Q: iPhone 4S dropping network and data at random

Same issue here in Toronto Canada and Fido.

With sim pin off, wifi or 3G signal disappears and comes back.

Happens only on my 4S not the 4 though

Apple you need to say and do something. I just payed 1,049 Canadian dollars. Show some respect for peoples' money.

Thanks.

128k sim micro from a carrier in partnership with apple FTW!!

no more calling problems and more:

NO MORE BATTERY ISSUE!!

yesterday i was at 35% before sleeping, after 7 hours it was 34%

now posting is 10% after normal use during the day!!

italy, VODAFONE 128k

cheers

Hi, guys. I have an iPhone 4S bought in uk apple store, so factory unlocked and I am using it home, in Romania on Orange Carrier.

I am also experiencing signal drop on my phone, both with data services, 3-4 times within the hour and almost every time when switching on/off wi-fi so here is what I think:

1. there is a problem when the phone switches between antennas and for the phone/carrier part it's not as seemless as Tim Cook presented it because it looses signal for a while

2. Orange's 3G signal in Romania isn't all that great even in some areas of big cities.

What I don't understand is if everybody says that it's a software issue than why doesn't my 3GS also on iOS 5 have any of these problems (it too also switches 3G to 2G if it's necessary but never looses signal).

I would love for an apple engineer to UNDERSTAND THAT NOT ALL CARRIERS HAVE GREAT 3G SIGNAL SO GIVE US BACK THE OPTION TO DISABLE 3G !!

I also belive that this is what drains my battery so bad, having to search for network way to often.

The other issues with my device are:

     1. horrible static while making a call - lets also call it signal problem although i doubt it (3GS has no static)

     2. the keyboard clicks make 2 different sounds that they switch as they like even for the same keys (3GS         doesn't do that)

I believe that this is enough for now considering that my 16 months old 3GS is more reliable than my 2 day old 500 GBP iPhone 4S

p.s. one thing that I noticed is that the metal part of my sim was touching the sim tray (which is metal unlike the 3GS's) and the tray touches one of the antennas so tomorrow I'm going to my carrier's shop to see if they have a sim that doesn't touch the tray ... WHO KNOWS ?? -- has anyone else noticed this with their phone/sim ?

Same here, in Brussels, Belgium. Only way to restore my 4s signal is to turn it off and on again...

Spoke with the Apple Care rep today again and emailed her more info, including a link to this thread. She said that the engineers have decided to send me to AT&T data support as their next step, despite this problem clearly being international across multiple carriers. But I will follow their steps, have AT&T reprovision my account, and bring the results back to them. I will post back results, but from what I'm seeing in this thread, it seems the only fix people have found is getting a new microsim. Surely the fix cannot mean a huge boost in sales of micro sim cards from all of us going out and buying new ones. I refuse for that to be the official "fix" lol

As stated earlier, everybody needs to quit complaining HERE, and complain directly to Apple. Call, email, go to the genius bar, whatever, but Apple needs to hear from you directly in order to get us anywhere.

This is a follow up in my case.

Reprovision of my acount with my carier produced zero results.

My phone keeps dropping the signal.

Apple store gave me a second phone to try and it has the exact same issue.

I am returning it tomorrow for a full refund.

I payed 1,050.00 Canadian dollars for this phone, it should work, and someone officially should tell me what's wrong with it instead of dropping the ball between cariers and apple with me in the middle.

Sorry Apple

Did Apple tell by when will the new update come?

a DFU restore solves all the problems

DFU restore worked for a minute or two. I did recieve a call which was a big deal as its the first one that came through since buying the new phone. But shortly after it went back to it's old state. I called the apple reps in uk, who said that i can change the phone for a new one, which is fine, but i get the impressions thats not going to really make a difference with this many reports of this problem.

@sashi

You should get it replaced. I got min replaced yesterday and it works flawlessly,

even the battery issue is now history.

The thing is that I have not upgraded it to 5.0.1

only because I do not dare, but I suspect it wouldn't go back to the same problems

since my previous 4s didn't work with the 5.0 as well.

I really don't think it was a software issue only.

There is a slight chance the new one will be the same but if so just keep getting it replaced

untill you get one that works just fine as in my case

Cheers

I got a new 128kb sim from my provider (Globe Telecom, Philippines) and guess what!?!?!

14h so far and the phone works fine!!!!

i only noticed the signal still tries to drop, but before it actuall drops the signal is all up again and no dropped calls...

Battery is around 75% after 12h of random use (not excessive useage) - so not too great, but right i dont care too much hehe

i can state that changing my orgiginal carrier sim to a new original carrier ( Telenor Denmark)  simcard did not at all resolve the problem unfortunately, i tried everything so far reinstall, switch on and of, airplaine mode on and off, nothing really helps. its hard to believe that Apple has no system in place to detect something like this before releasing it to the public, as they always release developers versions prior to the public release. not professional.

Like nesse10, I was successfull changing my 4S at the Applestore

After almost 2 days up and running, the device never lost the cellular signal,  nor had SIM card failures, I'm at 26% battery left after 36h of usage (not so intense I agree, but mails - opening/composing,push, retrieval in the background, browsing, alerts, music, SMS, Siri,Wifi, Roaming between domestic and foreign country)

My previous4S, built from scratch, had issues straight after the brand new micro-SIM was inserted.

The new one had difficulties to recognize the SIM first place (the Genius had to use its own), but once activated it was OK. I did a restore from my previous 4S backup.

I didn't move to 5.0.1 this time, waiting for the coming 5.0.2 and user experience on it.

I'll redo the device change if any issue happen as I think it is also a mean of making Apple aware of the issue, the Genius in the Applestore never heard about it ...

I'll keep you posted

Follow-up on my own problems with my 4S.

I have and unlocked from Apple Store Sweden, using Tele2. My Micro-SIM (original from Tele2) worked in my iPhone 4 but with the 4S I often got dropped signal and "searching" with 5.0 (this was before 5.0.1 was released).

Called Apple and they replaced the phone for me. Got a new 4s yesterday.

Now with the new phone (same SIM) and still on 5.0 the phone works flawlessly and the battery seems better as well.

So seems there is a hardware issue with at least some of the iPhone 4s.

There seems to be some other problems as well that got "mixed up" in this thread:

* People using self cut Micro-SIM's / and or older Micro-SIM (32k?)

* iOS 5.0.1 seems to give problems for some people (I will not upgrade and are waiting for 5.0.2)

But for me the issue was not one of the above. My Tele2 Micro-SIM works perfect now in 4s!

Changing the sim for a newer one worked for me. I know nothing about the specs and details of the microsim, but i do know that the sim i got was purchased 3 months back as opposed to the sim i already had which was well over a year old. Phones been working normally for an hour now(didnt work for more than 2 mins before) and i'm on 5.0.1.  I guess if you are able to try out a newer microsim give it ago.