AT&T says competitors launched WiFi calling without FCC clearance

The company stated that the original launch date for Wi-Fi calling was set to be September 25, alongside the launch of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, but without the proper waiver from the Federal Communications Commission, the carrier chose to hold off on the launch of the service for now.

AT&T is ready to roll with the service; in fact, iOS 9 adds the feature on iPhones, but it remains inactive because AT&T is waiting on the FCC to give it the go-ahead to operate. When questioned on the subject over Twitter, T-Mobile CEO John Legere didn’t address the dispute directly, only boasting that the Uncarrier had “unleashed” Wi-Fi calling on its customers. The company sent a complaint to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler stating that its two competitors had released those features without receiving a waiver to exclude support for teletypewriters (TTY), which are primarily made for deaf and hard of hearing users.

AT&T says Sprint and T-Mobile did none of these things.

In its letter to Wheeler, AT&T said that it has been testing a RTT system that it claimed is superior to TTY. However, T-Mobile did recently say that it “supports the growth of services that include letter-by-letter transcription, but does not believe real time text (RTT) is required for Wi-Fi Calling, which we have offered since 2007”.

Disability advocates want RTT to be implemented quickly, but “no one expressed opposition to a temporary waiver of existing TTY rules for the reasonable timeframe outlined in the waiver petition”, AT&T wrote.

AT&T has called out T-Mobile and Sprint for jumping the gun on rolling out Wi-Fi calling, which lets you make calls over an internet connection rather than a traditional wireless connection. The groups praised AT&T’s efforts to advance RTT technology, saying that it will maintain the ability to transmit text character by character, “allowing for conversational, real-time communication”, but without suffering “the reliability and transmission issues that impact TTY when operating on an IP network”. But, according to AT&T, it hasn’t been able to get approval from the FCC to take the service live. TTY also allows direct access to 911 emergency services.