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Apple Watch cellular function

Hi. I have an Apple Watch series 8 with cellular. I activated it with Verizon with number share. When my phone is off, all the cellular functions work fine except for making a call on my watch. When I call someone from my contacts on my watch, it shows as a different phone number on the phone receiving the call. If you call the Watch back on that phone number it will show the contact name I put for that person. Anyone had this same issue?

Apple Watch Series 8, watchOS 9

Posted on Mar 14, 2023 8:42 PM

Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 15, 2023 1:06 PM

This sounds like a configuration issue/glitch when Verizon set up the eSIM for your Apple Watch. The normal configuration has the watch always appearing with the same phone number as its paired iPhone, even when the iPhone is out of range or powered down. The phantom number assigned to the watch is used only for network control and identification, and calls made to it are usually blocked by the network.

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 15, 2023 1:06 PM in response to Community User

This sounds like a configuration issue/glitch when Verizon set up the eSIM for your Apple Watch. The normal configuration has the watch always appearing with the same phone number as its paired iPhone, even when the iPhone is out of range or powered down. The phantom number assigned to the watch is used only for network control and identification, and calls made to it are usually blocked by the network.

Mar 15, 2023 1:37 PM in response to Branta_uk

Got it. So I had a cellular iPad and when I tried calling its assigned number it wouldn’t call. But with the Apple Watch, when I call the assigned number it will ring the Watch. I called Verizon 15 times about this until a few of them said they changed the caller ID on the watch. Do you think that would fix it?

Apple Watch cellular function

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