It happens right in the middle of a sentence. You're explaining something important—maybe a work deadline or just catching up with your mom—and suddenly, silence. You look down at the screen. Call ended. It’s infuriating. Honestly, there isn't much that triggers modern-day tech rage faster than a device that fails at its most basic, 150-year-old job: making a phone call.
If you're wondering why does my phone keep hanging up, you aren't alone, and it usually isn't because someone is mad at you. Most people assume it’s just "bad signal," but that’s a massive oversimplification. We live in an era of VoLTE, 5G handover, and aggressive software power management. Sometimes your phone is literally trying to be too smart for its own good and ends up tripping over its own feet.
Modern smartphones aren't just radios anymore; they are tiny computers constantly negotiating handshakes between cell towers, Wi-Fi routers, and background apps. When that handshake fumbles, the call drops.
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The Ghost in the Proximity Sensor
Have you ever noticed your screen lighting up while it's pressed against your ear? That’s usually the culprit.
The proximity sensor is a tiny hardware component, usually tucked near the top speaker, designed to detect when the phone is against your face. Its only job is to turn off the touch screen so your cheek doesn't accidentally hit the "End Call" button. But these sensors are finicky. If you use a thick screen protector or a bulky case, it can gunk up the sensor's ability to see. Dirt and ear wax—gross, I know, but true—build up over the mesh and trick the phone into thinking you’ve pulled it away from your head.
The screen wakes up. Your jawline grazes the red button. Boom. The call is gone.
Samsung users have reported this frequently with the "Virtual Proximity Sensing" found in some Galaxy A-series models, which uses software and the front camera instead of a dedicated infrared sensor. It’s less reliable. If you find your phone hanging up the second you shift it slightly, check your sensor. You can actually test this on many Androids by dialing *#0*# and selecting the "Sensor" test to see if it's reacting properly to your hand.
Why Does My Phone Keep Hanging Up During 5G Transitions?
We were promised 5G would solve everything. In reality, the transition period between LTE (4G) and 5G is a mess for call stability.
Carrier networks use something called "handover." When you move from a 5G area into a slightly weaker spot, your phone has to decide whether to stick with the struggling 5G signal or jump down to the robust 4G LTE signal. If the network logic is poorly optimized by your carrier—looking at you, early 5G deployments on T-Mobile and Verizon—the "handshake" fails. The connection breaks during the switch.
It’s even worse if you’re moving. Driving or riding a train causes your phone to jump between towers every few minutes. If one tower is congested or the handoff timing is off by a fraction of a second, the call terminates.
Try this: Go into your cellular settings and toggle 5G off for a day. Stick to LTE. If the hanging up stops, you know the local 5G infrastructure in your neighborhood isn't quite "prime time" yet. It’s a bitter pill to swallow when you pay for a 5G plan, but a stable 4G call is always better than a dropped 5G one.
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The SIM Card Is Dying (Yes, Really)
Most people think a SIM card either works or it doesn't. That’s not how it works.
SIM cards are just tiny pieces of plastic with gold-plated contacts. Over years of heat cycles—your phone getting hot in your pocket or while charging—those contacts can oxidize or slightly warp. Or maybe you've dropped your phone a few times and the card has shifted just a hair. If the connection between the SIM and the reader blips for even a millisecond, the phone loses its "identity" on the network.
The network sees a device without a valid ID and kicks it off immediately.
If you’ve had the same SIM card since 2019, it’s probably time for a new one. Most carriers will give you a fresh one for free if you walk into the store and tell them you’re experiencing constant dropped calls. It’s a five-minute fix that solves a surprising amount of hardware-level disconnects.
Software "Optimization" Gone Wrong
Sometimes the phone hangs up because it's trying to save you.
Both iOS and Android have aggressive power-saving modes. If your battery is low, the operating system might start throttling the radio power to keep the phone from dying. On some older OnePlus or Xiaomi devices, the "Battery Optimization" settings have been known to kill the "Phone" app process if it thinks it’s consuming too much juice in the background.
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Then there’s the "Silence Unknown Callers" feature on iPhones. While this is meant to stop spam, it can sometimes glitch and drop legitimate calls that are redirected through a switchboard—like a doctor's office or a delivery driver—because the phone misinterprets the routing data as a "spoofed" or invalid number.
Wi-Fi Calling: The Double-Edged Sword
Wi-Fi calling is great when you're in a basement with zero bars. It's a nightmare if your Wi-Fi is mediocre.
If you're on a Wi-Fi call and you walk toward your front door, your phone tries to transition from the router to the cell tower. This is the "Voice over Wi-Fi" to "Voice over LTE" handoff. If your Wi-Fi signal is "sticky"—meaning your phone refuses to let go of the router even when the signal is garbage—the call quality will degrade until it just snaps.
Pro tip: If you find the hanging up happens mostly when you’re at home, turn off Wi-Fi Calling in your settings. See if that stabilizes things. Often, a weak but steady two-bar cellular signal is more reliable for voice than a Wi-Fi connection that’s fighting with your microwave or neighbor's router.
When To Blame the Carrier
Sometimes it isn't you. It's them.
Network congestion is real. Cell towers have a maximum capacity for "voice channels." During peak hours or at massive events, the tower might "load balance" by dropping lower-priority connections. Also, carriers frequently perform "re-farming" of their spectrum. This means they take old 3G or 4G frequencies and move them to 5G. During these upgrades, local towers might be glitchy for weeks at a time.
Check a site like DownDetector. If you see a spike in reports for your carrier in your zip code, stop troubleshooting your phone. The problem is in the air.
Actionable Fixes to Stop the Hanging Up
Don't just factory reset your phone yet. That's the nuclear option and usually unnecessary.
- The "Network Reset" (The Magic Bullet): On iPhone, go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Network Settings. On Android, it's under System > Reset options. This wipes your Wi-Fi passwords and Bluetooth pairings, but it also flushes the "DNS cache" and forces the phone to re-download the latest carrier towers. It fixes 80% of call dropping issues.
- Update Carrier Settings: On an iPhone, go to Settings > General > About. If an update is available, a pop-up will appear after a few seconds. On Android, this usually happens through a "System Update."
- Physical Inspection: Take your case off. Use a pressurized air can to blow out the top speaker area where the proximity sensor lives.
- Swap to eSIM: If your phone supports it, migrate your physical SIM to an eSIM. It eliminates the "loose card" variable entirely.
- Check for "Call Forwarding" Glitches: Dial
##002#on your keypad and press call. This is a universal MMI code that deactivates all conditional call forwarding. Sometimes a rogue setting sends calls to voicemail prematurely.
If none of that works, it might be a failing antenna band inside the phone. If the device has been dropped or exposed to water, internal corrosion on the antenna flex cable is a likely culprit. At that point, a repair shop is your only friend. But usually? It's just a dusty sensor or a confused 5G radio.
Start with the network reset. It’s annoying to re-type your Wi-Fi password, but it’s less annoying than a phone that won't stay on a call for more than three minutes.