wife has a factory unlocked iPhone (bought in Dec 2012) and uses t-mobile.

A while ago she complained that her phone would loose signal. Yes, T-mobile signal is low at our house, but once we left the house, the iPhone would see signal and everything would be OK. Now the phone would not reconnect to T-Mobile. She had to restart the whole phone.

I took a look at it, reset all settings, and it seemed to work better for a while. Now it does it again.

I recently unlocked my ATT iPhone 5 and we swapped SIM between phones.

Her iPhone is happy with ATT. it stays connected.

My iPhone is Happy with T-Mobile. It stays connected.

When we put the originals SIMs back, my iPhone is happy with ATT, her iPhone does NOT like T-Mobile. What happens, is either is says no service, or after restart, it would connect to T-Mobile for about 30 seconds or a minute, then drop the connection and say No Service.

I even updated her iPhone from iOS 8.3 to 8.4.1 just now, reset all settings, still no joy.

I plan to restore to factory settings tomorrow night. before I do that drastic step, any other advice?

After all this swapping does her phone still work reliably on T-Mobile when you travel to an area with better coverage like you said was reliable before? Or did things get worse in all situations?

Later iPhone 5 devices had more LTE bands as a silent mid-year update. Is your former ATT iPhone newer than the original T-Mobile iPhone?

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Later iPhone 5 devices had more LTE bands as a silent mid-year update.

Hmmm, interesting.

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zachdog
Later iPhone 5 devices had more LTE bands as a silent mid-year update. Is your former ATT iPhone newer than the original T-Mobile iPhone?

Her phone is Dec 1012. Mine is May 2013. Yes, mine is newer than hers.
But her phone worked fine for 2+ years.

I just reset all setting and now it stayed on T-Mobile for about an hour. Will keep an eye on it for the next few days.

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GGD
After all this swapping does her phone still work reliably on T-Mobile when you travel to an area with better coverage like you said was reliable before? Or did things get worse in all situations?

Apparently things got worse, she no longer has signal in areas where she had signal before.

I just reset it (all settings) and so far it is still good, let's keep an eye on it.

I would get TMobile to give me a new SIM. SIMs do go bad, and sometimes a SIM swap will fix the issue.

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Roswell, GA (Atlanta suburb)

I recall reading something that providers have quietly asked manufacturers to drop one of the LTE bands (band 5 I think) from future phones so that it can be repurposed for some other use. I think it had something to do with VoIP. Maybe T-Mobile removed that band and your wife's phone had been preferring it for your connections at home?

Tmo will happily GIVE you an awesome ASUS router to enable wifi calling and deal with your 'at home' connectivity issues. Just call and complain about connectivity in your house.

We use the router for our entire house's wifi... 802.11-ac and the range is awesome.

[www.t-mobile.com]

...or they will give you a "signal booster", like they did with me, for free. We switched over to TMo because of cost, thinking that maybe they fixed their coverage problems since we last used them many years ago. They hadn't- we still couldn't keep a phone call in our house.

The signal booster is a little futzy to set up, but it's solved our problems.

Edit: some more detail- the "signal booster" comes in two pieces. One is a box which goes where the best signal in the house is ( usually a window on an upper floor or high point), and the other box goes on the other end of the house and together with the other box, sends the amplified signal through the house.

You have to start by finding the best signal in the house, which takes awhile. But as I said, it's worked well for us.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2015 11:05AM by pdq.

WiFi: I don't think iPhone 5 supports calls over WiFi, does it? and why do I need a special router if I have my router?

Signal booster: I guess it is worth a try, but we have that)old prepaid plan, 10 cents per minute, no data (she uses a freedompop hotspot for those rare case she needs data). We stretch $100 over 2 years on T-Mobile. EDIT: we don't really need signal at home, we need to make sure the phone regains signal when she leaves the house.

Right now it's been 12 hours since I updated the iOS to 8.4.1 and reset all settings and it seems the phone didn't lose signal so far.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2015 11:18AM by space-time.

Hope it keeps working space. I got Ethyl iPhone 5 about that same time. On Straight Talk (ATT) for two years, got flaky, so went to TMobile, and nary a problem since. I also don't think the iPhone 5 works over wifi calling...we get LTE signal in our house though, so no problem.

Oh, if problem comes back, try a hard restart - you know, press and hold both off and home buttons until the thing starts again.

---

That old man - he don't think like no old man...
Now I wouldn't want to be within 400 - 500 yards of one of them nuclear bombs when it goes off! WW1 Vet Old Man
"He's pinned under an outcropping of rock. Lucky for him, the rock kept the dirt from burying him alive."
If idiots could fly, this place would be an airport. And I'd be a TSA agent.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2015 11:30AM by GuyGene.

Might want to check this Apple note about iPhone 5 T-mobile AWS band compatability:

[support.apple.com]

Are your iPhone 5's model A1428 or A1429? Probably T-mobile repurposed one of the LTE bands leading to the current issue.

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bhaveshp
Might want to check this Apple note about iPhone 5 T-mobile AWS band compatability:

[support.apple.com]

Are your iPhone 5's model A1428 or A1429? Probably T-mobile repurposed one of the LTE bands leading to the current issue.

This is the mid-year iPhone 5 update I mentioned. My wife had an early model and I had a later model. Mine had better/faster coverage.

Quote
bhaveshp
Might want to check this Apple note about iPhone 5 T-mobile AWS band compatability:

[support.apple.com]

Are your iPhone 5's model A1428 or A1429? Probably T-mobile repurposed one of the LTE bands leading to the current issue.

I am not sure yet, will check her phone when I get home. Here is the info from online order back in Dec 2012


her phone

iPhone 5 - Unlocked - 32GB White & Silver (GSM)  

Part Number: MD296LL/A

Mine is A1428 (damn, this is so hard to read, Black on Black) and model is MD640LL/A