Phone losing all service in places I should have service

[dakotaweir]

My phone has been losing service randomly for about 2 months now. It will happen when I'm driving most commonly, but recently has been happening while I'm walking or not moving at all. It occurs in spots where I know I have service. 

Sometimes I can regain service by turning airplane mode on/off, and sometimes by turning the phone on/off. Sometimes I just need to wait awhile to regain service. 

I have an iphone 6s, as does my boyfriend and this never happens to him - also with public mobile. I thought it might be a SIM card issue but I bought a new SIM card and this still happens. 

This is very frustrating! Any ideas on how to fix this? Thanks!

[sirvar]

You can try to test ur signal strength in places where you do have signal. This can help you narrow down if its being dropped randomly, or if it's too low of a signal that your phone is not able to use it.

See here: https://ios.gadgethacks.com/how-to/see-actual-signal-strength-your-iphone-ios-11-0182733/

[srlawren]

@dakotaweir if you don't feel comfortable opening up the phone to look yourself (I wouldn't personally either), then maybe pop by your local Apple store and visit the "Geniuses" for some assistance.  🙂

[dakotaweir]

seems to have the same issues I had. Interesting antenna solution - will look into that. 

[srlawren]

It's not unprecedented for iPhones to run into antenna issues....  e.g https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Self-Serve/Network-Issues-won-t-connect-to-PM-carrier...

[Someone_here]

It's almost certainly your phone, since as you said it only happens to you. The other possibilty is that the problem is somehow related to your account (not SIM), but I don't see how that would be. To be 100 % sure, you could swap SIMs with your boyfriend for a while, and see if the problem reoocur with your phone + his SIM or with his phone + your SIM... (or for that matter get your SIM in any other phone for a while and see if the problem still occurs).

But yes, you are probably looking at getting a new phone...

[wmleung]

I believe your phone is malfunctioning.

If you don't mind the trouble, do a factory / hardware reset and see if the issues would go away.  IF it goes away, you are good to go.  IF not, then a new device may be required.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Interesting. I have a now-antique BBZ30 and I had that happen recently. Power-cycled and all good. But now reading this has happened to someone else...hmmm