Q: iPhone 4S dropping network and data at random

Well it does seem to have gone quiet around since the iOS 5.1 release however myself and around 10 or my fellow employees are all still having the Call Failed/No Service problems. Battery life still appalling.

It seems that Apple's official solution is to update to iOS 5.1:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4148?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

However, it has not helped me or 10 collegues so I can only assume that this is truly a hardware issue for some people. I'm going to send back the 11 affected phones in my company and hope this resolves the problem. What a crappy hassle this phone has been.

Ive been having the same problem on verizon except mine wont conect in the first place. I have the 5.1 update and its making things worse.

I have an einstein-update here:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/18118744#18118744

I myself am completely frustrated.

I have had two phones both 4S. I have tried restoring from my iPhone 4 iCloud backup, wiping it to factory restore state and various network reset options.

My phone still fails data connections over 4g throughout the day randomly.

Come on apple. I own 25 different products from you right now in my house. From this thread I can see I am not he only one. We need an acknowledgement and a fix for this.

I'm beginning to think apple has lost its swagger.

So this is my first ever post! I am amazed by the problems I am having and so I have decided to post here.

I just bought 32gb Ip4s unlocked direct from my nearest apple store.

First thing I did was update to its 5.1

Now the phone works 99% of the time. The other 1 % of the time despite having full signal it will not send SMS nor will it make a phone call UNTIL I switch off and back on.

Using micro sim on Orange uk. No sim pin. Latest iOS.

Apple telephone support told me to disable Siri permanently because Siri was causing the problem!!

Why did I buy it then? Surely Siri is one of the big selling points and Apple have advised me to turn it off??

Very frustrated loyal and otherwise very happy Apple customer!!

I have now received a replacement micro sim from orange (as this is the only other thing i can try) and I am waiting for it to be activated. Will post again with my results.....

This phone has to be the worst phone ever!!! Frequent phone call drops, horrible battery .... and changed my phone 5 times now! Why oh why did I buy this expensive piece of ****!!!! Apple's arrogance is getting on my nerves. Here is one consumer who will no longer contribute to Apple's vulgar profits...It is better to support the underdogs now (Nokia, HTC)..at least they are more responsive to issues than Apple.

Hi All

Let me give you my update as of yesterday.

I visited my local Austin Apple store and explained the problem. The Genius Bar tech suggested we try a new SIM card and a new phone. I realized that when I switched out my first iPhone 4S that was not working, the Best Buy rep had kept the SIM card that came with the first iPhone 4S.

So this is now the third iPhone 4S with a new (second SIM card). So far this morning everything appears to working fine. I did not do a restore from iCloud of previous backups and instead set this phone up as a brand new phone just to make sure.

So it may be a bad lot of SIM cards or perhaps the iPhone 4S was more sensitive to the sim cards.

I will check in here in a few days to let everyone know if its still working for me.

A quick update to my earlier post....

24 hours on with a new sim and iOS 5.1 I still have the problem.

APPLE - We are trying to tell you that there is a problem and we need your help.

I also have the EXACT same problem with my new iPad (3rd Gen) EXACTLY the same problem.

This MUST be an iOS bug and WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!!

The problem still persist. The only solution i have is to turn 3g off which actually makes phone almost useless nowadays. Does anyone got problem solved with 5.1 release?

Exactly!!!

the same **** i tried switching off 3g today and not a single drop call. Apple gone mad.. very disappointed.

Hi WizKid,

I was facing similar problems with 5.01. Signal loss and absolutely terrible battery life. At that time the Apple phone support guys helped me out by narrowing the problem to one of two issues:

1) a h/w problem with the network antenna or

2) an issue with the network carrier settings

Luckily for me the problem was with the carrier settings. As soon as I changed my Sim over from Airtel to Vodafone the phone started to work absolutely fine. When the Airtel Representative was shown this they owned upto an interesting fact. Apparantly when a carrier (Airtel) is using some other carrier's (Vodafone) cell towers/infrastructure to provide 3G services in an area then there is a much higher chance of signal drop as well as calls failing.

I tried this with a Blackberry phone in my office and found that the same issue started cropping up when I used a 3G activated Sim card from Airtel. There is some problem with them sharing the network (could be due to them trying to minimize their billings) and that causes this problem.

Would suggest you try a different carrier's SIM since u have an unlocked phone.

Here's my update.

After 2 days with a new iPhone 4S and a new SIM card on the AT&T, my 4G data is dropping again and I have no interenet when I am not on a WiFi network.

Needless to say, this may be it for my on an iPhone.  I've owned every iPhone since it came out, I've spent over $1000 on apps alone, and I have all Apple in my house.  The fact that NO ONE FROM APPLE will acknowledge there is a problem tells me THERE IS A BIG PROBLEM with the iPhone 4S.

Goodbye iPhone, we had a few good years.  If only you would pull your head out of the ground and fix this issue...

Hi MPatodia,

Thanks for taking the time to reply - really appreciate it!

I will certainly give that a try as Orange UK do share the T Mobile Network. I have a few other sim cards that I can use to test it out. As this is happening on my new iPad also it really makes me think it must be network related.

The More I read everyday the more I am starting to understand.

It seems that due to the new antenna design design the phone and iPad are having trouble switching from 2g to 3g and thus resulting in the phone dropping the network. Although it still shows network coverage.

I have also read as a test i can switch off 3G totally on the phone and see what happens. I have a sneaky feeling that it is Orange / Tmobile (UK) that need to upgrade at their end.

Anyway thank you again for the tips I will certainly try an alternative micro sim...

danleese how did you get on? Did you return any of your 4s handsets?

If so was it a hardware fault and all working ok now?

Just curious :)

I too will be giving up my 4S because of this issue.  Sometimes I reboot 3-4x a day to get my "4G" internet working again -- it's the only way to get it back as toggling airplane mode/wifi/cellular data on/off doesn't do the trick.  I of course tried all the troubleshooting steps with/without restore fresh firmware wipe from scratch, ATT IMEI reset, hours on phone with engineers tower analyzing. It is so unfortunate as the phone works great otherwise.  I work downtown in the Detroit, MI area and two others in my office with the 4S also have the same issue.  They say "oh yes, we just reboot it, that's part of being an early adopter! (smile)"

Not for me! The issue drives me nuts when I realize I missed all my e-mails and iMessages, or traffic/maps stop working when I'm on the road -- a reboot is a real bummer and not an acceptable workaround.  If only Steve were still here, this would not be acceptable by his standards and would at least be acknowledged/fixed!  The strange thing is I don’t remember this happening so much when I got the phone 6 months ago so it must be a combination of things between the phone, software, and the carriers/network.

The good news is thanks to everyone on this forum I don't have to waste my time exchanging a bunch of phones and sim cards so thank you again for all for the posts! AT&T was understanding after much discussion around this issue, so they can get me another phone at a reduced rate (has to be a non-apple phone).

So long for now iPhone 4S.  Now you are my iMiniPad.