If you’ve upgraded to iOS 9 on your iPhone, you should be aware that it comes with a new feature – enabled by default – that could make your next wireless bill a lot bigger. The feature is called “Wi-Fi Assist” and it automatically switches your phone from Wi-Fi to a cellular connection when the Wi-Fi signal is poor. That’s helpful if you’re in the middle of watching a video or some other task on the internet that you don’t want interrupted by spotty Wi-Fi service but costly if you don’t’ have a data plan big enough to handle it.
Just to make people aware this is not a bug but a feature Apple baked into their new operating system, iOS9, for their iOS data-connected devices. With that in mind, I’ve got to say that I’ve seen some cell phone bills considerably higher than normal potentially because of this new feature. So it’s something to be mindful of especially if you have family members sharing your data plan and especially if you stream lots of media to your phone and your Wi-Fi is weak. I know from personal experience that weak and spotty Wi-Fi is almost a common thing in most households these days since so many people have so many Wi-Fi connected devices.
This feature quietly swaps your iPhone from a Wi-Fi connection to mobile data, if it thinks your data connection will be the fastest of the two connections. And unfortunately, your phone will not notify you it has made the switch, which means you could be halfway through an episode of House of Cards before you notice you’re streaming it off of your data connection.
Looking at the statistics, it looks like the adoption and update rates for iOS9 are the higher than any other update before, which means that more people are updating to iOS9 than ever before. With that in mind, I do believe that even if you are using an the older iPhone 4s you can still update to iOS9. You also want to keep in mind that if you have a tablet with a data connection and you ‘ve updated to iOS9 it will also have that feature enabled as well. But, to find out the full list of compatible devices you can head over to http://www.apple.com/ca/ios/whats-new/. Scroll to the bottom and there you can see if your device is compatible.
I would think it’s a software response endemic to the type of impatient consumption consumers we have turned into. For many people who stream media to their devices, especially if they are on the run, or in a household amongst many Wi-Fi devices but using a cheap or over-worked Wi-Fi router, this feature would help ensure your streaming media does not get jittery, choppy, or stuck buffering. Wi-Fi Assist is designed to make sure users always get the most stable and fastest internet connection. But I would think there might be a cost.
If you are concerned about this feature using up all of your data and costing you at the end of your billing cycle, you can turn it off. Simply navigate to SETTINGS, select MOBILE DATA, then scroll to the bottom of the list and toggle Wi-Fi Assist OFF. One last thing people can do if they want to monitor their monthly data usage while using Wi-Fi Assist is to install the app associated with their data provider. Whether it’s Rogers, Bell, or Telus, they all have apps that let you login to your account to check your daily data usage giving you more control and ownership over your data used.
