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No Service In My Area on 3Gs

G

gr81mgbgt

macrumors regular
Original poster
No service At All

All i get is searching and once in a while i get 1 bar and it goes away in about a minute.

Looks like im taking mine back to Best Buy And Going with Another Carrier. You have 30 days with best buy right?
 
gr81mgbgt said:
No service At All

All i get is searching and once in a while i get 1 bar and it goes away in about a minute.

Looks like im taking mine back to Best Buy And Going with Another Carrier. You have 30 days with best buy right?
Click to expand...

I have that EXACT SAME problem with mine! I never had a problem with my first gen iPhone or the 3g, always had full signal. Now this piece of crap barely picks up one bar of 3g before it switches to Edge and then no service. I am going to try to take it back today, but I doubt they have any left to replace it with and I doubt they will have the time time to see me.
 
Its the area i live in, No towers= No Service.= NO MORE at&t

So I returned it to Best Buy, Got Refund, And Cancel Service.

NOW i have to go with someone other than at&t!

I really hope the iphone will go to Verizon or another carrier next year.
 
I don't think its your area, beacause its happening to me and I was next to a friend with an iphone 3g and he had 3 bars. I had to take the sim out and put it back into my blackberry until I go to apple to get a replacement.
 
Same problem here......I was on the phone with ATT today for a few hours. I was in the process of porting my number from Verizon(which we stopped) and I went from 4 bars to No Service. The ATT rep told me that my phone had not completed activation and had me reset it and it went back to 4 bars and 3G after she pushed an update to me. Then when I got off the phone it goes back to 1 bar and 3G then Edge then nothing. I live less than 3 miles from 2 towers and we have a 1G and 3G iphone that get decent service. I can watch mine go from 4 bars to 1 without moving it. Tonight I was out at dinner and watched it go from max bars to 1. I can also be showing 3G and try to access the internet and the app will fail and tell me I have no connection the the 3G goes away.....

Something smells fishy here!
 
I was having the same problem. Edge only here. Not losing service. Occasionally lose data though. Had to reset phone and then it worked. Also keep going from five bars to two and the. Three and then five. Not sure what the deal is, but we have ATT towers up here. Coworker is on ATT and she gets full bars. I'll give it a couple days and see if it straightens up.
 
Signal is key

I bought a Palm Pre on the first day it was out. I soon discovered that while Sprint showed I was in an excellent signal area for both home and work, it in fact - sucked. I currently have AT&T for my "work" Blackberry and have excellent signal strength.
So, I returned to the Sprint store and returned the Pre (nice phone), cancelled my service and walked down to the street to the AT&T store and ordered a 3Gs.

It just depends on your particular situation on which service is going to work out best for you. If you want to try Sprint, I can recommend the Pre. The same plan I have with AT&T was $5 cheaper on Sprint and included unlimited text and MMS.
 
strange thing is i just had this issue. I called and had my ESN rest no big deal for them to do. GSM is a tricky beast to handle it requires alot of density it was never designed for long rang service like it is pushed too with current ATT Rigs.
 
I am having the same problems. My 3Gs is going from full 5 bars of 3G to no bars to edge to no service and then back to full 3G again. Meanwhile my wifes iPhone 3G has full 3G the whole time. I took screenshots of it to prove to the Apple Store incase I can't replicate it in store. I think it might actually be the SIM in my case though because I put the SIM in my iPhone 3G and it did the same thing. So I might call AT&T tomorrow and have them activate my old SIM from my 3G and try that in my 3Gs and see what happens.
 
mtehonica,
I am having the same problem as you and I already went to my local at&t store and had a new sim put in, and still the same problem. I hope someone figures this out soon.
 
Same in Oklahoma City. Only Edge with poor coverage. 3G enabled in settings. Tried restarting and resetting network settings. Spent several hours with various Apple and ATT CSR who kept telling me I was in a "Moderate" coverage area even though according to ATT coverage map I was in solid 3G area. Finally talked to a manager who agreed I was in a good area and should have 3G. She said it might be part of the "Activation Switch Transition" today and would probably settle down. She promised a call back on Monday to check. If it does not, I will return it and go back to my trusty original Iphone.
 
My problem actually hasn't happened in the last few hours....hopefully it was a network load issue and will clear on it's own without us having to do anything else. Guess I'll give it until the morning and see what happens.
 
