What is call waiting?

When you're on a call and a second person dials your number, call waiting plays a tone in your ear (the other caller just hears normal ringing). You then have a choice:

1. Answer the second call — tap it, and your first call is automatically put on hold.
2. Switch back and forth — tap between the two calls to move between them; the one you're not on stays on hold.
3. Ignore it — let the second call ring through to voicemail while you stay on the first.

Call waiting is not the same as a 3-way call: the two callers can't hear each other, and you're only ever talking to one at a time. To join everyone on one line, you'd merge them into a conference call instead.

iPhone has a dedicated toggle:

1. Open Settings → Phone → Call Waiting.
2. Switch it on or off.

With it off, any second call that comes in while you're on the phone goes straight to voicemail instead of beeping in. Turning it off is handy when you're on an important call and don't want the interruption tone.

On Samsung and most Android phones:

1. Open the Phone app.
2. Tap the ⋮ menu → Settings.
3. Tap Supplementary services (or Call settings on older devices) → Call waiting.
4. Toggle it on or off.

The exact menu name varies a little by manufacturer and Android version, but it's always under the Phone app's own settings, not the main system Settings.

You don't have to dig into a menu to silence call waiting for a single important call. On most North-American carriers, dialing *70 before the number turns off call waiting for that one call only — it reverts to normal afterward.

• Per-call disable: *70 then the number you're dialing (for an outgoing call).
• Turn on / off at the account level: varies by carrier — some use *43# to activate and #43# to deactivate call waiting entirely.

These are carrier features, so the exact codes can differ; the phone Settings toggle above is the reliable cross-carrier method.

Call waiting has an obvious limit for anyone running a business from their phone: you can only ever talk to one caller at a time. The second caller is put on hold — and a customer on hold, or one bounced to voicemail because you were mid-call, is a customer you can easily lose. Call waiting manages two calls; it doesn't answer them. For a business that can't afford to leave callers waiting, having every call actually answered — even the second, third, and fourth simultaneous one — matters more than a beep.