You press the green button. You hold the phone to your ear. Silence. No dial tone, no rhythmic ringing—just an eerie, digital void until suddenly, someone says "Hello?" or you're slapped with a voicemail greeting. It’s unsettling. Most of us expect that familiar brrr-brrr sound to reassure us the call is actually going through. When you experience iphone outgoing calls not ringing, it feels like your $1,000 device is fundamentally broken.
It isn't. Usually.
Most of the time, this isn't a hardware death rattle. It’s a messy intersection of carrier handoffs, LTE/5G switching, and how iOS handles "Early Media." You’re not alone in this; Apple’s support forums are littered with threads from users since the iPhone 12 launch complaining about this exact silent-start phenomenon.
The Mystery of the Silent Dial Tone
The sound you hear when calling someone isn't actually generated by your phone. Your iPhone is basically a sophisticated radio. When you place a call, it sends a request to the cellular tower, which passes it to the recipient's carrier. That carrier then sends back a "ringback tone."
If there’s a delay in that signal returning to your device, you get silence.
Sometimes, the transition from 5G to LTE (VolTE) causes a hiccup. Your phone is busy switching frequencies to handle the voice traffic, and it "misses" the first few seconds of the ringback audio. This is particularly common on networks like Verizon or T-Mobile when moving between coverage cells. Honestly, it’s just a byproduct of how modern networks prioritize data over old-school voice signaling.
Is it a Software Glitch or Your Carrier?
Check your settings. Seriously.
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People often overlook Show My Caller ID. Go to Settings > Phone > Show My Caller ID. If this is toggled off, some receiving carriers (especially international ones or strict landlines) will delay the connection while they screen the "Unknown" call. This results in you hearing nothing while their system decides whether to let the call through. Toggle it back on. See if that changes the behavior.
Another culprit is the "Silence Unknown Callers" feature, though that usually affects incoming calls. However, iOS has a funny way of letting background processes interfere with the Phone app's stability. If you haven't done a Force Restart in a month, do it now.
- Press Volume Up.
- Press Volume Down.
- Hold the Side Button until the Apple logo appears.
This clears the temporary cache that might be lagging your audio driver. It’s the "turn it off and on again" cliché, but it works because it resets the communication stack.
The Role of VoLTE and 5G "Auto"
We’re living in a weird transitional era of cellular tech. Your iPhone 15 or 16 is constantly hunting for the fastest signal. When you make a call, the phone often has to "downshift" from a high-frequency 5G data band to a voice-optimized band.
If you have "5G On" selected instead of "5G Auto," the phone might struggle to hand off the call to a stable frequency.
Try this: Go to Settings > Cellular > Cellular Data Options > Voice & Data. Switch to LTE. Make a call. If the ringing returns instantly, you know the issue is your local 5G infrastructure and not your iPhone. Carriers like AT&T have documented cases where their "5G Standalone" towers have handshake delays with older LTE-only systems, leading to that annoying silence.
Network Settings: The Nuclear Option
If the silence persists across all outgoing calls regardless of location, your network "handshake" is corrupted.
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You need to Reset Network Settings.
Warning: You will lose your saved Wi-Fi passwords. It’s a pain, I know. But this flushes out the DNS settings and carrier certificates that might be stalling your outgoing signaling. Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Network Settings.
When It's Actually a Hardware Conflict
Bluetooth is a mess. It’s the truth.
Sometimes your iPhone thinks it’s connected to a pair of AirPods in your pocket or a car in the driveway. The audio—including the ringing sound—is being sent to a device you aren't wearing. Swipe down from the top right to open Control Center. Look at the "Now Playing" box. Tap the AirPlay icon (the circles with the triangle). If anything other than "iPhone" is selected, there’s your culprit.
The "Answering Machine" Factor
There is also a chance the person you are calling has a specific carrier feature enabled. Some "spam blocking" services intercept the call before the first ring. The service analyzes your number, and during those 2-4 seconds of analysis, you hear nothing. Once the service clears you, it connects the call, often right as the person picks up.
Real-World Fixes That Work
I spoke with a former Genius Bar lead who mentioned that iphone outgoing calls not ringing is frequently tied to outdated Carrier Settings. Most people ignore the little pop-up that says "Carrier Settings Update Available."
Don't ignore it.
To manually check, go to Settings > General > About. Stay on that screen for about 15 seconds. If an update is waiting, it will trigger a prompt. These updates contain the latest "instruction manuals" for how your phone talks to the towers. Without them, the handshake between your phone and the network can lag, resulting in—you guessed it—silence.
Check Your SIM (Or eSIM)
If you’re still using a physical SIM card from three years ago, get an eSIM.
Physical cards degrade. The gold contacts wear down. A degrading SIM can cause intermittent signaling issues where data works fine, but the "Voice" channel (which requires different authentication) fails to trigger the ringback tone. Most carriers let you convert to eSIM right in the Settings app under "Cellular." It’s worth the five minutes.
Actionable Steps to Restore the Ring
If you're staring at a silent screen every time you dial, follow this sequence.
First, toggle Airplane Mode on for 30 seconds. This forces the phone to find the nearest tower from scratch. Second, check for a Carrier Settings update in the "About" menu. Third, disable Bluetooth temporarily to rule out "ghost" connections to speakers or headphones.
If the issue only happens with one specific contact, the problem is on their end—likely a third-party spam filter or a carrier routing error. If it happens with everyone, the Reset Network Settings is your best bet.
Lastly, ensure your iOS is updated. Apple frequently sneaks modem firmware patches into "minor" updates like iOS 17.4.1 or 18.1. These patches directly address the timing of the audio path activation.
Stop waiting for the silence to fix itself. Start with the "Show My Caller ID" toggle and move through the network reset. Usually, the dial tone returns once the phone stops overthinking which tower it wants to talk to.