Can't dial out or receive calls intermittently with 3GS and 3.1

I have this problem with a 3GS and 3.1. Tried all of the above.

Apple replaced my phone tonight ... and their diagnostics indicated approximately 40% dropped call rate .. and my personal experience is that the diagnostic undercounts the real errors.

Still restoring phone ... so unknown whether this issue was the phone or the deteriorating quality of the ATT network.

after much trouble, it seems that the problem lies with the 3G service, i was advised to turn it off, which i have (after a restore and selecting it as a new phone) and it seems to be working ok now, so im unfortunately gonna have to leave the 3G feature off until they release another version....

hope this works for you & others too!

heres a reply i had in a different thread....

"Hi Jimmy!

yes, we have disabled the 3G network.That's the only time anything comes through. Just for chits and giggles I turned 3G back on this morning for about 15 minutes. during those 15 minutes, I missed 12 calls, straight to vm. However, no chime UNTIL, I disabled 3g again.. and it took 2 hrs for it to chime, AFTER being back on EDGE."

I was also advised by ATT to try this - use the 2G data service.

I was outraged. I did not pay a premium to essentially lose my high speed data service.

What I was told by an ATT tech was that due to the high demand for 3G data service, ATT has reprogrammed its tower base stations to give more UMTS power to data over voice ... and that is causing the voice degradation. It would also explain the better performance with 2G since that uses a different band.

It is however intolerable if indeed true and not easy to fix. It would require installing new equipment on every tower that has congestion - likely thousands - and assigning more spectrum - which may not available on every tower.

I had been having the same zombie phone problems, but things seem to have been fixed for a week now.

Upgrading to 3.1.2 helped me, but I see that is not the case for everyone who has upgraded to 3.1.2.

Before upgrading to 3.1.2, I had tried all the other solutions, such as resetting the network on the iPhone, and resetting the iPhone from scratch as a new phone. Then I upgraded to 3.1.2 as a last step.

Perhaps doing all of this was necessary, not just upgrading to 3.1.2 from a problem phone.

If the problems return, I'll report it here.

My 3 GS iPhone was replaced by Apple last night. The genius bar diagnostics showed an average of 40% dropped calls. In my experience, this understates the problem I have.

After an all night restore ... I am finding the same behaviour with the new iPhone as with the old.

I called ATT today .. to examine my options.

The key comment - after consultation with ATT management - "the contract you signed does not guarantee quality of service."

I am simply astounded.

Hi

Just to add my voice to the (long) list here. I have an iPhone 3G and the past few days have been experiencing the problems mentioned here including calls going straight to voicemail and very poor call quality, usually only starting a couple of minutes into the call.

I put in a new SIM from O2 which I thought fixed the problem but it came back after a few hours / calls (not sure which!).

My wife's SIM card (O2 pay and go) in the phone seems to experience the same problem.

However based on suggestions earlier I have disabled 3G (which is not a big deal as I don't even live in a very good 3G area) and just had a 10 minute call with no problems so maybe this is the 'solution'. Still not sure if this is an O2/3G issue or iPhone Os 3.1.x issue though.

Cheers,
Steve H

I too, here on O2 network in the UK, experience this same problem.

Hitting 'call' on the phone-looks like iPhone is attempting to call, but nothing. Happened 3 times this week. Restarting resets it, BT this ISN'T the solution. If Apple suggests, on a report call, to resetting device, but forum reports this doesn't work, I am not looking forward to the support call which may be wasted.

Apple- you need to add this to be fixed in a release.

If you think that Apple or ATT care about any of these issues you're sorely mistaken. As long as they keep selling iPhones and getting new customers, they have no incentive to fix the myriad of problems that exist.

Re: O2 in the UK....

Well for me I seem to have got over the worst (fingers crossed). I did a complete factory reset (connect phone to Mac, sync, press Home and Power for 10 seconds, release power when apple logo appears but keep home pressed and then follow on screen instructions to re-install firmware and restore from sync backup).

I did this Friday and have experienced no problems since then where previously I couldn't even make a 30 second call.

Admittedly I've not turned 3G back on (I'm not in a 3G area anyway) but turning this off didn't help me anyway.

Steve

Updating to 3.1.2 seems to have solved the zombie mode problem for me. Also battery life seems a bit better.

That said the upgrade process was very bad. The upgrade to 3.1.2 failed, leaving the phone in recovery mode. Recovery process failed 4 times before finally succeeded on the 5th, when I had just about given up hope.

Unfortunately you can add me to the list of people with an iPhone problem. I have been trying everything that I can think of to get this paper weight to start working as a reliable phone again, but nothing is working. I'm on version 3.1.2 now, didn't help. I have reseeded the sim card, didn't help. The only thing that I can do is turn 3g off then turn it back on and the phone works again for a few hours. After reading this ENTIRE thread I am going to leave 3g off. I am on call 24 hours a day every day of the week and not having a reliable phone is killing me. Everyday I regret buying this thing. My wife has a $40 cheap phone that is reliable and costs way less. If there is ever a real fix please post here so I can go about my day to day business without having to pick up my phone every hour and restarting it to make sure that if someone was to try and call me I could actually receive the call.

Well, I had exactly the same symptoms as you and for me a complete factory reset (google iPhone factory reset - there's loads of articles) did the trick. Make sure you do an iTunes sync before you start but you should then get all your apps, settings, contacts and calendars etc back. It took a while to reset, reinstall the firmware and then resync but it was worth it. I've been using my phone quite heavily since then and it's been faultless for a couple of weeks now since doing it.

Looks like Orange in the UK have inherited this issue as my 30 hour old iphone 3GS has started doing this - Sending and recieving calls and texts are intermittent at best, as is 3G internet browisng. 3.1.2 was added on activation. Called them prior to reading this thread, best they could stump up with was a SIM update. Will call them back tomorrow advising them of the various issues raised here and see what they say.

Such a shame as it's a lovely piece of kit, really wouldn't assert my right to cancel the contract within the cooling off period but if it's still doing this i'll have no other option really