Why I cannot enable 3G on iPhone 4S

I have this issue too, my new iPhone 4s frequently fails to download/upload any data from the 3G network in busy areas. Previously, I could disable 3G and the phone would still work fine in edge mode, however the option to disable 3G has been removed from this phones settings. I consider this a major failure as it prevents me from doing anything useful on the device in certain areas.

My enable 3g option on my iPhone4 disappeared upon udating to iOS5

I have the same problems - in the area I life 3G is very poor so it allways changes, searches or just has 1 reception point. So I allways had 3G deactivated.

In the 4S it´s impossible to do so - damm..

And I think I´ve found out the reason why: SIRI

When you don´t have 3G Siri cannot work properly - if I ask SIRI "where do you come from" - I get an answer on WIFI or 3G but on Edge it tells me that it didn´t understood me.

So it seems that Siri only works with a descent 3G connection - that´s maybe the reason why the took out the possiblity to deactivate as then Siri won´t make sense anymore.

PLEASE APPLE I DON`T CARE! I want to save my battery and have stable connection for phoning etc.

Siri is not more important for me then that - so please bring the functionality back - or you force me to jailbreak what I didn´t do on my 2G or 3GS so I don´t want to do that no either.

Please give us the freedom to decide!

Rafael

I have recently updgraded ios 5 on my iphone 4.

3G is turned on but still internet is not working.

can anyone help

I had the same exact problem. I called apple support and they had me do the following which fixed my problem!

Go to:

Settings

General

Reset

Reset Network Settings

The phone will then restart and it works now!

Hope this helps!

Thanks Sunnyvale,

I was having this problem too, but your advice via Apple worked like a charm.

In my case, I can only think that the difficulty to connect to 3G occurred right after I turned on SIRI. But everything seems to be fine now.

Cheers

Thanks!! Totally solved my problem!!

Apple has to add a button to disable edge while keeping 3G enabled.

I will be happy if they let edge die like floppy disks.

If edge is the last thing on earth to get me connected, still I don't like to use it.

The 3G signal strength is 3 bars on my iPhone, but still IOS considers it as a weak siganl and switching back to edge. But I am happy even with 1 bar on 3G rather than full signal on edge.

Come on Apple, you can do better than this.

thank you so much. i wish i could've known this earlier. spent weeks dependent on wi-fi and i'll be travelling this weekend so perfect timing. 😀