iPhone 5 signal drops when I move. Have to toggle airplane mode to connect again.

[AtomicEdge]

My iPhone 5 on the UK carrier EE keeps on losing its signal and going to "No Service" in areas with very good signal (on my iPhone 4 and OH's 4S). If I turn on airplane mode, and then turn it off again, I connect up to the network again with full signal. The connection is then fine until I walk, or drive to a new location, and when I take my phone out of my pocket, it has No Service again. I love my iPhone 5, but this problem is driving me mad!

Has anyone else had this issue? A lot of people are talking about this online, but I can't seem to find anyone that has actually come up with a solution!

 

[yespi]

I had the same issue.

I went in to the Apple store here in the US and they did see a lot of dropped calls so they replaced it no charge.

 

[vastoholic]

I have had this problem sporadically since I've had the 4 (at least as far as I can remember, might have happened on my 3G/s as well). It happens at most, once a month though. Doesn't sound near as bad as your issue. It's usually only when I'm stationary though not moving, so I've always assumed with some random maintenance from AT&T. It would come back by itself after about 5 seconds. I'd say if you can verify that no other devices on the same service are doing in the areas you see, it's definitely a fault with the phone and should be replaced.

 

[darster]

Probably a poor soldering of chip onto board. Since it occurs when you move, it probably is loose. Get a replacement.

 

[AtomicEdge]

Okay so I think I solved this (seems to be better today, but we shall see).

When I got my iPhone 5 I had my O2 SIM in it, and it seemed okay, and then I swapped to Orange the next day and I started having issues.

I've looked around a lot, and it seems that the iPhone downloads and stores a lot of carrier info from carrier servers when it first "Activates" and unlike most other phones, you can't just swap the sim card out when you want to access a different network.

I had tried a restore from both iCloud and iTunes and that didn't work, so I went to general > reset > reset network settings.

It rebooted the phone, and now it seems to be working a lot better. The best since I got it on launch day in fact. The reset clears out all wifi passwords too, so if work has issued you with a wifi connection or something you may need to get that re-added.

Either way, it seems much better now. Thanks for everyones help.

 

[onne2slick]

I had the same issue.

I went in to the Apple store here in the US and they did see a lot of dropped calls so they replaced it no charge.

How did they know you had a lot of dropped calls?

 

[Maxchristian]

@AtomicEdge, I have exactly the same problem with EE and iPhone 5, and having previously used a different SIM. However resetting the network settings hasn't fixed it for me. Did it permanently fix it for you?

 

[MrMan365]

Same here

I too am having dropped calls and poor signal in usually good signal places.

iphone 5
tmobile (EE)

Today I couldn't receive any calls during a period of 3 hours. I tried calling my phone in one hand from an other phone in the other hand. I had 3 bar signal on both. both phones were tmobile (EE) yet i was getting that voice that says the person is unavailable.

When trying to call someone, it would instantly disconnect before even ringing and say "call Failed"
Sometimes after eventually connecting, the calls would drop after several minutes.

Its strange because the issues are random.
Not sure if its EE or my iphone 5.

But get this, my girlfriend has the same issue... also on EE and has an iphone 5

Going to contact Apple tomorrow.

 

[0dev]

This sounds like a problem with T-Mobile/Orange/EE to me. I used to have this with O2 and when I changed to another phone I still had this problem because O2 is a **** network.

However, it looks like your issue was just a temporary glitch since it's working fine after a reboot. Turning the phone off and on again does a clean register with the network whereas toggling airplane mode doesn't, so there is a difference in the effects those two options have.

 

[cRuNcHiE]

Mine is doing this too on Virginmobile uk which is a virtual carrier using orange/tmobile (EE)

Toggling airplane mode fixes it as well.

I suspect the issue is to do with it being in an area where there is good orange AND tmobile coverage and it doesn't know which one to switch to and falls over

May be IOS related rather than iphone 5 specific
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1739800

 

[daneoni]

Reset your Network Settings. If that doesn't work, book a Genius appointment.

 

[dellAbait]

never move