In the last month or so I have noticed that at times in certain locations I simply have no mobile internet on my FP3. I can still have a strong mobile signal, and can call and send sms no problem but there is absolutely no internet connection. LTE does not show up next to the signal strength icons.
This is not a weak LTE or EDGE signal, it is simply nothing. Then when I go to another location, my internet connection will work perfectly. But there is no middle ground. I either have internet or I don’t. There is no gradual appearance of a weak internet signal as I move to another location, it is suddenly there as a full LTE signal.
My APN settings appear to be correct. My provider is Winsim (Drillisch) and I live in Berlin, Germany.
I never noticed such a problem like this before. I was definitely in places where I would have a weak signal and internet would not or would barely work, but this is something new.
I was wondering if it had something to do with the age of my FP3 and with developments of the 5G network etc in Germany, maybe older frequencies were being phased out. Or I am wondering if there is something wrong with my phone - Hardware or Software. I am running /e/OS v3.6.
I don’t know enough about phones to know if my thought process is valid, but I am wondering if something is damaged in my phone (hardware or software) that may be relevant to certain frequencies that my phone relies on for internet for certain mobile phone towers but not others.
Today I put my sim card in a Samsung Galaxy J5 from about 2016 and where the internet in my FP3 was non-existent, in the J5 it worked perfectly. This suggests it is a phone problem rather than provider problem, but I do wonder if another FP3 with my sim card would behave the same.
Turning on or off the phone, data connection, flight mode or anything doesn’t help. I turned off VoLTE, no improvement.
Hi, I don’t have an FP3 and I’m not in Germany, but I’ve had similar problems with my old, non-5G phone.
There were two locations where I were regularly and both of these locations suffered from network issues. I had signal, it showed 5/5 bars, but the internet speeds were unusable. It always happened at the same two locations. My theory is that these areas didn’t have enough 4G antennas to serve everyone in the area and that the issues were an effect of the network being overcrowded. They went away after I switched to the FP6 and have 5G in those areas.
Does it seem like this could be the case for you? Is there a pattern for where you experience the issues?
@kwasow thanks for your thoughts!
I think our problems are different, because you said “the internet speeds were unusable”. In my case, there is simply no internet. Or at least, that is how my phone is responding. It is not like there is a weak mobile data connection to be seen at all.
The thing I find strange is that a phone three years older than mine does not have the same problem. If it’s a problem of not having enough 4G antennas, this should affect all phones that are not 5G.
It happens all the time exactly where I live, although that wasn’t the first place I noticed it. It’s not much of an inconvenience when I am at home, I have wlan. But as soon as I go outside far enough away from the wlan I have no mobile internet.
Strangely, at the place where I noticed it first happen, a few weeks later the problem was not there at all. Saturday morning, roughly the same time, no problems with internet when it was non-existent a few weeks before. The few weeks before, nobody else to my knowledge had any problems either. I will check again at another location where it happened to me a few days ago.
Looking at map of the mobile phone towers in my area, it does look like it could be happening when I am further away from mobile phone towers, roughly 500m.
Maybe thinking absurdly, maybe if there aren’t enough 4G antennas, maybe the mobile data connection is simply disabled for some phones but not others. Meanwhile the connection to make calls and send SMS is not affected.
I’d prefer not to get a new phone just yet, because everything else about my FP3 still works great.
This doesn’t help much, but just for reference if someone else is wondering this - the FP3 covers all the same LTE bands that the J5 has and even more, so this is not the issue here either: Compare Fairphone 3 vs. Samsung Galaxy J5 - GSMArena.com
and is if by magic, my mobile internet is working again in the direct vicinity of where I live, and even functioning very well in my apartment. This hasn’t happened for weeks, and the only thing I did was put the sim in the J5 and back in the FP3. Where it worked in the J5, but not in the FP3 immediately before or after.
So I will monitor the situation and try to post any relevant updates here.
@yvmuell if the problem reoccurs I will test the other sim slot. I could remove the second sim from Australia that I don’t need in there as well.
@AnotherElk “anything” did not include that. If the problem reoccurs I will try that too.
Just to gather a little more information in case anyone else has this problem:
I have a very similar issue with a FP3 that I’ve been setting up over the last few days. I installed /e/os 3.6 and used a new pre paid sim card. Since I have been using another FP3 with /e/os (but with a different network provider) already for a few months I wasn’t expecting any problems but unfortunately mobile data does not work altogether on the new FP3. It shows a signal which drops every now and then but all the time staying at EDGE and not LTE. In addition it does not show it as connected when switching off the wifi and I really don’t have connection.
I have tried multiple combinations:
New Sim & New FP3: not working
Old Sim (different provider) & New FP3: working
New Sim & Old FP3: not working
New Sim & Third Device (FP4 with Stock Android): working
So I suspect a combination of the Sim Card and FP3 and/or e/os/ in general (not related to any specific device) to be the problem since the new Sim is working in the FP4, not working in both FP3s with e/os/ and both FP3s working with other Sim cards from different providers.
Unfortunately I didn’t test the sim card with Stock Android on the new FP3 to check if it is a general FP3 or only a e/os/ issue but if the problem persists then I might try switching back to Stock Android.
For the record I tried resetting the network connection, re-inserting the sim, resetting APN settings and using the second slot (always in combination with turning it off and on again)
EDIT: It appears that it might be related to /e/os 3.6 (see the last post on this forum thread with a similar issue, although using dual sims)
So after two weeks, I haven’t had my problem reappear. I am able to have a data connection everywhere I would expect to.
It seems like taking the sim out and putting it in again solved the problem. I’m in Germany and still have an Australian sim in slot two and everything works fine.
In the meantime I did reset the connection and delete all the APNs except for one, for the internet. But my problem seemed gone before I did that. I couldn’t 100% rule that out as helping, but I lean towards that not being the solution.
I have actually noticed literally a couple of times in the last two weeks where I can supposedly only make emergency calls, although I know that where I am I should have a good connection. For these couple of times I have turned flight mode on and off again and everything is again as it should be. This didn’t help at all for my problem previously.
So there looks to be a minor malfunction every now and then, but I’m happy with how things are working again.