My iPhone is on strike... help!

June 22, 2009 1:10 PM

Help! My iPhone has decided to not connect to any cell-phone network.

After happily owning an unlocked iPhone on T-Mobile for the past year or so, it has suddenly decided to quit working. It comes on fine, but when it tries to connect to a cell tower, it just says "Searching." or "No Service".
I'm at home, where I've consistently had 3-4 bars for the last year. If I go to manually select a network, it will display all the networks in the area, but when I select one, it tries to connect, then tells me that network is no longer available.
I've tried restarting the phone, restarting the phone after taking out the SIM card, restoring the phone from a backup, and restoring the phone from scratch. Much to my dismay, none of these things have worked.
My question is: Has anyone else ran into this problem with an unlocked iPhone? Or is there anyone who has any other ideas? I'm running out of ideas, and the hive mind is my last-ditch effort before I call T-Mobile and order a blackberry.

posted by ComeUndone to Technology (8 answers total)

Response by poster: Oh, I forgot to add. I don't have an ATT sim card to try in the phone. But, the phone had been working flawlessly for a year, and I hadn't made any changes to the firmware of anything when it stopped working. I was literally texting one minute, and then not able to send any messages the next minute.
posted by ComeUndone at 1:12 PM on June 22, 2009

Best answer: Do you have another phone you can put the SIM in to rule out that it is a network problem? If you can latch onto the the network and you can make calls on another phone but with the SIM from the iPhone then you know it isn't the SIM or your account. If it is a SIM problem where it has some bad mojo you can get a replacement from t-mo, usually free.
posted by birdherder at 1:23 PM on June 22, 2009

Response by poster: Unfortunately I don't have another GSM phone to try it on.
posted by ComeUndone at 1:28 PM on June 22, 2009

If you live near a t-mobile store you can take it in there and they can try your SIM in one of their phones and if it the case they can give you a new SIM and see if it gets you back on the network on your iPhone before you leave.
posted by birdherder at 1:38 PM on June 22, 2009

Response by poster: I'll try that.. thanks :)
posted by ComeUndone at 1:40 PM on June 22, 2009

i also have not been getting signals and AT&T says there is a downed tower in my area.
posted by Jason and Laszlo at 2:05 PM on June 22, 2009

Did you recently update your phone? Maybe the Unlock is not working anymore?
posted by majortom1981 at 5:24 PM on June 22, 2009

Response by poster: Just an update for anyone who might have this problem in the future: It was the SIM card. I grabbed another unlocked GSM phone, put that SIM card in my phone, and it worked. Then I put my SIM card in their phone, and it didn't work.
When I called Tmobile, they sent me a new SIM card and overnighted it for free. I have to say, I was very impressed with the fact that Tmobile still seems to provide support for iPhones even though they don't sell them.
posted by ComeUndone at 12:31 PM on July 14, 2009