3G on iPhone 12

The data settings on your phone are determined by your carrier in the carrier settings file that the carrier installs on the phone. If 3G is not an available setting your carrier doesn’t want you to have it. Take it up with your carrier.

however, even a weak LTE connection will be faster than the strongest 3G connection.

Ok, so i picked up a brand new 12 Pro yesterday and it only seems to pick up 3G in my rural area. My old iphone 6S used to get 4 G all the time here on its Vodafone network.

The options I have on my phone are:

5G on

5G Auto

4G

Which makes it weird that im getting 3G.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

• 3G, 4G and 5G HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH VOICE CALLS! Voice calls use analog time-division-multiplex (TDMA) GSM; 3G, 4G and 5G are only meaningful for data; there is a special case if you have Voice over LTE (VoLTE) enabled then voice calls will use LTE. But you can turn this feature off in Settings/Cellular, and you should if your LTE signal is weak. If there is no LTE available it will automatically revert to GSM.

My understanding was that Verizon was doing away with CDMA (code division)and all voice calls would be VoLTE. However, I've now been out of the field for for years. Am I misremembering?

• I'm sorry misinterpreted the word 'support' in the community
• I believe only Apple can install the core settings that permit the use of certain 'channels' (3g, 4g, 5g), Verizon cannot rewrite iPhone software.
• 3/4/5g have everything to do with calls. I had my Xr locked into 3g with 4 bars and solid reception this morning (and months prior to this) and when I switch to 4g or 'auto' I would only have 1 bar or no reception, and could hear nothing when on talking on the phone.

I will remove my account from this forum and throw my new brick in the river.

The phone’s “core” settings support 3G out of the box. And, as others have reported, the phone reverts to 3G if there is no 4G or 5G even if there is no switch to enable it. The presence or absence of the switch to force it is under the control of the carrier.

Specifically for Verizon, in areas where CDMA has been discontinued it uses VoLTE (which is most of their network now). Other carriers still support TDMA GSM as fallback. And VoLTE can use only 4G, it can’t use 3G.

CarMan820 wrote:

• I believe only Apple can install the core settings that permit the use of certain 'channels' (3g, 4g, 5g), Verizon cannot rewrite iPhone software.

You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not, however, entitled to your own facts. And in this case, you're wrong. Verizon can and does provide the firmware settings for the phone as it pertains to how it works on their network.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

Specifically for Verizon, in areas where CDMA has been discontinued it uses VoLTE (which is most of their network now). Other carriers still support TDMA GSM as fallback. And VoLTE can use only 4G, it can’t use 3G.

Thanks!

This is by far the best piece of information you have posted, thank you! I had no idea that without voLTE the phone would use 3G. It’s amazing that Apple, nor my carrier provided me with this information.

That’s exactly what I have. HSPA+ on ATT that reads 4g. And one bar of LTE is far worse because the entire neighborhood is bottlenecked through it. There are times where data simply will not go through. And if I turn off LTE I’m on a network with far less congestion and can at least message and browse. So I often do this when I find the LTE signal to be un-usable.

FWIW all of this is because I live in a town with horrible coverage to begin with. Turning off LTE is a trick I have relied on when network congestion is bad. All the carriers have terrible coverage here so we are all competing for scraps. Without this ability my phone will be bricked at times - vs being able to do basic things.

All this marketing of 5g makes me pretty aggravated when there are major suburbs with huge coverage issues and no investment to fix it.

You’ve totally missed the point. I’m not saying the phone won’t connect and use the 3G and 2G signals. Far from it. It does and I’ve seen it. What I’m saying is Apple have removed the facility to force the phone to only use those bands within the voice and data menu.

This thread is really repetitive and really boring.

can someone get an official statement from Apple just to tell you all that the 12 series do support 3G and why the option has been removed.

you are all missing the point

3G is being phased out. To upgrade 4G and 5G I have seen articles about this in the uk and USA

I have a 12 pro Max in the uk and it does work on 3G as I live in a rural area that really only has 3G.

forget the option to use only 3G.

The preferred connection for the device is 4G or 5G

maybe that is why the option is not there.

please can people read other comments and posts as all the info keeps getting repeated all the time.

