Abstract: A method for enabling a mobile phone to control the automatic activation/deactivation of the call waiting feature in real time through the use of customized pre-set user preferences. The mobile phone contains a database with multiple records for people and/or businesses known to the user. Within each record, the user may define a priority number. Each priority number is a scaled integer value, with low priority numbers representing a high priority record and high priority numbers representing low priority records. If the mobile phone detects an incoming call while a call is already in progress, a call waiting utility notifies the user of the incoming call if the incoming call corresponds to a preset priority number that is less than or equal to the priority number of the current call. Otherwise, the incoming call is directed to the user's voicemail system without interrupting the current call.