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No simultaneous voice and data on iPhone 5S with EE

daijholt

daijholt

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 14, 2013
1,113
343
Wales, UK
So today I was on a regular phone call and noticed that my cellular data signal has vanished. I normally get strong 3G in this area, bit when I tried to get on the web whilst still talking on the phone I just got a message saying "cellular data is not available on this call".

I've got a 5S on EE, but I'm sure that I used to get 3G signal whilst calling on my iPhone 5. I'm aware that 4g is data only, and my 5 used to drop from 4 to 3G when calling someone, but I find it odd that my data signal vanishes entirely now on my iPhone 5S.

Anyone else seen this?
 
LTE is data only right now. There will be Voice over LTE (VoLTE), but networks need to roll it out. I don't know if the iPhone 5s supports VoLTE. Here in the US, the CDMA iPhones still can't handle voice and data (Samsung phones handle it by having two baseband chips). The GSM iPhones (AT&T and T-Mobile) drop down into 3G to handle simultaneous voice and data.

If you are in a spot where there is no 3G, then you won't get simultaneous voice and data. Otherwise, it should work on EE.
 
Tested it again and it seems fine now. Called the missus' phone and had 3G signal throughout, so not sure why it randomly dropped before.
 
Sorry to drag up an old thread, but seemed most relevant to my problem... I am on Vodafone UK and been having problems making calls of late. Speaking to Apple they told me categorically iPhones in the UK can't make calls on 3G.

My call quality is pretty dire in central Manchester and whenever I call, even with solid 3G signal, the phone shows no data mid-call. Then, once over it will show EDGE or GPRS before handing me up to 3G after about 30-60 seconds (only a 4S so no 4G for me).

Basically, is this peoples expected behaviour? For AT&T I know that isn't the case, but if EE in the UK works differently too, I was wondering now if it's just Vodafone UK? Is this the reason for my shoddy call quality as I'm on old 2G in city centre.

Thanks for any help!
 
iPhone 5/5S on Verizon network also does not offer simultaneous voice and data. To test this, I swapped the SIM to other Verizon phone (Nokia Lumia 928) and I got simultaneous voice and data, although the data speed was worthless - I think the speed goes down to 1x or some 56kbps.
My wife's iPhone 5 on T-Mobile is able to handle both voice and data and the data speeds while on a call are much higher than what I experienced on Verizon using Lumia 928.
 
I understand the US has a very different wireless landscape with different competing technologies (at least until 4G), so I guess my question really only applies to the UK.

Basically, it seems flat out wrong for Apple to tell me iPhones in the UK cannot make calls on 3G. Let alone have simultaneous voice and data. But, this is the behaviour I have (along with bad call quality).
 
HCR93 said:
I understand the US has a very different wireless landscape with different competing technologies (at least until 4G), so I guess my question really only applies to the UK.

Basically, it seems flat out wrong for Apple to tell me iPhones in the UK cannot make calls on 3G. Let alone have simultaneous voice and data. But, this is the behaviour I have (along with bad call quality).
Click to expand...


I am on Vodafone UK in London and all voice calls are carried on 3G (where 3G is available) and data is available during the call. So what apple told you is simply not true.
 
Thanks Catean, that's the behaviour I expected should be the case. Now I need to find out why my calls are bumped to 2G even in full 3G areas (Central Manchester). Any ideas?
 
Interesting, I've got the 4S on EE and I don't notice any things like this, infact, while calling a friend, I did a speed test and it was exactly the same as if I wasn't on the phone.
 
Not sure if this has been tried, but perhaps simply restarting the phone might get it working again, or maybe resetting network settings if not all settings (and perhaps going as far as restoring the phone)?
 
C DM said:
Not sure if this has been tried, but perhaps simply restarting the phone might get it working again, or maybe resetting network settings if not all settings (and perhaps going as far as restoring the phone)?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input everyone! Tried the network settings reset and restart, neither resolve this. Was trying to avoid a full restore, but seems that may be my next choice.

Would appreciate any other ideas, especially from Vodafone UK people.
 
So, I finally got an answer from Apple, apparently simultaneous voice and data is not available on the iPhone for Vodafone. I assumed it would be the same for all networks in the UK since they all use the same network tech.

catean said:
I am on Vodafone UK in London and all voice calls are carried on 3G (where 3G is available) and data is available during the call. So what apple told you is simply not true.
Click to expand...

You definitely sure you've seen it work for Vodafone UK catean?
 
HCR93 said:
So, I finally got an answer from Apple, apparently simultaneous voice and data is not available on the iPhone for Vodafone. I assumed it would be the same for all networks in the UK since they all use the same network tech.



You definitely sure you've seen it work for Vodafone UK catean?
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Print screen of voice call and data.
 

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HCR93 said:
Thanks, I have occasionally seen it do that but if I open Safari it refuses to load anything. Just shows the progress bar that barely moves. Thanks for your help anyway!
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And one surfing the website while on a phone call on Vodafone UK 3G.
 

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HCR93 said:
Thanks again... for the life of me cannot make that actually work. Ah well, doesn't really matter so much I guess, just need to figure out the call quality issues.
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If you can, I would see if you could swap your SIM temporarily with someone else's Vodaphone SIM, preferably another iPhone user that doesn't have the same issue. And then see if you can do simultaneous voice and data.

There's definitely something wrong here, and it's probably with the way Vodaphone provisioned your account.
 
scaredpoet said:
If you can, I would see if you could swap your SIM temporarily with someone else's Vodaphone SIM, preferably another iPhone user that doesn't have the same issue. And then see if you can do simultaneous voice and data.

There's definitely something wrong here, and it's probably with the way Vodaphone provisioned your account.
Click to expand...

That's a good call actually. I'm meant to be taking it into see them next week, but if I go armed with more information that would definitely help. Thanks!
 
Have Vodafone been performing network maintenance in Central Manchester at all?

I didn't perform a call/data test when I was there the other week but at one point I nearly got 60 megs down on LTE.

Here in Derby they've been upgrading the 2G/3G networks; I'm not technically minded but was wondering if that's why you are falling back to 2G?
 
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