Baffled by lack of network!!!

[blondie4281]

Desperately need some advice from anyone who knows about mobiles!

My phone worked fine until one day I couldn't get any network. Quite often it would say 'network unavailable' 2 minutes after having full network and without moving an inch! It couldn't take incoming calls and outgoing calls cut out after 10 seconds.
My phone company said I needed a new sim card as it was old and hadn't been communicating to their network for 24hrs (should do it every minute or so?). So I swopped to a new sim card (same number). Still didn't work.
So I bought a new handset. Still didn't work. Same problem. Sent back the handset as faulty (possible?) and got another. This time it worked great - until now.

6 weeks of having no problems at all and today everything above is back. This time worse. Emergency calls only. I can't dial out at all, and incoming calls go straight to voicemail. If I switch my phone on and off I get a flashing network symbol for about 2 seconds before it goes back to no network. On searching manually for a network, my provider is not listed at all!

The frustrating thing is I am sat on my sofa in my sitting room, where I know yesterday I had full reception and today I have no reception at all. Where am I going wrong??

[peterb]

I would suspect either a problem with the transmitter in your local area or something in your vicinity that is generating interference. Are any other users on the same network and in the same location affected?

[Stringent]

You dont mention what network you are on or what area you are in.

How is it when you move to a different location?

[blondie4281]

I am on Vodafone and I am in Didcot in Oxfordshire. Not usually a problem area! I don't know anyone else on vodafone, but my hubby is on BT Cellnet and his reception is usually not good in the house, but now mine is worse than his!
It is so odd that my phone will fluctuate between full reception to emergency calls only without doing anything other than picking up my phone off the coffee table.

My phone contract is up for renewal. Any opinions on which networks offer the best reception generally? I think my hubbys is pretty hopeless. I always used to think Vodafone was good.

This is a business phone so I can't have a phone that often has no reception.

[Zap]

Mine's very much the same with Orange where I live, I'll move my phone just a centimeter and it'll go from full signal to nothing instantly.

[Ferral]

Could well be weather related, or like mentioned, one of the cell sites gone down. It does happen occasionally.

[deeves]

Originally Posted by blondie4281

Desperately need some advice from anyone who knows about mobiles!

My phone worked fine until one day I couldn't get any network. Quite often it would say 'network unavailable' 2 minutes after having full network and without moving an inch! It couldn't take incoming calls and outgoing calls cut out after 10 seconds.
My phone company said I needed a new sim card as it was old and hadn't been communicating to their network for 24hrs (should do it every minute or so?). So I swopped to a new sim card (same number). Still didn't work.
So I bought a new handset. Still didn't work. Same problem. Sent back the handset as faulty (possible?) and got another. This time it worked great - until now.

6 weeks of having no problems at all and today everything above is back. This time worse. Emergency calls only. I can't dial out at all, and incoming calls go straight to voicemail. If I switch my phone on and off I get a flashing network symbol for about 2 seconds before it goes back to no network. On searching manually for a network, my provider is not listed at all!

The frustrating thing is I am sat on my sofa in my sitting room, where I know yesterday I had full reception and today I have no reception at all. Where am I going wrong??

Something similar happened to me but on the 3 network, reception was great for almost a year & then all of a sudden the signal would fluctuate a lot, & I'd get error messages (something like emergency calls only, network error, connection error etc), but in my case, it wasnt just me, someone I knew on 3 who lived in the same area was experiencing the same problem as well. So, I had the matter escalated to the technical team who said it was probably the mast and said they'd "Investigate".
Four weeks later, the tech team called me up & said that they had fixed the problem & my phone has been fine since (apparently they fixed/updated the mast or something), though it still does fluctuate sometimes but not as often.
Have you tried speaking to the technical support maybe (though I understand it can be a nightmare waiting on the phone for them to answer the call).