How do I turn off 3G on the iPhone 4S?

deggie,

Thanks - Now I am even more glad I didn't give in to the "Purchase your old phone" advertisements.

Oh - and thanks for being subtle about offering the correct name for "Booster thing". Microcell- "such a simple word". I feel like the guinea pig in the commercial calling cadence "Row". 😟

I was disappointed to see this feature missing when I first tried to swtich to edge during a sporting event. I send a enhancement request to Apple. Hopefully if enough of us do the same they will listen!

Yes, Wigmo, that is about all one can do, is submit a request to Apple, though if it is a technology limitation, it may not matter how many people write in. It just may not be possible, if so don't blame Apple blame Qualcomm the maker and designer of the hybrid chipset used in the 4S. Remember, Infineon made and designed the chipset for the GSM iPhone 4 and previous, which was fully compatible with the 3G toggle. Just sayin'

Wrong. Wrong wrong. Apple just hid the option on the 4s like they did on the iPad 2. The switch get be restored by editing the config files on the 4s. One method is not allowed to b talked about here. The other is extracting the iPhone backup data and changing it yourself

The chip FULLY supports a software toggle

There is no link. I spent 12 hrs combing through the files till I found the carrier bundle data

The easy way can't b talked about here.

The hard way is getting a util that will extract, let u edit the iPhone plist backup files, the reintegrate it back to the backup and restore the phone

This has NOTHING to do with the 4S chip and everything to do with Apple wanting Siri not to choke on non 3g

There is not much point telling us that Apple hide the option if you can't tell us which file to edit or to prove it right?

I am not saying that you are lying about about it, the whole point is to either get Apple to provide a reply or let us know which file in the backup to edit, etc...

If you research CDMA technology, you will discover that toggling 3G off is not possible for the same reason CDMA (outside of SV-DO) can't surf and talk at the same time over cell radio. There is only one radio. GSM 3G (UMTS-HSPA) phones have two radios that allow for talk and surf as well as a 3G toggle down to 2G (EDGE) if available. If you disable 3G on a CDMA radio, you lose voice, because there is only one radio.

The iPad 2 uses the same radio for data that the GSM iPhone 4 uses. I think you are confusing cell radio with processor. Two entirely different things. Both the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S use the A5 processor, not the same cell radio configuration at all.

"This has NOTHING to do with the 4S chip and everything to do with Apple wanting Siri not to choke on non 3g"

If that were true they would not have allowed the chip to fall back to EDGE (or hspda) when certain thresholds were reached. And what about people in Norton, Kansas who buy a 4s and have no 3G service?

deggie wrote:

"This has NOTHING to do with the 4S chip and everything to do with Apple wanting Siri not to choke on non 3g"

If that were true they would not have allowed the chip to fall back to EDGE (or hspda) when certain thresholds were reached. And what about people in Norton, Kansas who buy a 4s and have no 3G service?

the phone isn't falling back to edge is the problem. You haveo pretty much be on ATT EDGE only towers for the auto switching junk to work. If the phone sees a 3G tower it would rather give NO SERVICE vs downgrading to EDGE.. It's really stupid.

Have you seen Siri on non 3G? It's TERRIBLE... it takes forever to do anything. If you live in a TOTALLY non 3G area.. then siri is best used on Wifi.

No one said that the function is not within iOS 5.0.1. I can do a screen print from my iPhone 4 where is does work on my Infineon chip. What we are saying is that the switch does nothing with a Qualcomm chip. You are showing us cosmetics and that switch is specifically designed to enable 3G on an Infineon chip. Even if the feature was within the Qualcomm chip it would need different software to actually call to the function. And if you do the same thing you are referring to with a iPhone 4s it will also show that same screen and switch but as has been pointed out several times there is no such function within the CDMA world.

I have it working on BOTH my 4Ss now. See screenshot above. Switch restored. I flip it off.. and I get an E... flip it on.. and I get a 3G

I'm on ATT lol.. so I don't really care if the this doesn't work on non GSM phones. I'm just saying I got it to work with ATT (a GSM carrier)

And when I go to EDGE.. data is SLOW.. Ive done bandwith tests... when I go "3G" , I get full ATT 3G+ speeds. So yes... it works. The functionality is in the iOS. It's just removed.

You are now arguing against yourself. And no, I've seen a 4s fall back from a 3G signal to EDGE. If you are in an area where it goes to no service that indicates a problem with the equipment on the cell tower and should be reported. Yes, I have seen Siri on EDGE and I agree with you.

deggie wrote:

You are now arguing against yourself. And no, I've seen a 4s fall back from a 3G signal to EDGE. If you are in an area where it goes to no service that indicates a problem with the equipment on the cell tower and should be reported. Yes, I have seen Siri on EDGE and I agree with you.

NOt really. I'm not contradicting myself

1) I restored the switch

2) I tested the switch changes the phone from 3G to E

3) I've tested the data rates at each to make sure the switch is working and confirmed data rates are proper for manual E setting and manual 3G setting.

4) Placed phone calls with switch on and off

Aside from that, I called ATT & Apple. Both confirmed the phone has to "give" up for quite some time on 3G if it detects a 3G tower before it will do E. ATT blames apple for not switching it over to E sooner and not a tower issue. Apple of course blames ATT 🙂

Before I restored the switch, the only way to get E was to be in an E ONLY area. Otherwise I'd go into places in my house and get 1 bar 3G and sometimes no service. On E, I get 4 bars. So apple needs to add logical that says if 3G drops to 1 bar, switch to edge or something like that...

Both my iphone 4Ss and all my friend's 4Ss behave this way... so it's not a defective phone, attenna, etc, nor a bad tower as I've seen this in a 50 mile radius as I drive all over all the time.

transmogrification wrote:

If you research CDMA technology, you will discover that toggling 3G off is not possible for the same reason CDMA (outside of SV-DO) can't surf and talk at the same time over cell radio. There is only one radio. GSM 3G (UMTS-HSPA) phones have two radios that allow for talk and surf as well as a 3G toggle down to 2G (EDGE) if available. If you disable 3G on a CDMA radio, you lose voice, because there is only one radio.

Correct about CDMA.. but when the phone is on a GSM network, then there should be no reason why you can't toggle 3G on and off.

So Apple just needs to do this:

On CDMA phones, no switch

On GSM phones, leave the switch on

.. and that's EASILY done by editing various operating system files.