What Call Waiting Means on iPhone

Call waiting is a handy feature that alerts you about incoming calls while you’re already on another call. This allows you to switch between calls or merge them together. On iPhones with Dual SIM, call waiting works only for incoming calls on the same line. That means if you are on a call using the primary line and a call comes in on the secondary line, that call will go to voicemail. When call waiting is turned off or not working on your iPhone, all your incoming calls are sent to voicemail while you’re on a call. Now that you understand what call waiting is, let’s look at what you can do if the feature stops working on your iPhone.

1. Make Sure Call Waiting Is Enabled

Before you spend time on any advanced troubleshooting tips, it’s a good idea to ensure that call waiting is enabled on your iPhone. Here’s how to do it.

  1. Open the Settings app and scroll down to tap on Phone.
  2. Under Calls, tap on Call Waiting and enable the toggle in the following menu. If the toggle is already on, try turning it off and then back on. 

2. Restart Your iPhone

At times, temporary iOS glitches can cause call waiting to stop working on your iPhone. Most of the time, you can fix such issues by simply restarting your iPhone.  Press and hold the power button until you see the power off slider. Drag the slider to your right to turn off your iPhone. Wait for a few seconds and then press and hold the power button again to turn on your iPhone.

3. Update Carrier Settings

Your cellphone provider releases updates on a regular basis to improve network speed, connectivity, and performance. You may not notice these updates as they are typically installed automatically in the background. However, if that isn’t happening for some reason, you can check for updates manually to resolve the call waiting not working issue on your iPhone.

  1. Open up the Settings app on your iPhone and navigate to General > About.
  2. If there’re any pending updates, a pop-up will appear. Tap on Update to install them.

4. Install iOS Updates

Keeping your iPhone updated to the latest iOS version is equally important. If the call waiting is not working because of a bug within iOS, it shouldn’t take long before Apple releases a fix. Hence, it’s a good idea to check for iOS updates if you haven’t done so in a while. Open the Settings app, tap on General, and select Software Update from the following screen.  Download and install any pending iOS updates and see if that fixes the issue. 

5. Reset Network Settings

Misconfigured network preferences on your iPhone can also cause such problems. Instead of going through each of your network settings manually, it’s easier to reset them all and start over. Here are the steps for the same. Note that when you reset network settings, you will have to re-enter Wi-Fi passwords and reconnect to all Bluetooth devices.

  1. Open the Settings app and head to General > Transfer or Reset iPhone. 
  2. Tap Reset at the bottom and select Reset Network Settings from the list of options.  From there, follow the on-screen instructions to finish resetting the network settings. Following that, check if call waiting works on your iPhone.

6. Contact Your Carrier

Finally, if none of the above solutions work, you can consider contacting your carrier. While most carriers support call waiting, not all of them do. Also, it’s possible that your cellular plan does not include the call waiting feature. Hence, it’s best to check with your carrier to make sure this isn’t the case.

Never Miss a Call Again

Call waiting is one of those features that you don’t think about until it stops working. Hopefully, one of the solutions in this guide has worked and you’re able to manage your calls once again.