Same issues here in central Mass... quite odd.
I'll give it a few days. I figure they're futzing with the network for a bit or something.
 
Bars going up and down

As I mentioned ealier in this thread, I got the Pre when it first came out. The Pre did the exact same thing (on Sprint). It would show 1 bar, then suddently shoot up to 5 for about 5 seconds, then drop to no bars, loose the connection and then do the same sequence all over again. It was worse on the first day of the release, and gradually lessened over the next few days. But, it never stopped completely. This is the main reason I returned the Pre and ordered a 3Gs.
It's disheartening to see this same issue with the iPhone and AT&T😕
 
More phone calls to ATT and still the same problems...Have confirmed that I have 2 towers within 3 miles of me and that I should be getting good service. The ATT rep had me go outisde and power off the iPhone and remove the SIM card. I was to face the tower and insert card then power on. Nice....5 bars.....didn't last long. All night long while watching the phone it would go to 1 bar and back to 3-4 and 3G/E/none for data service. Today while at the mini ATT store by my house I was getting No Service. They had me go to the large ATT store and the guy kindly powered it off and said look 5 bars. He then told me to go to the Apple store. I get there around 4:30 and of course no one would help me. I left the phone and they said they would check it out and call me in a couple of days.....
 
shelby67,

Has AT&T replaced the SIM in your iPhone 3Gs yet? Did you have an iPhone 3G prior to this and did it get full bars on 3G all the time at the same location? Has Apple offered to swap your new iPhone yet?

I am having the same problems and will probably go to AT&T tomorrow. My prior iPhone 3G had NO problems at all at my house and my 3Gs can't keep a 3G connection to save its life. But I put the new 3Gs SIM in my old iPhone 3G and now my iPhone 3G does the same thing so I think it's a bad SIM. Hopefully a new SIM will fix it.....
 
I'm currently a Verizon customer and didn't have a SIM at all. ATT was worthless and sent me right to Apple. They were so crowded and backed up my only choice was really to leave it there which I did since it's useless anyway. I still have my Verizon phone activated. They are supposed to call me in a few days.....So far I am not please with customer service from either. Best I can say is at least the reps on the phone from ATT were nice. The inside ATT rep was just not helpful at all. I asked him if he knew the Apple store number and he told me "you have an iphone, look it up......) good thing my data was working then.....
 
shelby67 said:
I'm currently a Verizon customer and didn't have a SIM at all. ATT was worthless and sent me right to Apple. They were so crowded and backed up my only choice was really to leave it there which I did since it's useless anyway. I still have my Verizon phone activated. They are supposed to call me in a few days.....So far I am not please with customer service from either. Best I can say is at least the reps on the phone from ATT were nice. The inside ATT rep was just not helpful at all. I asked him if he knew the Apple store number and he told me "you have an iphone, look it up......) good thing my data was working then.....
Click to expand...

Wow, sorry to hear that. Our Apple Store definitely doesn't handle things like that. They will fix it right there one way or another whether it takes replacing the phone or sending you to AT&T to get the SIM replaced. Even if its sending you to AT&T and it doesn't fix it and you need to come back, they will take care of you. I'll let you know what I find out tomorrow. Good luck getting your issue fixed.
 
I had the same problem. Until I did a full restore. Works like a charm now. I would get zero bars in an area that got 4 bars on an iPhone 2G. Now I get 5 full bars.

How many of you have actually restored?
 
woods1110 said:
I had the same problem. Until I did a full restore. Works like a charm now. I would get zero bars in an area that got 4 bars on an iPhone 2G. Now I get 5 full bars.

How many of you have actually restored?
Click to expand...

I've tried a full restore twice so far and it hasn't. 🙁
 
Well I ham having the same problem with mine. I will be getting a new iphone tomorrow morning.

I'll let everyone know if I get good reception with the new phone.
 
dfnj123 said:
Check here!!!!

http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/
Click to expand...

It's not a coverage issue. Most of us had a previous iPhone 3G before that pulled a solid 3G connection constantly and since switching to a new 3Gs now flip-flop between 3G/Edge/No Service in the same location like our house. My wife's iPhone 3G is sitting right next to my new 3Gs and keeps a full 5 bars of 3G while mine goes from 3G to Edge to No Service. Like I said, I put my SIM into my old iPhone 3G and it does the same thing.
 
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