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6 not switching to 4G

Nermal

Nermal

Moderator
Original poster
Staff member
Dec 7, 2002
21,059
4,656
New Zealand
Hi,

Sorry if this has already been asked; "switching" and "4G" are hard terms to search for :)

I have an iPhone 6 and live slightly out of 4G (LTE) coverage. Therefore, by necessity, the phone switches to 3G (WCDMA) when I go home.

The problem is that when I head back into coverage, it's staying on 3G and not automatically switching back. Even if I toggle flight mode, it still comes up on 3G when it reconnects. The only way that I've found to make it use 4G is to toggle "Enable 4G" under Settings > Mobile. That works until I head home again.

Has anyone else run into this? Obviously I don't want to have to toggle the setting every time, and with 3G so congested where I live I'd prefer to have it use 4G whenever it can.

I'm using Spark in NZ, and bought the phone directly from Spark.

Thanks :)
 
Interesting, I'm on AT&T and my 5s will switch seamlessly between LTE and HSPA+ depending on how strong the LTE signal is.

Perhaps an engineer type can come on the thread about the phone wanting to prioritize a stronger 3G signal rather than a weaker 4g signal?

Sorry I'm not that much help, just wanted to let you know it doesn't happen to me and keep the thread high so others who know this stuff can see it to answer.

Looks like a person on Verizon has the same issue with their 5s? https://community.verizonwireless.c...content?content=/api/core/v3/contents/1913706
 
That's an interesting point. According to Spark's coverage map, the location that I was testing in has "good" coverage for both 3G and 4G (and "good" is the highest of the grades).

Next time I'm in town I'll take a look at the signal strength and see whether one's better than the other. As far as I know they're both transmitted from the same tower, but 3G is at 850 MHz and I believe that it propagates better than 1800 MHz 4G. On the other hand, if it was strictly related to signal propagation then logically nobody's phone would ever favour 4G!

Edit: Just saw your edit. I've already done a Reset Network Settings, so that's not it. Now to read the rest of the thread :)
 
Call them and double check they have the right phone profiled in their system. I had the same issue when I changed my wife's phone to a iPhone 5 from a 4 without telling them. Because the 4 didn't take LTE, the SIM card wouldn't pick up the LTE signal from the network. Once I called them and changed it, it worked instantly.

Hope this helps!
 
LeeMac2012 said:
Call them and double check they have the right phone profiled in their system. I had the same issue when I changed my wife's phone to a iPhone 5 from a 4 without telling them. Because the 4 didn't take LTE, the SIM card wouldn't pick up the LTE signal from the network. Once I called them and changed it, it worked instantly.

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...

It's a good suggestion but I'm pretty sure that is not the issue since he says he gets 4G signal in certain areas already (so his provider knows it's a 4G phone) just that once he goes out of 4G coverage and falls back to 3G his phone won't go back to 4G later on when He is in a 4G area (unless he toggles the 4G slider off/on every time).

If anything I would say it has to do with his providers network and the signal strength, or lack thereof, of its 4G towers vs it's 3G towers and the iPhones preference toward a stronger connection. Just my guess though :)
 
Argh! I just wrote three paragraphs of text and Firefox decided to throw it away :mad:

Short version: Tower near my place is only 3G, still has strong signal in town so phone doesn't try looking for other towers. Have a map of towers and need to see what happens when I get closer to a 4G tower and further from 3G-only tower, but I assume that it'll switch over.
 
I can now confirm that it does indeed automatically switch over to 4G when in stronger coverage :)

I also did my first speed test on 3G yesterday and it's 3-4 times faster than with the 4S! I figured that DC-HSPA would only double the speed (if that), so that amazed me.
 
6 not switching to 4G

Nermal said:
Hi,

Sorry if this has already been asked; "switching" and "4G" are hard terms to search for :)

I have an iPhone 6 and live slightly out of 4G (LTE) coverage. Therefore, by necessity, the phone switches to 3G (WCDMA) when I go home.

The problem is that when I head back into coverage, it's staying on 3G and not automatically switching back. Even if I toggle flight mode, it still comes up on 3G when it reconnects. The only way that I've found to make it use 4G is to toggle "Enable 4G" under Settings > Mobile. That works until I head home again.

Has anyone else run into this? Obviously I don't want to have to toggle the setting every time, and with 3G so congested where I live I'd prefer to have it use 4G whenever it can.

I'm using Spark in NZ, and bought the phone directly from Spark.

Thanks :)
Click to expand...


Is "Spark" Sprint's version of LTE?
 
Hal~9000 said:
It shares the same name
Click to expand...

I didn't know that Sprint's LTE is called Spark, so that's the "thing I learned" for today :)

Sprint and Spark actually used to be partners (Sprint had better buying power for phones and gave Spark access to ones that otherwise wouldn't meet minimum order quantities), but I doubt that there is any real connection between the names... especially since Spark was known as Telecom back then.
 
Nermal said:
Hi,

Sorry if this has already been asked; "switching" and "4G" are hard terms to search for :)

I have an iPhone 6 and live slightly out of 4G (LTE) coverage. Therefore, by necessity, the phone switches to 3G (WCDMA) when I go home.

The problem is that when I head back into coverage, it's staying on 3G and not automatically switching back. Even if I toggle flight mode, it still comes up on 3G when it reconnects. The only way that I've found to make it use 4G is to toggle "Enable 4G" under Settings > Mobile. That works until I head home again.

Has anyone else run into this? Obviously I don't want to have to toggle the setting every time, and with 3G so congested where I live I'd prefer to have it use 4G whenever it can.

I'm using Spark in NZ, and bought the phone directly from Spark.

Thanks :)
Click to expand...

Hi,

Is someone still facing this problem. What happens sometimes is that, the phone displays 4G and when i move from one room to another it switches to E or 3G. i have to manually go to mobile data and toggle between E and 4G, then the 4G appears.

i have checked with some of my colleagues, and they do not have issue with their phones. they also use the same carrier but they use samsung.

Any leads how to solve this would be helpful

regards,
Krish
 
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