Samsung galaxy s3 - great signal at home, no signal whatsoever away from home

[Anonymous]

I upgraded to the S3 about six weeks ago and apart from the stupid location of the power button and accidentally hitting those darn soft keys ever 30 secs, I love the phone and have had no problems...until about a week ago.

At home, I have full signal strength most of the time, it might drop down a few bars occasionally but never so that I can't make calls etc. About a week ago however, I noticed that whenever I went out of my home location, I lost all mobile signal. The phone either displays the O with a cross through the middle (no signal) or it shows the wedge shape which normally has the signal bars in but this is empty.  

I was in Cambs last weekend (70+ miles from where I live) and had no signal all weekend, this is a place where my previous phone (HTC Desire) always had good signal strength and the people I was staying with were both on O2 and had a full signal. I was in Brentwood on Tuesday this week (15-20 miles from where I live) and the same thing applied, the person I was with had a healthy O2 signal, I had nothing.  

When I return home, I've got a signal again.  

When the phone is showing the empty wedge shape, if I try and make a call, I get the message 'Not registered on Network', so I go into Settings-More Settings-Mobile Networks-Network Operators and immediately the phone displays 'searching'. It searches for about 30secs, then 'searching' disappears from the display and nothing else happens, there's no further message and the signal doesn't improve.   Whilst in that screen, if I then hit 'select preferred network' I immediately get the message 'registered' but the signal still doesn't change, the wedge shape is still empty and if I try and make a call I again get the message 'Not registered on network'.  

I've done a soft reset on the phone, I've taken the SIM card out and gently wiped it with a soft tissue, all to no avail.  

I went back to Car Phone Warehouse this week and they said try O2 first. So I ring O2 and all they did was take me through setting up two new APN's, o2 mobile web and o2 pay monthly MMS, needless to say this hasn't helped. O2 have said they'll send me a new SIM to try.  

The thing is (and I'm no mobile phone engineer, I don't know how phones work in relation to the networks as they move around the country) it's almost as if the phone won't move from 'mast to mast' as I move out of my home area - is that feasible ?  

Is there a setting on the phone that I've missed so that in some way the phone is 'tethered' to my local mast only ?   As I say, I've only noticed this over the last week or so and I haven't applied any system updates in that time.   The model is a GT-19300 and is as supplied, i.e. not rooted.   I'd really appreciate any advice because at the moment, six weeks into a two year contract, my mobile phone is anything but mobile.   Cheers,   Nick

[MI5]

Hi Nick

Yes it does sound as though the phone is not picking up a new mast when you move out of range but it seems strange that it is connecting OK to your home one everytime. Try the replacement SIM first (just in case) but if it doesn't help I think you need to get the phone looked at by Samsung. Just make sure you have Automatic selected in your "Preferred networks" and also "network mode" set to auto.

[Stevoc19]

I have recently been having similar problems. I can be walking down the high street in city centre and signal cycles through E, G, H and H+ all the while not downloading at all. If I stand still for about 5 mins it sometimes comes back again.

My signal strength is constantly -90 at best which I thought looked bad but O2 says it's perfectly fine.

It is getting to a point of not having any mobile data ability and annoying.

I have already swapped out sim card and even done a factory reset of Android with no change in results.

Is the O2 signal now so bad as to be pointless?

[MI5]

Check your postcode here for any issues http://status.o2.co.uk/

[Anonymous]

Not wanting to take my own post off topic but I've recd the new SIM card this morning and o2 have told me to ring them once I've got it and they'll activate it but they've also said I should back the old one up first.

How exactly do you back a SIM card up ?

I was under the impression that they basically only hold the contact list, in which case it's a fairly straightforward job of exporting a .vcf file to SD card or computer - is there any other data on there I should be worried about ?

Nick

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

Nothing but contacts and any SMS you may have saved. Copy your contacts to your phone and don't worry about it.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your input MI5, the new SIM is in, we'll see how it goes over the next week or so.

Cheers.

Nick

[MI5]

Fingers crossed for you.... let us know how it goes...