A major upgrade to calling

Calling has always been one of Wire’s most popular features. Today we’re happy to announce the rollout of a major upgrade to our calling protocol. It further improves the secure calling experience and takes a step forward for privacy.

What’s new:

• Call connection robustness
• Verified end-to-end encryption
• No call logs shared with Wire

Get going without hiccups

Call quality is just one aspect of a great calling experience. Echo, delay, dropped calls, the time it takes to connect a call — all of these play an important role in the perceived quality.

This update means more successfully connected calls, even in challenging network conditions. Another iteration in a few weeks will significantly shorten the call setup time. When you call someone and they accept then you’ll be able to start talking almost instantly.

Encrypted and verified

Wire calls now take advantage of the same authentication that we have in place for chats and sending media — pics, videos, files. There’s no need for extra steps once the partner’s device(s) are verified.

We introduced end-to-end encryption in March 2016 so only the sender and receiver have the keys to see what is being sent or said. For maximum security we recommend comparing device fingerprints.

Keeping private calls private

Until now, Wire logged minimal call data and deleted it after 72 hours. With the calling update there’s no data logging so Wire has zero knowledge if a call was made, who called who, and for how long.

For more technical details see “The road to more private and secure calling protocol” by Julian Spittka, AVS team lead.

Going forward

The new calling protocol has been rolled out for 1:1 calls over the past few weeks. Work continues on group calls, which will take advantage of the new protocol — the update will be available in a few weeks.

Got feedback? Contact support or ping us on Twitter.