Knocking sound on iPhone calls

I too have this on 2 iPhone 14 Pro Max running iOS 17.0.3

I swear I never noticed this until iOS 17 but both phone are indeed on T-Mobile.

It seems random and I cant always reproduce it either but it doesn't seem to matter who calls whom meaning inbound -vs- outbound in our case but both phones do this so it's not likely a bad handset.

I've always had random odd issues with TMO and they either never understand my complaint or do not acknowledge it but sometimes something somewhat gets corrected. Maybe the right person has to complain. I don't know. Once they dumped most of their T-Force support group to save money, support went into the sewer. At least with them we had SOME chance of SOMEONE listening to our issues.

:-/

If I could get the same pricing with VZW or someone else, I would port out but no one can touch the pricing and features we have with TMO, so we tend to put up with their network issues in exchange for excellent pricing on cellular.

I am looking once again at USCellular due to the fact they are regional and we have better access to support and engineers that might actually care about what the customer experiences. Who knows...

Commenting here just to keep the thread going. This has been happening to me for about a year now. I thought it was my previous iPhone, switched to the new 15, and same thing happens. I also have T-Mobile, and as someone that will be on a long phone call for work, it starts to drive me crazy after a while. I had previously contacted Apple support, and their suggestion was to try switching carriers, but based on this thread that I finally found, it's good to know I'm not alone, I'm not going crazy, and that it is fairly easy to trace back to T-Mobile. This needs to be fixed. If I didn't get such a good deal with T-Mobile, I would happily leave.

There is literally no one left at TMO that has any decent skills now. I had an internal engineer in Chicago I used to be able to reach out to for weird **** like this - but he quit, walked out and that was the end. Now when I have issues I typically have to wait until someone 'important' complains to get it addressed. You can open all the tickets you want, but I bet they will tell you wait 72hrs and then when you call back, they will tell you the so-called engineers didnt find anything. I literally have given up on calling TMO except if I have a billing issue.

But yea, the price cant with TMO be beat (especially if your over 55) so I put up with it.

We have (3) iPhone 14 Pro Max and all of them do this knocking. I don't believe it's an Apple issue but maybe the next Carrier update (higher than 56.0) could possibly address this - but really, who knows.

I haven't reported this to Apple nor TMO for obvious reasons and finger pointing. Switching providers might solve the symptom but not fix the underlying problem. I will keep monitoring this thread in case someone reports back with some success somewhere. Until then, I live with it.

yes i just got my iphone 15 pro with tmobile not to long ago and when i call people on speaker phone i randomly get that crap for 5-10 seconds then goes away then comes back and its very annoying.. they also cant hear anything wrong on their side.. people here seem to be having a hard time describing the sound but to me it totally sounds like an analog clock clicking every second. Almost like the sound of a grandfather clock.. either that or someone tapping a stick or a pencil every second on a wooden desk.

I hear a sound like somebody hammering, a nail into wood in the background. Every time I only called one specific number I am T-Mobile, but recipient has a different carrier. I make multiple phone calls and I have never experienced this before except for just her …

does that mean her phone is tapped?

I get a knocking on wood sound at night that purposely wakes me up multiple times. Apple Support had me turn on do not disturb and turn off all sounds for everything. This stopped the annoying wake up calls. I fell asleep one night without turning on do not disturb and was woken up by the same sound.How is someone able to harass this way what loop hole in Apple Security exists and why can’t they close it?

What I’ve experienced lately is that if the call is incoming, the knocking is not happening. It’s really screwed, but I text someone & request that they call me. INSANE, really but it has worked the past couple of days, so I will report that.

But yes, to whoever wrote last, it took forever for TMobile to open a ticket, and before I knew it they closed it & said it was resolved.

I had to start over again, but they do have the previous notes. This has been going on for over a year, but I hadn’t reported it back then because I was dealing with a surgery. And the problem began when I had an android phone, so it is NOT an I-phone/Apple problem. It’s a T-Mobile issue.

I have this problem. I have an IPhone & I had Sprint for probably 18 years before they switched to TMobile. This knocking sound never happened until the switch. It’s a thumping/knocking sound that comes and goes while talking to certain numbers. I always ask the other person if they can hear that noise and they never can. It drives me crazy that I can only hear it on my end. Finally, I got so fed up that I was googling it and my search lead me to this thread.

I encountered this knocking on Tmobile in January 2022, after I made some changes to the phone lines connected to my account. After recently switching carriers away from TMobile to AT&T, I can confirm I no longer have to listen to this distracting knocking noise on my calls. It was very noticeable when I was speaking to my mom on Verizon network calls, randomly on other calls, which I suspect may have also been Verizon subscribers.

I too have only experienced this on TMO or VZW.

Not on any other carrier I have used.

Even USC here in the midwest doesn't have this issue.

But the increased monthly costs to switch to someone such as AT&T doesn't work for us.

I'll put up with it for the rather large savings and simply presume at some point, maybe after a carrier update, the issue will silently go away..

No one else can touch the price plans we are 'grandfathered' in with TMO but if some day the plans are changed on us (forced to a new plan) then maybe at that point I would switch.

I have some suspicion that the knocking is associated with those of us users that were on the lower cost grandfathered accounts. I never encountered the issues until I re configured my total number of lines and feel like at that time, to preserve my rate, they moved me to a tier two of their network. I noticed I have 5G coverage often on this AT&T pay as you go account - and have never once seen 5G connection on my T-Mobile. I switched after having coverage issues in general that I was not able to successfully troubleshoot until I left the network.

We have 5GUC here and consistently get over 500mb/sec download speeds. Of course we live 1 block away from the TMO site in town. I had thought about this but my plan (while grandfathered due to the Go5G plans) isnt all that old.

Hard to say if there is any connection here or basis to your theory but it is food for thought. It's crossed my mind but seeing that I had the same issues on a normal plan with VZW, I'm not sure what to make of that at the moment..

I just got a new IPhone SE and have the same issue! Apple was kind and ran numerous tests! It’s not the new phone. I also have T-Mobile that I recently switched! I think it has to be some issues with T-Mobile

as my other phone was switched from Verizon to T-Mobile and I am not having the issue with! Also a SE

mine sounds like someone is lightly banging a hammer which goes on for several seconds, then goes off, then back on again, but you never know when that annoying tapping sound is going to start. I have an appt. at Apple today 11/21/23 but there's no way of reproducing that sound so I believe they will NO be able to fix it.

I have been hearing a tapping sound for a long time now. I’m getting really tired of it. I will start with TMobile and complain. It is not the phone or an Apple problem but I might see what they tell me. I have been with T Mobile and Apple both a long time and never had this happen before! Don't want to change anything.

iPhone 13 Pro Max and TMobile