Do I have a problem with my phone or my network?
Personally, I believe the answer to be both.
I acquired my iPhone 4S on launch day. It was a quiet morning and I was able to walk straight into the Vodafone store, sign a piece of paper, and walk out with my new device. I had previously been with O2, who in their infinite wisdom decided to change the rules regarding early upgrades several days before the iPhone 4S launch - but that's another story.
Vodafone were my first contract mobile provider back in 2006. Back then I had my trusty Samsung SGH-Z720V with HSDPA and music/video playing capabilities. I enjoyed being able to watch Sky Mobile TV whilst travelling and the Vodafone network was more than up to the task of handling the video streams and to start off with, the iPhone 4s was getting good service from Vodafone too.
Samsung SGH-Z720V
(Picture courtesy of: techradar.com)
In December 2011, I started to notice my phone dropping out to 'No Service' in various places around the south east of England. I wasn't "in the sticks" or hiding at the bottom of a hill, this was in an urban environment where Vodafone itself lists the coverage as 'Excellent'. After I first noticed the issue, I started to pay more attention to the signal and found it happening at least once a day, if not more.
One of the first 'No Service' occurrences
So begins the tale of my adventures with Apple and Vodafone which to this day (13th February) are still on-going.
After raising the issue with Vodafone on Twitter, they advised me to seek out my local Vodafone store and have the SIM card swapped as "If the original SIM card is a few years old it can cause signal to deteriorate". The SIM card was new as of October 2011 but I decided to try this anyway and on the 7th January 2012 the swap was completed.
It's all the SIM card's fault...
When returning home, I found the issue still to be occurring - going down through each bar of signal from 4, to 3, 2, 1 and then our favourite.. 'No Service'. I put in a call to Applecare on January 10th 2012 and was advised after going through the diagnosis process that this was likely to be a hardware issue. Upon receipt of the packaging a few days later I sent in my phone for repair and it was received by the service centre on 17th January 2012.
Great news! On January 18th I received an e-mail advising me that my phone was going to be replaced with a refurbished unit and was currently being despatched. Sure enough, the next day I received a package containing an iPhone 4S.. except.. it's not white, it's not 32GB, and it has data on it. A call to Applecare should get this sorted quickly, right? Wrong.
Wait... this isn't mine...
After several calls and e-mails to Apple's Customer Relations team (who apparently can't reply to e-mails..), the phone was sent back and a brand new phone was received on January 26th. Hooray!
But.. what's this? No. It can't be... the dreaded 'No Service' returns! Luckily it happened at a time when I also had access to another mobile phone on the Vodafone network, a Samsung Tocco Lite. Whilst my phone showed 'No Service' for around a minute, this device was able to see at least 4 bars of 3G service and could make and receive calls. Upon dialling my phone during the 'No Service' the call was met with silence.. no ringing, no voicemail, nothing - something later replicated with a landline telephone calling me.
Could I be really unlucky and have received 2 phones that have the same hardware issue? Or is there something else going on here?
I opened a case with Vodafone on the February 3rd 2012, and was promised a call back from the network support team within 72 hours. On February 11th, I received my call back. The advisor told me that Apple were looking into a fix for an issue surrounding 3G to 2G transition on the iPhone 4S, but did not have a timeframe. He also told me Vodafone were receiving a lot of support requests from iPhone 4S owners about signal issues.
We discussed whether trying out my SIM card in an iPhone 4 would help assess the situation further and we agreed.
Never fear! Network support are on the case...
That evening, I swapped the Vodafone SIM card in to the iPhone 4 which had recently been unlocked. Within the space of an hour, I started noticing network issues again however this time showing in a different way. The iPhone 4 gained 3G signal and progressively lost this over time. Once 3G signal had been lost completely it would show 'Searching..' for 2-3 seconds, and then re-establish a 2G EDGE connection. Over the past few days I have noticed it do this on several occasions but as yet have not seen a 'No Service' and the 'Searching..' has not been seen for longer than 2 seconds at a time.
So what does this likely mean?
It is my opinion that the issues I am seeing come from both Apple and Vodafone. With an apparent weak 3G signal the iPhone 4S has to occasionally drop down to a 2G service. However what appears to be a bug in the code is causing this process to take a lot longer than usual (in some cases up to 2 minutes) and presents the user with a 'No Service' message on the display.
The iPhone 4 on the same software also has issues sticking to Vodafone's 3G network, however it is much quicker at re-establishing itself on 2G with only minimal 'Searching..' displayed (2 seconds maximum).
It's a shame Vodafone's 3G coverage isn't as good as it used to be as I would likely not see this issue with a constantly reliable 3G signal. There is a noticeable difference dropping down to EDGE, and I will point this out to Vodafone.
Wake me up when it's done...
Here's hoping a software update will be able to put this issue to bed once and for all!
- Chris
Posted by: Chris H on 13/02/2012 15:55 GMT
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