Can't activate cellular data network

Thanks, Demo. No, the phone doesn't work as it should. I get "no internet connection." Mail and Facebook won't update.

Something weird happened while I was out of the country on the other sim. I thought my phone had died. holding down the start/on-off button at the top had no effect. Fortunately there was someone--more than one someone actually--who knew about force start. I'll give it a try again.

Are you in Pittsburgh? I went to high school and college there. My daughter's still there. My son in-law is "the Camera Guy" for the Pirates and the Steelers.

Did a forced reset. After entering my passcode the "could not activate cellular network" message was displayed. My wireless connection shows three bars.

I'll check with my wireless provider, too. (Cricket, which uses the ATT network.)

The problem persists, but I haven't contacted the provider yet.

Something else that's strange--or i imagine it's strange: settings/cellular shows 14.5 GB of cellular data usage, though the provider's website shows far less than that. One day was 221 MB; other days average well under 4 or 5 MB of usage. If my provider doesn't think I'm using too much data, I doubt the 14.5 number suggests a possible problem. But what does that number mean?

Yes, I remember now the conversation we had. I had just acquired an iPad and was troubled by the fact that it's not possible to update the spellcheck dictionary. And my son-in-law loves his job. He wouldn't trade it for anything.

Thanks for following up on this and confirming that it's not related to the problem I'm experiencing. Also that the usage figure can be reset. That feature would be a lot more useful if you could put it on a schedule, i.e., define the period over which it collects data.

Regards again.

I noticed that the iOS 9.0.2 update included this note: "Fixes an issue with the setting to turn on or off app cellular data usage." Could this possibly re related to the problem I've been experiencing. There's probably a definite answer to that question, but I'll be interested if I continue to experience the problem after the upgrade.

Yeah, Mail and Facebook wouldn't update even when I had a wi-fi connection. And I encountered the problem mostly, if not entirely, when I was away from home, which is strange. Location, as long as you're within the provider's service area, should make no difference. Perhaps it was just a coincidence.

Still have the problem after the update. I'm gonna make an appointment with the Apple store.

Just over a week ago I took the phone to an Apple certified repair shop near my home. They recommended restoring to factory settings before taking the phone to the Apple store. I did that and the problem was solved.

But today I have the problem again. Interestingly, after updating to El Capitan on my MacBook Air a few days after restoring to factory settings, iTunes recognized the phone as a new phone and wanted to restore my settings from backup. I checked to see whether the last backup was after restoring the phone to factory settings. It looked like it was, but there was no other option, so I OK'd restoring from backup. Afterward there were things on my phone, e.g., photos, that should not have been there if the last backup was after restoring to factory settings.

So, I just restored to factory settings again and cellular data service is back again. I hope I'll be able to back the current settings, post restoration of factory settings, to iTunes so this doesn't happen again.

As usual, the problem was me. I hadn't realized that after restoring the factory settings,tweaking them, and restoring my apps, I need to manually initiate a backup. Done this time. Hopefully I won't be having the problem from here on out.

Curious, right before my last replay I attempted to reply to the same effect and got this message: "User 'Grayn280' is banned from posting content."

At the time I was logged in but had been inactive for about half an hour, perhaps longer. Should I assume someone who's banned from posting has my Apple identity?