iPhone 4S dropping network and data at random

Hi,


I've been using an iPhone 4 on a Vodafone contract for the past 16 month and just bought an iPhone 4S direct from Apple. It arrived on Friday morning and I got it set up correctly as far as I can tell.


When I first turn it on, it works lovely and exactly as I would expect, able to make calls, send texts and access the internet via the cellular network. However, at what appears to be random, the network will disappear (no bars of signal) stopping me making calls and texts, but still allowing me to access the internet. Sometimes, the Internet goes, but I can still make calls and texts. Other times, everything is gone and I get "No Signal" where it normally says Vodafone UK.


So when trying to fix this problem after it's noticed, I try putting it into Airplane mode and back out. The phone scans for a network and goes back to the same state as before I tried this fix. I have tried resetting network settings, but this doesn't change anything. The only thing that actually fixes it temporarily is turning the phone right off and back on again.


At this stage I assume this is a bug with the software, but I wondered if anyone else is experiencing anything like this? If no one is, I will take it up with Apple, but I don't really want to do that as I love the new phone so much!!


Cheers, Stuart

iMac (late 2009), Mac OS X (10.6.3), 27" i7 Quad-Core, 4GB RAM, 1TB HDD

Posted on Oct 16, 2011 2:53 AM

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Nov 21, 2011 2:28 PM in response to Stuart Mchattie

Hi,


I have the iphone 4s ios 5.0 since 1 month now with all the problem listed here. I've tried to change the sim card with anew one (orange france don't know if it's a 64 or 128k) and disabled the sim pin but problems was still there. I thought that upgrade to 5.0.1 would be worse. But finally i have upgraded to 5.0.1 and no more problems since 2 days (no more loss of connection). Sim pin is still disabled for now.

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Nov 22, 2011 3:18 AM in response to Stuart Mchattie

Hello - for what is worth my iPhone regularly drops the signal. I'm at work most of the time in the City of London which has numerous cell sites and they are all in working order according to o2. On the way to work today the signal also dropped (but I was travelling on the tube soI'll forgive that). I have considered returning the phone, but as I'm a lightuser I can live with it but if I used it a lot it....

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Nov 22, 2011 5:36 AM in response to Stuart Mchattie

Hi.


Same here. Over 100 Iphone 4s ordered here (yes it's a company). Not sure how many are not working, but it seems they are many. Sending text messages and calling only works about half of the times. Also often get disconnected while on Spotify.

Personally tried everything on the Iphone 4s; deactivate SIM-card, restart, turn on and off, take SIM-card out and so on. Also upgraded to latest software. No - none of these examples work.

Seems many in the forum solved the problem by getting a new SIM-card or a new Iphone 4s. That does'nt tell much about if it is a soft- or hardware problem.

Battery time also seem to be really bad (although it is my first Iphone).

I'm really glad I did'nt pay for the phone myself...

Tele2 user in Sweden.

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Nov 22, 2011 9:41 AM in response to bharat16

I think it's carrier issue, coz i tried a lot of sim cards from my carrier and nothing work. Then i change carrier and everything work fine.

And also my friend had this problem, his carrier told him that he has "bad simcard", that can't work with iPhone 4s and he need to change it with new one from them. And now he is fine.

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Nov 22, 2011 10:18 AM in response to Stuart Mchattie

Some of these discussers are way too kind against Apple. But hey, we are still customers, right?


"If you want to fix it try to change your SimCard to 128k GSM".


Oh, did Apple tell us that the Iphone 4s wasn't gonna work with a 64k SIM card?


Apple probably didn't expect any of this to happen. If the phone dont work with the sim card I see it as an Iphone problem.


I've used Apple products since the 1990's. Iphone 4s was suppose to be a high end product. This is not the case anymore soon- if they dont fix this problem quickly.


Still cant make proper phone calls and send text messages.

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Nov 22, 2011 1:14 PM in response to alexanderrocha

not to sourd like a broken record, but as said by other unfortunate customers, replacing the device did the job, I put the PiN back, no single SIM card error or signal loss and more than 2 days with a full charge and moderate usage.

Don't hesitate to change, Apple is very good at that.

I've just skipped 5.0.1, but I had the issue with 5.0 on my former phone from the first time I inserted the brand new SIM that works perfectly in the replaced phone.

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Nov 22, 2011 9:53 PM in response to mbolo01

Here in lebanon, unfortunately after all time believing in apple products, ihpone 4s disappoints all of us...After ios 5.0.1 cannot send ANY msg, sometimes can make a call and most of the time when I am travelling some distance, NO SERVICE. I have to search by myself for the network by swithching ariplane mode ON/OFF.
Now i have just tried to remove the PIN for my sim card. Got a little better i guess. At least now when i try to make a call and doesn't go through ( while full bars in coverage ), signal goes away searches for a signal, finds it in about 10 seconds and able to make that call through. DOn't have to go through airplane on off stuff. And i tried to send a msg, well same thing after searching for a network again (while it was present ) it managed to send the msg.

BAttery stills *****.

Waiting for ios 5.0.2 cz this ihpone is making my life hard !
Not a way to reward apple's faithful customers

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Nov 22, 2011 10:37 PM in response to mohamad239

Hi there! Absolutely the same situation with me. But I doubt that it's a firmware problem. My friend and I we bought iPhones 4s16G at the same time but in different shops. His iPhone works perfectly with my sim and mine not. I believe that the only solution for all our troubles is changing for the new devices. But before that I will try the last thing - will downgrade to iOS 5.0 and see if this changes the situation as some people here said that it was all OK with their iPhones before they made the upgrade to 5.0.1. I can’t say for myself as I had the upgrade the same day when I switched on the iPhone for the first time. Good luck to everybody!

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Nov 23, 2011 1:05 AM in response to Stuart Mchattie

Hi, im from europe

Same problem but partially resolved. For me when I get the iphone I configured it with 5.0 and it worked perfecty until I upgraded to 5.0.1 and it was very bad idea... I remembered that when i put the 5.0.1 i configured a totally new iphone and so i think it erased all configuration data from the 5.0 version and so I tried to back to the backup done with the 5.0 version and i works perfect even with pin lock on! I still have 5.0.1 cause downgrade is impossible but with the backup done with 5.0 it simply works, I think the problem will be comming from missing some configuration data for cell network in the 5.0.1 soft.

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iPhone 4S dropping network and data at random

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