HELP! I'm officially dumbfounded with my sudden data connection issue

[john_7711]

I'm having a sudden issue as of last Friday (2/10) that makes no sense to me, anyone at the Apple store, and anyone at AT&T's tech support. Please feel free to offer up any advice or experiences you may have had that could possibly help me resolve this.

Background: I've had an iPhone for the past 3 years or so. Started with a 3GS, then a 4, and then got the 4S on launch day. For the past 3 years of owning an iPhone, while at work I have listened to 6-8 hours of streaming internet radio every day, along with using my phone for normal things like email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I have NEVER had any issues with any of the phones or my AT&T service, until last Friday. I've always had 3-5 bars of AT&T 3G signal strength from day 1 of owning an iPhone.

The Issue: All of a sudden, as of last Friday when I got to work, I couldn't connect to the internet on my phone AT ALL. I couldn't stream anything. Trying to check my email would take several minutes, if it would even go through at all without timing out. The phone worked fine before I got to work on 3G, it worked fine after I was out of the building and into the parking lot a bit. My signal NEVER got lower than 3 bars of AT&T 3G. No changes have been made to our building to all of a sudden cause any issue. Also, there's 2 co-workers who have AT&T iPhones, one a 3GS and one a 4. Neither of them have ANY problem connecting to the AT&T data network. So it's apparently just me. Just when I'm inside the building I work at. I can not figure out what is going on, but after 3 phone calls and 2 web chats with AT&T Tech Support (the 3rd call was with a Tier 2 rep), here's all the things I've tried to solve the problem:

1.) MANY power cycles/reboots of the device
2.) Removed SIM card multiple times
3.) Reset network settings
4.) Cleared history, cookies, cache, etc
5.) Did a phone restore via iCloud
6.) Went to Apple store to get phone replaced through warranty and got new SIM card from AT&T on same night
7.) After restoring the new phone with a backup of the previous phone and having no success, I...
8.) Did a restore as a new device
9.) Several times, the AT&T people essentially re-activated my phone(s), which included receiving the "Welcome to AT&T Wireless..." text that new customers receive
10.) More resets of the network settings

There may be one or two steps that I've tried that I'm forgetting. None of these steps have eliminated the problem. I will admit that today, I could sporadically connect well enough to check email, or get Twitter updates, or even stream a minute or so of internet radio. But the connections were extremely short-lived, and extremely sporadic.

Nobody at AT&T seems to have any clue as to what the problem could be. It worked fine for years and then, all of a sudden.....POOF! No more internet of any kind for me. Just me. Just at work. Anywhere inside the building. Nothing affecting the 2 other AT&T iPhones in the building, and nothing affecting my data connection ANYWHERE else other than at work. It's not my equipment; it's been replaced. It's not AT&T; I have good signal and no issues anywhere else. I tried suggesting to the AT&T reps that maybe there are settings/parameters/configurations specifically on my account behind the scenes somewhere that could possibly be causing this, but I was told that's not possible.

So, I beg of you...if you have any ideas, suggestions, experiences or whatever, please post them. This is driving me CRAZY!!!!!

EDIT: This data issue is also affecting iMessage. Regular texts and phone calls go through just fine though.

 

[Jeremy]

I'm having a sudden issue as of last Friday (2/10) that makes no sense to me, anyone at the Apple store, and anyone at AT&T's tech support. Please feel free to offer up any advice or experiences you may have had that could possibly help me resolve this.

Background: I've had an iPhone for the past 3 years or so. Started with a 3GS, then a 4, and then got the 4S on launch day. For the past 3 years of owning an iPhone, while at work I have listened to 6-8 hours of streaming internet radio every day, along with using my phone for normal things like email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I have NEVER had any issues with any of the phones or my AT&T service, until last Friday. I've always had 3-5 bars of AT&T 3G signal strength from day 1 of owning an iPhone.

The Issue: All of a sudden, as of last Friday when I got to work, I couldn't connect to the internet on my phone AT ALL. I couldn't stream anything. Trying to check my email would take several minutes, if it would even go through at all without timing out. The phone worked fine before I got to work on 3G, it worked fine after I was out of the building and into the parking lot a bit. My signal NEVER got lower than 3 bars of AT&T 3G. No changes have been made to our building to all of a sudden cause any issue. Also, there's 2 co-workers who have AT&T iPhones, one a 3GS and one a 4. Neither of them have ANY problem connecting to the AT&T data network. So it's apparently just me. Just when I'm inside the building I work at. I can not figure out what is going on, but after 3 phone calls and 2 web chats with AT&T Tech Support (the 3rd call was with a Tier 2 rep), here's all the things I've tried to solve the problem:

1.) MANY power cycles/reboots of the device
2.) Removed SIM card multiple times
3.) Reset network settings
4.) Cleared history, cookies, cache, etc
5.) Did a phone restore via iCloud
6.) Went to Apple store to get phone replaced through warranty and got new SIM card from AT&T on same night
7.) After restoring the new phone with a backup of the previous phone and having no success, I...
8.) Did a restore as a new device
9.) Several times, the AT&T people essentially re-activated my phone(s), which included receiving the "Welcome to AT&T Wireless..." text that new customers receive
10.) More resets of the network settings

There may be one or two steps that I've tried that I'm forgetting. None of these steps have eliminated the problem. I will admit that today, I could sporadically connect well enough to check email, or get Twitter updates, or even stream a minute or so of internet radio. But the connections were extremely short-lived, and extremely sporadic.

