AT&T 3G Not connecting (San Francisco, CA)

Question

AT&T 3G Not connecting (San Francisco, CA)

Hi,

Since Saturday afternoon my iPhone 4 (iOS 4.1) will display full bars, 3G, on AT&T but it will not receive e-mail, update twitter or do anything related to data.

If I turn 3G off, to use EDGE, it works perfectly (though not as fast as 3G, of course). WiFi also works fine.

I tried logging on to AT&T community/forums to see if this is a current problem with the network but of course their user experience is so awful that after 20 minutes of lost password changes and attempted logins I gave up on them and came here.

So, questions:

- Is anyone else in SF, or the Bay Area for that matter, having this problem at the moment?

- Does anyone know how to check network status on AT&T?

- Do you think this can be written off as a carrier fault or is there something up with my APN settings (i.e. are the corrupted)? I can't figure out how to get into my APN settings on iOS4 anyhow...

Thanks for your help. 12 days into my first AT&T contract (after 3 years on o2 in the UK) and already seeing why people are so unimpressed by AT&T.

Macbook 1,1 Black ; Apple iPad WiFi 32GB; iPhone 4 16GB ;, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Oct 11, 2010 11:55 AM

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Answer 1

roaminggnome

Level 10

106,365 points

Oct 11, 2010 11:58 AM in response to spencereholtaway

Call AT&T and ask.

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Answer 2

Oct 11, 2010 12:00 PM in response to spencereholtaway

Have you powered your iPhone off and on and/or done an iPhone reset since this began?

If not, give this a try.

If no change after powering your iPhone off and on and/or after an iPhone reset, try resetting network settings on your iPhone at Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings. This will also erase all wi-fi networks that your iPhone has connected with and will require re-joining every wi-fi network you have access to when returning within range of the network.

An iPhone sold in the U.S. as carrier locked with AT&T doesn't have access to APN settings, which isn't required. The APN settings are done automatically with an iPhone sold in the U.S.

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Answer 3

DaVBMan

Level 6

9,280 points

Oct 11, 2010 12:00 PM in response to roaminggnome

roaminggnome wrote:
Call AT&T and ask.

That is what I was thinking. *611 or something right?

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Answer 4

Oct 12, 2010 3:50 PM in response to spencereholtaway

I'm Having the exact same issue in Springfiled, MO. 3G has full bars but won't connect to the Internet or any Internet required apps. Edge works fine and so does wi-fi. I've also noticed that just since yesterday my battery life in standby mode is terrible. I will lose 10-15% of my battery life in an hour with all background apps closed out. My phone seems much warmer than normal as well.

I went to my local ATT store and they did a network reset and replaced the sim card to no avail. While I was there they told me that within the last two days they have had 5-6 people complain about the Internet issues (including two employees) and that it has only been reported on the iPhone 4. They have also seen the issue on their demo iPhone 4 at the store. While I was there I attempted to Use MLB at bat 2010 app demo and it said that it "could not load data at this time.". They then proceeded to tell me it was my phone and tried to sell me AppleCare. It's obviously not the phones.

Have you found a fix?

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Answer 5

Oct 12, 2010 5:15 PM in response to thegoldglover

No fix as of yet, though it seems things are getting better. I tend to get data on 3G with full bars. Any lower and I get nothing.

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Answer 6

Oct 12, 2010 5:21 PM in response to Allan Sampson

I just tried the reset network settings fix - so far it's back to it's normal snappy self on 3-4 bars. I'll let you know if the problem reoccurs in the next day or two.

Thank you!

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Answer 7

Oct 12, 2010 5:48 PM in response to spencereholtaway

The network reset seemed to work at first for me also. Once the page loaded, I then went to another page which loaded fine and then back to my original page and the issue then re-appeared. Hopefully it works for you though.

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Answer 8

Oct 12, 2010 5:50 PM in response to spencereholtaway

Have you noticed the battery issue with your phone at all?

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Answer 9

Oct 15, 2010 11:01 AM in response to thegoldglover

I'm in San Francisco and have had the same problem on both mine and my wife's phones. Both are in 4.01 currently but hers is a 3GS. I'm going to try the reset network settings to see if that helps.

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Answer 10

Oct 15, 2010 11:06 AM in response to jloberman

Reset Network Settings seems to have helped. 3G wasn't working immediately before the reset and is working straight after. Could be a coincidence though ...

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Answer 11

Oct 16, 2010 1:46 PM in response to jloberman

Spoke too soon 😟

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Answer 12

Oct 17, 2010 8:16 PM in response to jloberman

The network has been having issues on and off for the last 3 weeks with the last week being increasingly worse. Am in the 94115 area but we experienced a wide swath of 3G simply not working yesterday and continued to today (10/17) from Downtown (Union Sq and SF mall) all the way to Ocean Beach. Standing in front of the Sundance Kabuki theatre we show full coverage and 3G but could neither go online nor send any email even after repeated powering down, network reset etc.

This is couple with att's system being down for more than 10 hrs from 9pm PT 10/16 through 8am PT 10/17. Simply disgusted with their field technicians whom I saw smoking in their vans on Clay & Fillmore and leaving work at 4pm Friday afternoon while their DSL guys were laying fiber till 10pm for UVerse scheduled to go live early next year.

Can't wait till VZ iPhone rolls out so I can ditch this level of non-existent service that I'm paying $100s/month for.

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Answer 13

Oct 19, 2010 2:20 AM in response to spencereholtaway

I'm in San Francisco, near the Inner Sunset and ever since Friday evening (10/15) I've been having the same problem. Full 3G bars but not able to load a webpage on the iPhone 4. The 3GS sitting right next to it loads it without a problem. If I keep trying on the iPhone 4, after a few tries the page may or may not load.

Reset network settings multiple times, did a hard reset and moved the SIM around and have gotten nowhere. May head to the AT&T office tomorrow and see if a new sim card will do the trick.

I'm on iOS 4.1 on the iPhone 4 and on iOS 4.0.1 on the iPhone 3GS

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Answer 14

Oct 19, 2010 3:04 PM in response to spencereholtaway

I don't have exact details and can't release them but I will say that based on my engineering knowledge of UMTS if your iPhone connects with full bars but can't make calls it's an authentication problem from the NodeB back to the network. It has NOTHING to do with your iPhone I'm 90% sure. Do other AT&T phones in the same area have the same problem? BTW they are doing a massive capacity upgrade in San Francisco by doubling or quadtrupling capacity by adding 3rd and I believe very soon every nodeB (3G) tower will have 4th carriers. They are also switching backhaul from T1/copper to fiber using their own assets or a consolidator (fibertower, see www.fibertower.com). They are adding minimum NxGigE (1Gbps) backhaul back to the MSC/CO/Switch in markets like San Francisco and New York. Wait a week and it should improve. Sorry upgrades on cellular will have temporary degraded service. 😟

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Answer 15

Oct 19, 2010 3:07 PM in response to spencereholtaway

Also like to add that New York had the same problems before the upgrade finished a couple of weeks ago.

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