T-Mobile Jazzed With WiFi Calling on New Apple iOST-Mobile Jazzed With WiFi Calling on New Apple iOS

T-Mobile wasted no time in welcoming the WiFi calling capabilities that will be available in the forthcoming Apple iOS operating system update.

Mike Sievert, chief marketing officer at T-Mobile US Inc. , blogged about the WiFi calling capabilities on the Monday afternoon that iOS 8 was announced by Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL). The OS update will be coming to Apple iPhones and iPads this fall. (See Apple Launches Biggest Changes Since iPhone.)

WiFi calling does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin: You turn the function on and can then make voice calls over WiFi without having to revert to the cellular network. T-Mobile says that with the Apple update more than 90% of the smartphones on its network will support WiFi calling.

It presently has 17 million Android and Windows WiFi calling-capable devices on its network. Sievert writes that "nearly 5 million customers use Wi-Fi Calling during any given month."

T-Mobile was the first US carrier to intro the capability in 2007. Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) has recently added WiFi calling capabilities to its network too. (See Sprint Selects Kineto for WiFi Calling.)

— Dan Jones, Mobile Editor, Light Reading