I have tried to unfollow this thread but I get emails about it daily with the same replies 🥱

So I have WiFi calling and you’re right it’s a solution for in the house. But it’s also not enough to just say we’ll use our WiFi and live with one bar of crappy LTE coverage in a suburb of Boston with 40k people. And I am often on calls or VOIP for work when I leave the house and drop the call shorty thereafter.

And yes this is less of Apple’s problem and more on the carriers. Apple makes great devices. I’m just saying that turning off LTE - for me - results in a far better experience in terms of practical usage in my area. And now we don’t have that option anymore.

The truth is if carriers took half the money they are spending on marketing 5g and put into network infrastructure that would likely solve the problem. But instead they rent the best space on their own towers and spend all their cash running ads for 5g because somehow data speed in optimal coverage areas is more important than reliable coverage everywhere.

POLEKING wrote:

can someone get an official statement from Apple just to tell you all that the 12 series do support 3G and why the option has been removed.

Thank you for a sane answer; I will try to summarize for people who don’t read threads before posting “me too” replies.

This is a user-to-user forum. Apple does not respond in it. To get an official answer you can use the contact support link at the top of this page. However, the information has been published by Apple in the tech specs for the iPhone 12 series, which I have reposted in this very thread. Repeated here:

• 5G NR (Bands n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n20, n25, n28, n38, n40, n41, n66, n71, n77, n78, n79) [comparable performance to LTE]
• 5G NR mmWave (Bands n260, n261) [gigabyte speeds, but very short range]
• FDD‑LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 66, 71) [AKA “4G”, except for AT&T]
• TD‑LTE (Bands 34, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 46, 48) [AKA “4G”, except for AT&T]
• CDMA EV‑DO Rev. A (800, 1900 MHz) [3G-CDMA, Verizon & Sprint]
• UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz) [3G-TDMA; Most carriers worldwide, T-Mobile , AT&T who call HSPA+”4G"]
• GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz) [2G]

The bold notes are mine, for those who are not familiar with the technical names for 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G

The “option” as you call it is a switch that lets you select 3G and exclude 4G/LTE and 5G. Apple has no control over that switch; it is included or excluded in the carrier settings file that the carrier installs when you activate the phone on that carrier’s network. That’s why Apple doesn’t provide that option; it isn’t their’s to provide.

As to why the carrier doesn’t want you to have that option, I can speculate. Every carrier in the US and Europe has announced that they are shutting down 3G in the near future. Some as soon as the end of this year. But all by mid-2022.

The reason they are shutting down 3G is to expand 4G/LTE coverage, because LTE uses the same frequencies as 3G. So for every 3G channel on a tower there is one less LTE channel that the tower can support. And for every 3G channel they shut down they can add an LTE channel. (Okay, it isn’t quite that simple, but the principle is correct; The more 3G coverage an area has the less LTE coverage it can have). And LTE coverage is important, because it supports digital voice (VoLTE), which requires much less bandwidth than analog voice so more users can share a tower.

Most areas will still keep 2G because it supports almost every phone of any age, as well as emergency services, so it is the lowest common denominator for voice, and it doesn’t conflict with LTE. However, 2G data speeds (EDGE) are less than 1 mbps.

MadParty wrote:

The truth is if carriers took half the money they are spending on marketing 5g and put into network infrastructure that would likely solve the problem. But instead they rent the best space on their own towers and spend all their cash running ads for 5g because somehow data speed in optimal coverage areas is more important than reliable coverage everywhere.

In the U.S., carriers don't generally own the towers their cells are mounted on. They are owned by companies whose entire business model is buying or leasing real-estate and building towers. Space on those structures is then leased to carriers. 5G is a whole new kettle of fish because it requires so many more cells.

IdrisSeabright wrote:

In the U.S., carriers don't generally own the towers their cells are mounted on. They are owned by companies whose entire business model is buying or leasing real-estate and building towers. Space on those structures is then leased to carriers. 5G is a whole new kettle of fish because it requires so many more cells.

Indeed; my niece is an architect who designs the sites and facilities for cell towers. Generally, the companies that own the towers use her as a consultant when deploying new towers or updating existing ones. And most towers host multiple carriers.