After getting your Circle device setup, some folks may find that their voice, phone calls, RCS texts are having difficulty connecting over their home Wi-Fi. This is likely due to your Circle device filtering out the connection that those phones are using to make the call (see explanation below).
Allowing voice calling traffic
- In the Circle app, open the profile for the family member whose device is experiencing the voice calling problem.
- Tap Filter for that profile, and scroll to the bottom of the category list (see image below).
- Find the category highlighted in the screenshot below, and press its button until it says "Allowed", to allow those calls.
- Press Save in the top right corner.
- At this point, feel free to test to make sure that your Circle device is allowing calls to go through.
If this doesn't work:
- Make sure that the device that is having issues is properly assigned to the correct family member.
- Open up the family member's Filter settings again and ensure that the setting change was saved.
- Check your Custom Filter to ensure that there aren't any websites in there that may continue to be filtering out those calls.
- Last resort: You may need to add any sites that appear under History >> Filtered for the profile during the time this issue happened as "Allowed" using a Custom Filter.
A brief explanation of Virtual Private Networks and Wi-Fi calling:
In many cases, this issue happens due to the way that some cell providers (such as T-Mobile and AT&T) have implemented Wi-Fi calling. These providers use what is known as a Virtual Private Network to create a secure tunnel between that smartphone and their internal systems in order to keep those calls secure.
At every filter level other than "None," your Circle device filters out virtual private networks & proxy connections by default. This is because these services are often used to get around restrictions, like Time limits or Filtering. That said, there are a number of legitimate uses for virtual private networks, such as creating a secure connection with your company's internal systems or, in this case, making voice calls using your home Wi-Fi.