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Carrier Phone having problems switching to LTE without toggling airplane mode

Michael Goff

Michael Goff

Suspended
Original poster
Jul 5, 2012
13,329
7,422
I'm on Sprint, and this is happening more and more as time goes on. It'll be on 3G, barely able to do anything, then I turn airplane mode on and then off. LTE shows up and I get good enough speeds to actually use YT.

Is this an iPhone issue or a Sprint issue? I went to their troubleshooter in the app and it tells me to turn the entire phone off and on to deal with the issues.

For the record, that does make it able to use LTE as well.
 
I'll admit, I know more about the GSM carriers, but it sounds like your phone is having trouble communicating with the tower's LTE hardware. Since your LTE radio works sometimes right after a power cycle or airplane mode, that almost seems like the power toggle temporarily "fixes" it. Does this happen only in one place? Do you know anyone else with Sprint to compare? What model is it? Is it still under warranty?

From the sound of it, it could be either your phone or the tower. If it happens everywhere, I'd get Apple to look at your phone. If it only happens in one place, I'd try to find out ways to rule out Sprint.
 
It's only in one places hat I'm aware of. I have constant LTE at my house, restaurants in town, and everywhe re else I've gone that I have enough time to pull my phone out and use it. As for other people, I'm pretty much the only person with Sprint at my workplace.

The model is the 6S Plus.

Biggest question is how I'd rule out Sprint. The only thing I could think of is to actually try out another carrier, but I still owe on both my iPhone and my iPad Pro so that's basically out for now.
 
Ah, I'd probably lean towards Sprint then - if you really wanted to switch, some of the other carriers are doing buyouts/offering credits, so it wouldn't hurt to shop around. If not, it looks like Sprint has a tool that might be good for reporting poor coverage: http://support.sprint.com/support/a...int_Zone/c98c1442-0a59-4fce-97e5-d512ab2f2078

Not sure if anyone actually checks over the reports, but I've heard that the AT&T Mark the Spot app does actually get some results if they get enough complaints for a particular area.
 
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does it go from full bars of 3G to 1 bar of LTE after you toggle airplane mode? it could be the phone rather stay on a strong 3G signal, then a weak LTE signal.
 
Never had full bars anywhere with any phone.

But most of the time when it switches, I have the same number of bars on both 3G and LTE. 1-2 bars.
 
Not sure what iOS you're running. but its a known issue for some sprint users that if you update to 9.3 your LTE becomes unusable. Its currently happening to me. I had to disable LTE because nothing loads. 3g works fine(just very slow). I think its an issue with the 9.3 update. See this link that shows many people with this issue. Its driving me nuts lol

https://discussions.apple.com/message/29990297#29990297
 
9.3

Oh joy.

Edit: And with the 3G being so slow as to be unusable, I get to wait.
 
Last edited:
the only thing i can suggest is to reboot the sim card. this is called reseeding. I'm not sure what they call it, but what it does is cause the iPhone ( or phones in general ) to update the preferred roaming list. this also has the ability to restore lost features like Voice over LTE that may be missing on your iPhone

this might require you to be on wifi
turn off the iPhone
remove the sim card
wait 30 seconds
turn on the iPhone
wait for the iPhone to boot up
wait for the iPhone to show its unlock screen
unlock the iPhone
wait for the home screen to appear
wait for the error insert sim card
finally, after all that, insert your sim card. the iPhone will show ' searching ' and it will refresh the sim card


this is similar to what people on Verizon had to to before LTE came out to refresh the roaming tables.

from what I've seen if you leave your sim card in your phone 24 hours a day, and never boot it up this way, it can't update the roaming tables.

when switching carriers or when things would happen, like i wasn't getting wifi calling, i wasn't get tethering , or i wasn't able to turn on VOLTE , its been my experience that this reseed procedure fixes stuff


the other thing i can think of is to have your sim card replaced

lately I've been having problems with the phone dropping from LTE to 4G on T-Moble when i dial codes like #932#
it will stay there for a minute. but i think its a bug that t-mobile knows about and they seem to have fixed it

i think the reseeding would force the sim card to get a new carrier update ( if there is one ), so thats why i posted it
 
Last edited:
rigormortis said:
the only thing i can suggest is to reboot the sim card. this is called reseeding. I'm not sure what they call it, but what it does is cause the iPhone ( or phones in general ) to update the preferred roaming list. this also has the ability to restore lost features like Voice over LTE that may be missing on your iPhone

this might require you to be on wifi
turn off the iPhone
remove the sim card
wait 30 seconds
turn on the iPhone
wait for the iPhone to boot up
wait for the iPhone to show its unlock screen
unlock the iPhone
wait for the home screen to appear
wait for the error insert sim card
finally, after all that, insert your sim card. the iPhone will show ' searching ' and it will refresh the sim card


this is similar to what people on Verizon had to to before LTE came out to refresh the roaming tables.

from what I've seen if you leave your sim card in your phone 24 hours a day, and never boot it up this way, it can't update the roaming tables.

when switching carriers or when things would happen, like i wasn't getting wifi calling, i wasn't get tethering , or i wasn't able to turn on VOLTE , its been my experience that this reseed procedure fixes stuff


the other thing i can think of is to have your sim card replaced

lately I've been having problems with the phone dropping from LTE to 4G on T-Moble when i dial codes like #932#
it will stay there for a minute. but i think its a bug that t-mobile knows about and they seem to have fixed it

i think the reseeding would force the sim card to get a new carrier update ( if there is one ), so thats why i posted it
Click to expand...

I tried this and I'm going to see how it works.
 
This has actually happened for me on Verizon occasionally, with an iPhone 5, iPhone 6s, and an iPhone 6s Plus. I usually have to do the same thing, or I just go into the Cellular settings and toggle Cellular data on and off.
 
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