3G on iPhone 12

It’s not so much a worry, rather a reality. My iPhone Pro 12, and many others’, do not connect to 3G networks.

if you were able to go to the place in the settings that I outlined above and let us know what your phone shows for options I’d be curious how they compare to the attached screenshot of mine. If you have 3G as an option that would explain why your phone is connecting, however mine does not.

I would like to know as I’m getting ready to return my iPhone 12 but if it seems like a fix is on the horizon I might keep it

thanks

brian

Same issue. I live in upstate NY where 3g and LTE are the main options. My 12 pro max will not pick up 3g. Also my phone will not regain service after losing it. I have to either turn the phone off or hit airplane mode off and on to regain any service. I hope they fix this....

From what I was told by Verizon (my carrier) they were retiring 3g at the end of the year which will leave the majority of our county without service . Even at my home I no longer have service in my yard , garage or anywhere my wifi will not reach . Today I’m experiencing issues at work even being connected to the wifi. Verizon said the only resolution I had was to return the phone . Even with it being returned 3g will be obsolete at the end of 2020 so it’s useless . We’ll just no longer have cell service regardless of the phone we have .

I would be happy if it used the strongest signal, unfortunately I don’t see that behaviour. The device hangs on to a weak LTE signal where there is a strong 3G signal. It will certainly use 3G if that’s all that’s available.

If your carrier is Verizon or Sprint that is not surprising, because 3G on CDMA carriers must be enabled on the carrier’s network database by adding the phone’s MEID, and it is not enabled by default. Apparently Verizon is refusing to support 3G on the iPhone 12 series. It should work with any GSM carrier (T-Mobile and AT&T in the US).

POLEKING wrote:

I do not work for apple or any of the network providers. I do not have the answer to this. Is there anyone on this thread that does? Let’s get some official responses from them before we all say that we are returning devices because of poor network coverage.

This is a user-to-user forum. You're not going to get any sort of "official response". However, both Lawrence and I have worked in the cellular industry in the U.S. I worked for Verizon for 20 years. Everything Lawrence has explained is correct. Whether or not people chose to believe that is up to them. But, it's as close to "official" as you're going to get here.

Your suggestion to use WiFi calling is spot on.

For the first time since getting my iPhone 12 pro, I was able to get 3g as well as even Edge. It was roaming on a Verizon partner. Info showed the carrier as Cell One. I happened to travel out of town where Verizon service is sparse or nonexistent apparently. I was shocked to look down and see 3g when I got where I was going. Normally since having my 12 pro I get no service at home which is not normal considering the day I activated the 12 and deactivated my previous phone, the XS, is the last day I saw 3g at home. The phone I upgraded from was an XS as I mentioned and it connected to 3g perfectly fine at home with full bars. Anyway this no service problem is not an Apple issue at least where 3g connectivity is concerned. It’s 100% on Verizon. I’ve come to conclusion Verizon is deliberately disallowing 3g on the new 12’s. Be it either because it’s going away in a matter of weeks or whatever. The fact it’ll roam to 3g to me means the modem works just fine and the speeds were even better than Verizon 3g on my XS was.

EDIT: Didn’t intend on replying to a specific message. This was meant as general info.

I’m in Australia and had perfect 3g coverage on my older iphone. I have just transferred my SIM into my iPhone 12 and my mobile provider Telstra has 3g enabled on my plan but from day one of my new phone being enabled, there is no option to turn on 3g. The only choices are 4g, 5g or 5g auto. The 4g coverage is almost non existent in my area as I’m in the country. I have been to Telstra and they thought it might have been that I’m using 2 SIMs in the phone but it hasn’t worked. I’m taking the phone back and changing it for an 11 instead.

have you ready any of this thread? You phone is enabled to use 3G the network providers are phasing it out.

good luck returning your phones claiming they don’t work on 3G 🤦🏻‍♂️

please can people stop commenting on this thread it’s boring and annoying that people don’t ready the 12 pages of comments about the same thing.

Verizon says they can’t set it up to connect to 3g . The phone is failing to connect to 3g automatically when 4g is not available so as a result I don’t have any service at all. Apple says it’s Verizon causing the issues Verizon says they don’t know how to fix it I’m stuck in the middle with a expensive monthly payment for a phone that won’t work unless I have Wi-Fi . My husbands Samsung will auto connect to 1x and 3g automatically so he can use it throughout the whole county .

My spouse has AT&T and her two options are LTE & 4G. Her iPhone 12 Pro connects to 5G when available with no problem, and also connects to 3G without issue as well. I'm currently in BC, and a very large portion of the province is still 3G only, that won't be going away anytime soon.

"...Does ANYONE in this thread get the fact that Apple does not choose what cellular option settings are available on an iPhone? ..."

Is this documented anywhere official other than your say so? What is the format of the file pushed to the iPhone? Does it have "supported" bands/technologies" and separately "menu items" lines? I totally agree that the first may be there but really doubtfull on the second one and without seeing any actual evidence find it difficult to believe.

I personally think that the iPhone has an algorithm that only puts the latest and greatest 2 bands in the menu. It checks on 5G in the carrier file and if it sees it just puts 4G and 5G in the menu. And if it doesn't see 5G, then drops to 3G and 4G.

Regardless of that, as User0197 says, the preference order is purely based on the technology and no attention is paid to the quality of the signal, resulting in poor service!!! And that is definitely iPhone SW problem...

The phone number to call is *3001#12345#*, after calling the number, press the menu button and then click on some files, this only works on Intel modems, but the QUALCOMM modems on the iPhone 12 have a similar menu, you may also consider looking at the LTE/5G serving cell measurements, -130 equals bad and -41 equals the best

I am pretty confused here guys:

L Finch>> "...The options that you can choose are installed in iOS BY THE CARRIER WHEN THE PHONE IS ACTIVATED, NOT BY APPLE...."

Deggie "...As far as which signal it chooses to select that has absolutely nothing to do with Apple, that is embedded in the firmware of the radio chip which works with the SIM to determine which band/frequency to use. Apple cannot rewrite the firmware on the IC which communicates directly with the SIM..."

Which one is it? The carrier or the Radio chip?!!!

This is a Samsung S20 standard menu. This is how you do it.

In android you can also go to a "field menu" which allows you to set any specific band, a selection and order of preference to your liking.

The carrier will provide you a list that they can support but choosing what to display in the phone menus and what frequency to connect to is done in the phone itself.

So let's stop blaming the carrier or the chip providers...

In Europe where i ouve hest network is 3G after upgrading to ios 14.5.1 from ios 14.2 i lost the option to switch to 3g or use it , i spoke with carrier today they cant do anything they claim its apple how can provide you with software control what network u can choose, and smartphone is not smart at all now phone never switches to 3g instead i am left with 1 bar of poor network or even less, same sim card on my non upgraded iphone it have the option to switch between 3g and 4g , apple claim device is smart but its not device should detect your network quality and go auto to 3g instead of that i have option eithrr to be on NON existing 5g or very poor 4g LTE. i hope apple will fix this with some software upgrade soon , so prior of upgrading phone was great now battery drains very fast due to the terrible 4g lte poor coverage.