-100mbit (EE) the other gives 10 (Lyca). Thankfully I didn’t port my number and as soon as this month is over I won’t renew it.
Same here, calls were going straight to voicemail 90% of the time even when phone showed full signal. Their support line just said turn off automatic network selection, which made no difference.
This is exactly what has happened to me, I was unable to receive any kind of text messages! Switched to Spusu UK which runs on EE network as well, they have migrated my number today and everything works as expected.
Wifi calling for a cheaper price than VOIP, makes you wonder why people are so wedded to the evolutionary dead end that is Digital Voice.
Most dreadful mobile company in the world. During their last “technical problems” they didn’t collect my husbands monthly payment and when he went to make a call when we were in the middle of nowhere, he couldn’t as he had no airtime credit. We called them up and they couldn’t care less. Told them where to shove their service and ported to a GiffGaff Sim we had in the house, the following day
The only issue here, is Giffgaff do not offer 4g/wifi calling, and there are no plans for this service in the immediate future. They still rely upon 3g/2g calling.
At least O2 still offer a 3G service that allows the use of high quality calls to be made and received.
Will it work abroad?
Apparently it does according to their CS, though I can’t get it to work in the UK, on an iPhone 15 pro max
Good news, but when are they going the fix the high latency issues?
Will they also have access to all EE bands now?
No Wi-Fi calling yet on a S23 ultra. VoLTE for a few days now.
I was also joined with Lyca mobile before but their service was not good and no WiFi calling so moved to Smarty their service and network is very good and customer service as well
Not working for me. iPhone 15 pro max on latest iOS using eSIM.
It wouldn’t be the first time they had issues with the iPhone 15 pro max, the eSIM didn’t work at all when the phone came out
Bit of a trend, no happy customers, I also hate Customer service, and the team is useless from day one there were issues but as long as I don’t use the service all is good
Don’t trust Lyca mobile after they were hacked and were unable to even give a PAC code for several weeks.
Worst mobile carrier ever.
Avoid.
I wish I’d seen the reviews before entering a 12m contract.
I think I’m just going to pay the remaining money owed to get out of the contract.
Calls fail to come through and you just get a text to say missed call. When calling it takes at least 30 seconds to start calling.
Customer service is a joke. Avoid at all costs not worth the hassle
I just contacted them about this and they have said it was put on the 3g article as an error and will be corrected shortly. They do not support WiFi calling
Other users have stated they have WiFi calling so that does not make sense.
@Adam: Perhaps this is a mistake. But on my Samsung there is the WiFi Calling option but it doesn’t work.
After Lyca Mobile UK Quietly Introduce 4G Calling and WiFi Calling my single was less, before I have good signal now I don’t have enough,
So tonight VoLTE has been enabled on my s24 Ultra 5G, when making a call now shows as HD calling.
Wifi Calling I still can’t get to work, the option to switch it on is there, but I can’t get it to actually switch on. Cheat way to do it is switch on Wifi calling, turn on Airplane mode, you should still be able to make calls via Wifi but it isn’t trying or connecting, guess this is still a work in progress.
5G Speeds I am getting the same speed as EE direct, no latency issues here either. Am using them as a second sim to keep an eye untill I can port my number to them. Need the wifi calling issue to be fixed first.
Also forgot the mention I have been monitoring the bands and they do pump out on Band20 so seem to use all availble EE bands.
Although it shows “HD” you don’t get real HD calls. They don’t seem to have any HD peering to other networks. The same goes for Spusu. Calls to other networks are received as AMR-NB.
Lebara on the other hand seem to be more integrated with Vodafone and “true” HD calls (AMR-WB to other networks and EVS to Vodafone) work. However Vodafone’s data network is pants.
Hopeless. Stay away from Lyca. Or No Lyca as they should be called.
Signed up on a great deal, but they were hacked after 2 weeks. I had no service for following 2 weeks. But they were able to keep demanding money despite the payment system being down. They also lost my derails but won’t tell me if that includes bank details, which is against data protection act and GDPR.
Do yourself a favour and Stay away from Lyca. I got much better service from 1p mobile also on EE network.
It seems that although calls over the new LycaMobile VoLTE service display “HD” on the originating (Samsung) handset and the call connects to LycaMobile using AMR-WB, there is no HD peering to other networks and the call is actually routed in narrowband. If you call for example a number on Vodafone, the call is received as AMR-NB. Calls originated on EE itself are delivered to Vodafone as AMR-WB.
This is the same with Spusu. The call shows a “fake” HD logo on the originating handset however the call peering to other networks are in reality narrowband.
Switched from Lyca to Lebara as they dont have wifi calling and 4g calling.
I just switched a week back and at that time even the customer service told that there’s nothing like wifi calling and 4g calling on their network.
I have been following this post for sometime.
Can anyone confirm that this is available on Lyca now (esim)??
I signed up for a Lyca eSIM based on this info and haven’t been able to get WiFi calling working for the past 3 weeks (despite it working successfully on other networks/SIMs in the same phone).
I tried calling Lyca CS and couldn’t speak to an actual human, so dropped them an email instead. Today they’ve replied stating “Please be informed that currently we are not providing WIFI calls, however we are trying to implement it in the future”.
Someone should edit this article.
LYCA DOESN’T SUPPORT WIFI CALLING OR 4G CALLING YET.
The 3G switch off page has been modified and it has no info regarding wifi calling or 4g calling on the newer version.
They might have made a mistake their side while publishing that previous version of 3G switch off page.