eli5 do callers still get a busy “in another call” signal when they dial somebody who’s in mid-call? What about when the receiver’s phone displays “another incoming call”? How does that work?

Question

I’m used to calling people and receiving an annoying BEEP BEEP BEEP tone to signal that the person I’m trying to reach is currently on another call. But for a while now, at least on my iPhone, I, as the *receiver* of calls, can see my phone flash a message about an incoming call, to which I can then decide to hang up my existing one to take the new call or to ignore the new call. My question is: what does the caller on the other end hear when they dial me in the middle of me on a call? Still the same annoying beeping tone? How has phone calls and connectivity changed to allow this new interference without interfering the receiver and without giving the same beeping to the caller? Are there still phones and connectivity lines where the old “busy” signal is still active?

In: 3

Answer 1

Cell phones will usually handle this by asking the recipient if they want to take the second incoming call (and put the first on hold).

Many landlines will just send any additional calls directly to the preset number for handling calls in a busy state (normally defaults to voicemail.)