How do I extend the length of time my iphone rings before voicemail cuts in? If I need to use a password, how do I access that on my iphone? I'm a new user.

I applied the following to my phone with great success.

AT&T and T-Mobile both use the same method, which lets you change the number of rings right from your phone. To do it:

1. Dial *#61# from your phone. Tap Send.
2. You should see a new screen that displays a bunch of information about what's getting forwarded. You should see a line under "Voice Call Forwarding" that says "Forwards to +11234567890" (where 11234567890 is an eleven digit phone number, likely different from your phone number). Write down this number and tap Dismiss.
3. Now, dial **61*+11234567890*11*XX# and hit Send, where 11234567890 is the number that you found in step two and XX is the number of seconds you want to wait until voicemail picks up. You can set it in increments of 5, where 30 seconds is the maximum.

After you hang up that call, you can have someone call your phone and see if it worked. On some phones, you can dial *#61# again and see how long it's delaying your calls, but our test phone (the iPhone) did not show this information.

Great stuff. Have just done this on my iphone 4s. Just remember to put 30 in where XX is, at step 3, which I believe is the longest time the ringing will go on for. Great help. Thank you.

I have just calles T-mobile UK to extend the number of rings before voicemail cuts in. They informed me that they have now reduced the maximum ring time to 25 secs from 30 secs but at least that gives me a firther 10 secs to get the phone from my pocket 🙂

Thanks tomcatuk - that's brilliant!!! Also thanks to jayesbee for asking the question!