iPhone 5 Cellular Antenna Woes

[steiney]

Hello all,

***Sorry for the double post. I posted this earlier today in the general iPhone forum although I should have posted it in the iPhone help forum.***

About 1.5 weeks ago, my phone stopped being able to make a 4G cellular data connection and since then has only been able to make a 3G connection. This started immediately after a weird cellular network issue that resolved itself after about 2.5 hours. The issue I had was that I was not able to make or receive local cellular calls. Long distance and local landlines were not a problem.

Anyway, my question is: Is there one cellular antenna in the iPhone 5 for making both 3G and 4G connections or are there two separate antennas, one for each type?

The reason I ask is that I am trying to figure out if it's possible that my cellular antenna has gone bad coincidentally at the same time as I had that network issue. If there is only one antenna for the two connection types, than that would seem to rule out the possibility of the antenna being bad considering that I can still make 3G connections just fine.

Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

steiney

 

[asmith406]

Have you tried contacting your carrier to see if they are having tower or signal issues?

 

[steiney]

Have you tried contacting your carrier to see if they are having tower or signal issues?

Yeah, that was the first thing I did. They had no idea what to do. They said they were going to send out a technician to do some tests in my area and see what the could figure out. They said they'd follow up with me in two weeks. That was about five weeks ago.

I was without 4G LTE for about 3-4 weeks, and then one day it just came back on it's own. I've had the vibrator in a previous iPhone die and then resurrect so it's possible that the cellular radio came back to life on it's own.

Or maybe they got their network back to working and didn't want to say anything to me for fear that I would want a credit for the time without LTE.

The evidence leading me to believe it was a bad cellular radio is that no one else I talked to on Verizon is/was having trouble with getting an LTE connection. I can't imagine there being a network issue that only affected me!

 

[asmith406]

A friend of mine had this issue with Sprint and it started late last summer. It took the technicians nine months to fix the problem. You could try replacing your antenna but I would, based on what happened to my friend, see how your signal is in other areas and if anyone else around you is having a lot of trouble first. Once he determined it was Sprint's issues near his house he got bill credits all of the months he had issues.

 

[steiney]

A friend of mine had this issue with Sprint and it started late last summer. It took the technicians nine months to fix the problem. You could try replacing your antenna but I would, based on what happened to my friend, see how your signal is in other areas and if anyone else around you is having a lot of trouble first. Once he determined it was Sprint's issues near his house he got bill credits all of the months he had issues.

Well, the problem seems to be fixed now so it doesn't seem worth the trouble. Maybe if it starts up again. Thanks for the advice, etc. though!