Q: iPhone 6 - people can't hear me; garbled; breaking up

I can't tell you how many hours I've spent on the phone with Verizon tech support trying to figure out why I'm having this same problem with my iPhone 6 Plus.  I have a signal extender (I have no idea why I need one since I live one mile from a Verizon tower) and usually have 5 bars on my iPhone 6.  When it first started happening (right after I bought the phone), they had me try all kinds of things, none of which worked.  After a number of calls over many months, I was finally told that the signal extender doesn't support LTE (great).  They had me turn it off and do a number of other things.  It seemed better for a while. For the last week or so, NOBODY can understand me - they say I'm garbled and cutting out.  I can hear THEM just fine.  I don't remember what the exact changes were the techs had me make last time (I hadn't changed anything since), and I am just about ready to throw in the iPhone towel.  This phone is my WORK phone.  I can't tell you how awkward it is to have to call people from my HOME phone.  And expensive.

Has ANYONE figured out what the heck is wrong???  Is it the iPhone 6?  Is it the carrier??  For as much money as I have invested in my phone and signal extender, I ought to be able to get consistent voice transmission.  And I will have 5 BARS on my phone when it happens.  I just don't know what to do next or who to call.  I've switched over to all Apple products, so I really hate to give up my iPhone........

I have this issue with iPhone 6.  By chance I found a temporary solution that worked for me:

1.     Sometimes people cannot hear me when I call using the phone's ear microphone.  Other times they can.

2.     Some people can hear me faintly and I start raising my voice.  Not really an option.

3.     While on the phone on a call where the other person cannot hear me well enough I switched to speaker phone

         and the person can hear me a little better but says I am fading in and out.

4.     While on the phone on the same call where the other person cannot hear me well enough I switched to earbuds,

        and Vuala!  the other person can hear me fine.

I think the same external mic is used for both the ear microphone and speaker phone  meaning its soft wired, but the earbuds are hard wired and provide a direct sound impulse.  Leads me to think the external mic is impaired and I may have allowed the phone to get wet (outdoors) or be in my bathroom when its moist and sometimes steamy.

Test:

Try drying out your phone in a rice bag and then calling a number.  If it works, fine.

Then leave it in your bathroom and take a steamy shower.  Then try calling that same number again.

Yes I had the same issue.  I took it into the apple store and they ran a test and said the mic was bad.

Ron, it may be that you allowed your phone to get wet, but I will say that if you look back at the beginning of this thread, it started over a year ago. My husband took my phone into Sprint repair and they ended up giving him a new iphone 6. This new phone has the same problem, so I have been without reliable phone service for nearing six months now. I've tried the things suggested on here without success.Just did what you said (though I think I tried that previously), so hopefully it'll be good this week. What disappoints me not only with Apple,but with Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and all of them is that these phones are still being sold and those selling them KNOW what problems are likely ahead for those walking out their doors. Customer service? What a joke. Sadly, it is ALL ABOUT MONEY ...

I Completely agree. This is my first iPhone and I am not happy at all. I'm gonna go back to android as soon as I get the chance. No one can hear me and say I am garbled too. Like all the others I have tried all the fixed including disabling LTE. Nothing works. I'm really disgusted and it seems that's the number one priority is money. And definitely not about customers or their service that we pay a premium amount for and can't even use the minutes. All I can do Is text. T-Mobile and apple have logs and experienced the same issue but they have yet to resolve it. Very unhappy as a new apple user.

I had IDENTICAL problems.  Iphone 6 started acting up- people complained of not being able to hear me; then phone would cut out.  I thought that it was due to the Verizon strike.  At that point, I didn't know the "tip" of changing LTE settings to "Data only."  I received my replacement Iphone 6 (my iphone was less than 1 yrs old), and received a REFURBISHED piece of crap.  This phone was worse than mine.  I could not get ANY cellular service.  2X at Verizon store over Memorial Day weekend- Grrrrr.  Being without a working phone for 3 days was ****.  Anyways, they told me that I also, "must have a corrupt file in my iphone back-up..."  And we did every "fix" under the sun-  "Erasing all content"  "restoring to default setttings"  Changing out sim card...... So when I received my new phone today, I set it up as a New Iphone. 

My 2nd replacement phone is working now, but I'm afraid to crash it again by restoring my old backup.  So now I don't have any of my back-up on the phone.  But I really want to know is this an IOS 9.3.2 update issue?  Hardware issue?   And also-  I think it's crap that with a phone less than 1 yr old, that they wouldn't just send a brand new one out.  The refurbished ones seem to be crap. 

Terrible problems with garbled calls, sounding like a robot, sounding like I'm under water.  Initially I could hard reset the phone by holding the home button and the sleep/wake button which would fix the issue for ONE call, but only occasionally! Of course the day that I took it to the Apple Store it didn't do it. They replaced my sim card which didn't fix anything. I changed LTE to data only and it was still garbled. I've turned off LTE completely and so far so good. On my 4th call and everyone can hear me.. I will keep you all posted...

I came from a long time of using android. I got fed up with the bloat ware and crap so made a change to Apple. I heard so many good things hints with reliability and stability. So far I have experienced NEITHER. Appradio crashes on my phone constantly or won't work so I have to reboot the phone. Car play will work but also locks up occasionally. The phone has always been garbled. People say they can't hear me and I sound like I'm talking into a trash can. They have replaced my phone twice and still there. I have turned off LTE and still the same. they told me they think it's my mic but they don't want to take the phone apart to replace it, and it's not a bad enough by problem to exchange it.  Oddly I can't use my phone to talk at all so it is bad enough. It's bull crap.i think I'm going to ditch Apple all together unless they get this fixed  No matter what I try it's the same crap.

MY apologies for typing mistakes. I try voice to text but siri never gets it right and always corrects my words that are correct to wrong ones. Irritated with that to

Back to the same problems. I have been a loyal apple user and am considering switching to Android for my cellular needs.

I have solution, go to Settings and wifi, notice next to your wifi network on right is a circle, tap the circle and tap forget network (must know wifi password to turn back on) next go to settings, and cellular, turn cellular off.  now for the fix, read all instructions first before doing this!  ok now I want you to hold in your power button (or sleep/wake button) as to power down your phone!  BUT DO NOT LET GO OF POWER BUTTON, WHEN YOU SLIDE TO POWER PHONE OFF CONTINUE HOLDING IN POWER BUTTON UNTIL AN APPLE POPS UP!  THEN RELEASE POWER BUTTON!  Note when phone powers back up, and you turn on cellular, you now see your carrier name and 3G, next to Verizon, AT&T etc... where before you saw and had only LTE options only, off or on!  You are now able to go back into Settings and wifi  turn your wifi back on and wait for it to search and find your network, then enter your password!  if you ever have to go to Settings, General, and Reset Network settings, you must do this all over again!  also you will want to go to Settings, iCloud, backup and preform a new back-up- remember the date and not to use a backup older than the date you preformed this trouble shooting fix, otherwise you will pick up those old settings again!  So So glad that people can finally hear me now on other end!  for people not having this issue, it is because you are in an area that is covered really well by LTE, 4G Service!  Good Luck!!!

Just had this problem on my wife's phone. The solution was to go into settings > cellular and set LTE to data only. It was set to "Voice & Data" which I feel was causing the issue. switching that setting to "Data Only" seemed to fix the issue. This was on the Verizon network, iPhone 6s.