Nobody at AT&T seems to have any clue as to what the problem could be. It worked fine for years and then, all of a sudden.....POOF! No more internet of any kind for me. Just me. Just at work. Anywhere inside the building. Nothing affecting the 2 other AT&T iPhones in the building, and nothing affecting my data connection ANYWHERE else other than at work. It's not my equipment; it's been replaced. It's not AT&T; I have good signal and no issues anywhere else. I tried suggesting to the AT&T reps that maybe there are settings/parameters/configurations specifically on my account behind the scenes somewhere that could possibly be causing this, but I was told that's not possible.

So, I beg of you...if you have any ideas, suggestions, experiences or whatever, please post them. This is driving me CRAZY!!!!!

AT&T is lying to you. If everything you say is true. I had a similar issue a while back only at work where I'd have all my bars but could not use my data and I would get failed calls constantly. I called AT&T 8 times in 8 days and it took that many calls for someone to tell me they had a tower with an issue and it was waiting to be fixed. Few days later it was fixed. Call back when you are at work and specifically ask them to check on all of the local towers in that area. And are those other iPhones not having issues 4S devices or older ones? The 4S uses HSPA+ where the older ones do not and would not be effected. My best guess. If it's not your phone, it's the service. Plain and simple.

 

[john_7711]

Jeremy, I've included every detail I can think of regarding my issue. Your issue does sound similar to mine, with the exception that I am having zero issues with making or receiving phone calls or non-iMessage text messages. It's strictly just anything data-related. Also, of the 3 AT&T iPhones at my work, mine is indeed the only 4S. However, my 4S performed perfectly from launch day when I bought it until 10 days ago. So for it to all of a sudden not work properly, my first thought was it had to be the network. I baby my phones so it wasn't dropped or damaged. And even if it had been, replacing the phone and SIM card took that out of the equation.

 

[BrindawithanI]

John, my 4s has done the same thing since I got it in Oct. Only at work, and only in the building. I've had both a black and white iPhone 4 a year apart and NEVER had any issues until I bought the 4s. I've spoken with AT&T from work and they were looking into it and were to have gotten back with me by the 7th. On the 7th I got a text that said they were still working on the issue and would be in touch. It will be 2 weeks tomorrow so I'm calling them again and will continue to, until I get results. Except for swapping the phone or sim, I've done everything that you have. Oh and I always have 3G connection and 3 to 4 bars but no data. This all makes me feel like its what Jeremy is suggesting.

 

[Peligro911]

Put your friends sim in your phone see if it works if it don't then u know it's a 4s thing and has to be a tower prob


Sent Into Orbit from my iPhone 4S using Tapatalk

 

[Garz]

You talked a out streaming music 6-8 hours a day. Are you sure you havent been throttled?

 

[john_7711]

It's definately not throttling. One of the reps confirmed it. This started a week into my current billing cycle. I was around maybe a half a GB for the month at the time.

 

[john_7711]

John, my 4s has done the same thing since I got it in Oct. Only at work, and only in the building. I've had both a black and white iPhone 4 a year apart and NEVER had any issues until I bought the 4s. I've spoken with AT&T from work and they were looking into it and were to have gotten back with me by the 7th. On the 7th I got a text that said they were still working on the issue and would be in touch. It will be 2 weeks tomorrow so I'm calling them again and will continue to, until I get results. Except for swapping the phone or sim, I've done everything that you have. Oh and I always have 3G connection and 3 to 4 bars but no data. This all makes me feel like its what Jeremy is suggesting.

I'm starting to think this is probably the case. It's just so out of the blue and I keep wondering, if it's working outside of the building, shouldn't it be working inside too? I'm not losing anything signal wise when I walk in. At least, nothing that's visually indicated.

 

[Jeremy]

Was this issue ever resolved? I'm curious now.

 

[john_7711]

Sorry. Forgot to update this. Somehow, after about 10 days, I came to work one day and everything magically worked like normal again. Nothing changed on my end was and still am in the same billing cycle, no notifications of anything. No explanation at all.

 

[BrindawithanI]

I spoke with them again about my issues and they said it was network congestion. I kind of believe them because it works fine every Friday and had no issues for the whole week between Christmas & New Years. Those days it's like a ghost town downtown. They told me their looking to add more towers Q4 this year so I bought a wireless router for the office. I'm still going to rack up as much of my "unlimited" data as often as possible though.