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iPhone 5 says 3G with good signal but no data works (calls/texts still work).

T

tann

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Apr 15, 2010
1,944
813
UK
Hello,

I know there are existing threads for this, but they are very old so pre-date the latest iOS version.

I have an iPhone 5, and I am on the Orange/EE network in the UK.

Basically whenever I travel - say to another city or further than a few miles from my normal location - sometimes the phone will display a solid 4/5 bar 3G signal but no data will work, no Safari, Weather, twitter or anything.

I used to flick it into airplane mode and off and that would sometimes work but I'm trying to find a longer term solution as this trick doesn't work for me anymore.

I went to a different city yesterday/today and when there it worked at first, then just stopped, then started again and stopped.

I tried restarting and resetting the phone as well as deleting network information but nothing specifically seemed to have got it working.

Now is this a known issue? My googling returned a few older threads from october/november across a variety of networks both in the UK and USA so I was wondering.

As far as I remember this never happened with my 4S (same network) and has happened multiple times with my 5.
 
cube said:
If there's no coverage for your network, you will roam in a different one.
Click to expand...

Definite coverage. Since I do get 3G and data, make calls and texts, it's sometimes just stops. For no known reason.
 
cube said:
It's not "I get 3G", but also "my operator is displayed"
Click to expand...

I don't know what you mean? My operator (EE) is always displayed when I am in England. They cover the entire country.

Also as I said, before my iPhone 5 my 4S was perfect everywhere. I am only having these issues with the 5.
 
restore. If that doesn't work, get the phone replaced as it may have a hardware defect.
 
tann said:
I don't know what you mean? My operator (EE) is always displayed when I am in England. They cover the entire country.

Also as I said, before my iPhone 5 my 4S was perfect everywhere. I am only having these issues with the 5.
Click to expand...

If the operator is displayed, it's ok. Even if an operator covers the entire country, they always have blind spots.
 
Try going to Settings>General>Reset>Reset Network Settings.

I was having trouble with data on my phone, and after restoring twice to no effect, I did what I said above and everything worked.

Good luck!
 
paulbennett95 said:
Try going to Settings>General>Reset>Reset Network Settings.

I was having trouble with data on my phone, and after restoring twice to no effect, I did what I said above and everything worked.

Good luck!
Click to expand...

I did this the night before yesterday and it worked... for a bit.

It's definitely not the area as my friend also had a 5 on the same network working next to me, he also lost data capabilities at other intervals despite the phone showing a full signal + 3G.

As of now I don't think it's the networks because others have said the same issue happens to them. I'm home now and it doesn't happen here so hopefully it shouldn't be an issue now, well until I visit somewhere else.
 
Just a thought mate with regards to the data roaming I know your not roaming into another network but you are in effect swapping between orange and t mobile network towers. I know it's classed as one network now but the phone may say for instance work perfect when on a ee 4g tower but when you roam over to older t mobile or orange towers coded different it might see that as roaming on to another network if that makes sense. And if you have roaming turned off on the handset it might block it. Just a thought could be wrong
 
Drich290195 said:
Just a thought mate with regards to the data roaming I know your not roaming into another network but you are in effect swapping between orange and t mobile network towers. I know it's classed as one network now but the phone may say for instance work perfect when on a ee 4g tower but when you roam over to older t mobile or orange towers coded different it might see that as roaming on to another network if that makes sense. And if you have roaming turned off on the handset it might block it. Just a thought could be wrong
Click to expand...

Ah very good point, hopefully something like that's the case. I'll leave roaming on and see if it helps.
 
Did you ever get to the bottom of this?

I'm also on Orange 3G and get the same issues. It shows signal strength and 3G but Safari hangs an no text messages come through etc

I'm too unsure whether to start with Apple or Orange to get to the bottom of this. Only started happening in the last few weeks (had the phone since release and been with Orange since 1995!).
 
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