Seriously, no option to turn off 3G?

[capcaveman]

Why? I'm regularly in areas with only Edge coverage...will the iOS5 magically switch to Edge when I have no wifi or 3g?

Is there some hidden setting that will let me turn off 3g when it and my wifi connection at work bogs down so bad that I can't stream audio during peak times? Which happens daily at my workplace, forcing me to switch to Edge.

So far things were going great with my shiny new 4s until I learned this.

Yeah, I get that Edge will be dying but in some areas it's still the only real option, what the heck?

Sorry if this is a repost.

 

[yanki01]

settings > general > network > enable/disable 3G

----------

i think its been there since day 1 of the iPhone?

 

[capcaveman]

settings > general > network > enable/disable 3G

NOPE,

That's the option I had on my iPhone 4 but NOT on my 4s. It's gone.

 

[HeezyBear]

Yeah, I don't understand why they would omit this. Switching to Edge really helped out when the battery went below 20% and you knew you weren't going to make it to a charger anytime soon.

 

[yanki01]

hmmm, weird.

 

[doboy]

Why? I'm regularly in areas with only Edge coverage...will the iOS5 magically switch to Edge when I have no wifi or 3g?

Is there some hidden setting that will let me turn off 3g when it and my wifi connection at work bogs down so bad that I can't stream audio during peak times? Which happens daily at my workplace, forcing me to switch to Edge.

So far things were going great with my shiny new 4s until I learned this.

Yeah, I get that Edge will be dying but in some areas it's still the only real option, what the heck?

Sorry if this is a repost.

It appears iPhone 4S doesn't have manual switch to force EDGE only, but it should switch between the two depending on the available network.

 

[capcaveman]

It appears iPhone 4S doesn't have manual switch to force EDGE only, but it should switch between the two depending on the available network.

Hopefully, but battery life is going to take a substantial hit and if the 3g is spotty or in my case overloaded we're pretty much screwed.

 

[doboy]

Hopefully, but battery life is going to take a substantial hit and if the 3g is spotty or in my case overloaded we're pretty much screwed.

You won't know until you try it out for few days. Just give it time to see if you have any issues and maybe even email Apple regarding the issue.

 

[Rogue Kill]

Hopefully, but battery life is going to take a substantial hit and if the 3g is spotty or in my case overloaded we're pretty much screwed.

True, I don't like the fact that you can't take advantage of manually forcing the phone to the edge network.

I did find the option under network to turn off "cellular data." I think that would force it to use wifi.

Otherwise....screwed...

 

[Shanewilliams]

I hated to see that option go! I know personally there have been a few times where for some reason calls would not go out with 3G enabled, but if I would cut it off and jump on EDGE I could make a call. I don't know why Apple would choose to omit this. It makes absolutely no sense at this point, but it might be more to it then we realize at this point....new antenna???

 

[doctapeppa]

I don't know about you guys but AT&T's 3g service has died here in Miami a few times and the only way to be able to use our iphone was by going into settings and turning off 3G.

 

[nebo1ss]

I don't know about you guys but AT&T's 3g service has died here in Miami a few times and the only way to be able to use our iphone was by going into settings and turning off 3G.

This should not be necessary. The phone will eventually fall back to 2G when 3G service is not available.

 

[doctapeppa]

This should not be necessary. The phone will eventually fall back to 2G when 3G service is not available.

Well, the 4 has this capability as well but it didn't work. The problem with the outages that we had was that 3G wasn't really down (it was just messed up) so the phones didn't drop back to Edge and we had to manually switch back to it so we could make phone calls and retrieve emails, etc.

 

[paulcdb]

as said in a previous thread, if your on 3 in the UK then you won't have an option to turn it off.

O2 allow you the option, not sure on the other networks.

 

[The Game 161]

when happens when you are on wifi will 3G be turned off?

 

[sanke1]

I wanted an option to set it to 3G only. I am sick of my phone jumping to 2G network even if 3G coverage is strong.

 

[dubnde]

I am on T-Mobile UK. If I disable "Enable 3G" but leave the "Cellular Data" on, it falls back to GPRS I think. Never had an option for EDGE even before iOS 5

 

[blipmusic]

as said in a previous thread, if your on 3 in the UK then you won't have an option to turn it off.

O2 allow you the option, not sure on the other networks.

Well, in Sweden 3 is restricted to 3G. There is physically no way to make a call via 3 on the 2G network (apart from emergency calls). Perhaps the situation is similar in the UK?

EDIT: By the way, I'm a 3 customer on a 3GS and as expected the "3G off" option does not show up in settings. Would've been nice with a fallback, though.

 

[Jman13]

Perhaps it has to do with the new antenna design, which switches between antennas based on the best signal. Just a thought.

 

[Moe UK]

Switching between the two is very useful, there are quite few places at my work where you only get one or two bars 3G and when that happens I can't load any webpages, turn of 3G and I get full EDGE and data works.

 

[Stealthipad]

It is very possible that the phone does it for you without your input!

 

[dave420]

This should not be necessary. The phone will eventually fall back to 2G when 3G service is not available.

Actually the same thing has happened here. It connects to the 3G network fine, but it is unable to make calls or send texts. It thinks it is on 3G so it doesn't switch back. Only happened here one time I can remember, so hopefully won't be too much of an issue.

 

[The Game 161]

Actually the same thing has happened here. It connects to the 3G network fine, but it is unable to make calls or send texts. It thinks it is on 3G so it doesn't switch back. Only happened here one time I can remember, so hopefully won't be too much of an issue.

What happens when you are on wifi then? does 3G still remain on? that would drain battery when it doesn't need to be on.

 

[codelode84]

I never realized this was an option. My phone would always automatically switch from 3g to edge all of the time on its one even during a call. I had a 3G, is the advantage to this button if it isn't searching for 3G all of the time you are going to save battery life or am I missing something here?

 

[Xenc]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

I never realized this was an option. My phone would always automatically switch from 3g to edge all of the time on its one even during a call. I had a 3G, is the advantage to this button if it isn't searching for 3G all of the time you are going to save battery life or am I missing something here?

Yes. Longer battery life and, for those who live in areas with poor 3G reception, a more stable connection.

I guess Apple removed it to make the menus more simple? That's unfortunate!