Even though there are many other ways to connect with someone, the good old phone call is still a part of life. Whether you’re catching up with family members, making a doctor’s appointment, or shouting at a robot to connect to a real human representative, your connection is important to facilitating effective communication. These days, you can even use Wi-Fi to make calls on your smartphone, providing an alternative to traditional cellular calls.
If you’re looking for ways to improve your phone’s battery life and make lots of calls throughout the day, you may be wondering whether cellular or Wi-Fi is more efficient. The short answer is Wi-Fi, which generally uses much less power than cellular data. That said, either will drain your battery faster if it has a weak connection. In practice, the best choice will depend on your location and signal strength. For example, someone answering a call in a basement with poor cell signal will use more power than usual, as will someone calling on weak Wi-Fi.
Why cell phone is still useful even if you have Wi-Fi
Even though it drains your battery faster, cellular is still overall the better choice for phone calls than Wi-Fi for one very simple reason. When you make a call over Wi-Fi, you’re competing for bandwidth with everyone else on the same network for streaming, downloading, etc. This is also why public networks are often slow, even in airports with the fastest Wi-Fi. In contrast, cellular networks are designed to prioritize calls over other data usage, so overall audio quality should be better than on Wi-Fi, where a call is treated like anything else.
Cellular is also vital for all the calls you make on the go. These networks are designed to do what’s called a handoff, where your connection goes from one tower to another. 4G and 5G technologies have made this transition seamless, meaning you can continue your calls without interruption, even while driving. While Wi-Fi calling has its advantages, especially if you avoid common Wi-Fi mistakes that everyone makes, cellular generally delivers better quality calls more consistently.
