Q: iPhone 4S unable to turn off 3G?!

3dpaint - let's have a serious think about what you just said. Think about it logically...

Had a think?

Ok... Now do you realise what a plonker you are? If the 4s has no 2g hardware how is it able to use a 2g signal when there is no 3G signal???

You said:

you know what!

i just discovered something.

there is no 2G hardware on the new iPhone

And I said this is wrong providing info from the iPhone 4S specs indicating the 4S supports GPRS and EDGE access in addition to 3G.

You followed this by saying:

don't believe that...

Difficult to know - impossible is more like it - that you were referring to not believing the talk time provided for GSM/EDGE.

With a 4S at the present time, you would need to be in an area where 3G network access isn't available for the  4S to connect to EDGE or GPRS.

That right, and what you are saying is that if you are in an area that doesn't support 3G than the iphone 4S wont work at all. That is not the case. Also if it only supported 3G only than why when the signal gets low to one bar does it drop calls and display in the signal strength "searching" what the **** is it searching for if there is nothing other than 3G as you put it?

That right, and what you are saying is that if you are in an area that doesn't support 3G than the iphone 4S wont work at all.

What?

I said no such thing. Read again.

Sorry Allan I was supposed to be commenting to 3dpaint. I have agreed with all your comments.

coreykellett wrote:

 

Also if it only supported 3G only than why when the signal gets low to one bar does it drop calls

yes thats true

my calls getting dropped as well

Ok I have read through this entire post and as someone who works with and studying cellular technology, I hope I can shed some light on this discussion:

2G : voice - GSM (AT&T , T-Mobile) : CDMA (sprint, Verizon)

2G : data. - EDGE (AT&T , T-Mobile) : EVDO (sprint, Verizon)

AT&T 3G : uses UMTS for both voice and data which is why you can use voice and data at the same time

Verizon 3G: 3xEVDO for data (voice is still 2G CDMA)

On AT&T , the reason your call on 3G (UMTS) drops instead of switching to 2g (gsm) is because the protocols and even the type of receiver required are completley different . In gsm you are given a times lot to talk on (transparent to the user) and everything is time dependant. The phone is not capable of switching while in a active traffic channel.

Also, unlike gsm, a phone on UMTS will not always choose the best signal to listen on. It will wait until the signal is degraded to a certain point before it scans for a new signal. This leads to calls starting on a poor quality signal and the dropping when there is not another UMTS carrier to use.

have to come back on this one... I am on EDGE..for sure, but as soon as you reboot iPhone, it will come right back in.... the 3G...and on EGDE, Siri is not working

My 5 cents: I got the same problem but I remember when I got my iPhone 4 there was the same problem of battery drain due to the Ping service. Once I disabled it, the problem was solved.

I did the same for the iPhone 4S and the issue seems to be solved as well, even though I still can't understand why Apple decided to remove the switch.

For disabling the Ping service, go to Settings -> General -> Restrictions and enable it. Then in the Allow list, switch off Ping.

Let me know if this solves partially or completely this issue.

actually it's not a matter of battery.

we need this swith back due to the week signal issue caused by by 3G coverage network.

however thanks for sharing this, will try it and get back to u

Did you try putting your carrier info on settings>general>network>cellular data network ????

You can find it on internet, the fields

APN

Username
Password

That should fix it!

Regards!

Check the specs here:

http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html

You'll see:

UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz);

GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)

As I said before if the phone did not have GSM or EDGE capabilities then it would not work where there is no 3G coverage. Like my house for instance there is 3G coverage but it is poor so the phone will drop calls if they are connected via 3G at whick point the phone will take forever to drop back to a 2G service.

Have fun with your new phone.

Dude please understand me well.

The specs on the web site is wrong

Go and check ur phone documents and get back to me please!

The specs on Apple's website are not wrong.

If the specs Apple provided were wrong, that would be illegal.

3dpaint, you are incorrect. The ability to turn off 3G is confirmed with JBing and the toggle itself is going to return in the next update. Please do some research.

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/09/apple-seeds-ios-5-1-beta-3-to-developers/