Mobile signal issue

[OneLungAmy]

Hi everyone,

99.9% of the time I have an excellent mobile signal at home (4 strong bars). Yesterday afternoon the signal suddenly dropped to 1-2 bars and it hasn’t recovered at all since then. 

I’ve had the exact same issue a couple of times in the last 18 months, but they’ve always been one-offs and lasted between a few hours and 24 hours. No problems were ever identified, but the signal eventually recovered without any further issues.

Once again I’ve tried all the usual quick fixes; restarting the device, resetting my network settings and putting the device on airplane mode (I get 4 strong bars for 3 seconds before it drops back down to 2 bars).

I reported the problem yesterday and received a text message this morning to say “the problem has been fixed, please restart your phone” but the signal is still poor so that doesn’t make any sense.

I have an iPhone SE (2020) and I’m on 4G. Weirdly enough, my data, texts and calls don’t seem to be adversely affected / slow.

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this issue? Any other suggestions I could try??

Thanks in advance.

[bristolian]

Are you having any problems using your phone? The signal indicators are only approximate, but there should be no problem using calls, data or texts with 1-2 bars. It's more than what I have now!

If you are having service problems, then after selecting "check status" on the status checker, use "report a problem" link to send details of the issues you're having.

[Chris_B]

@OneLungAmy  if there has been a cellular mast issue in your area it could take a little while for that mass to start pumping out at full power.  If there is still a mast issue it might not be the closest mast to you but because of that there could be a increase of users using the mast closet to you so putting that mast under more strain which will have a big impact on your signal strength as there are more devices connected to it.    But as @bristolian says one or two bars doesn’t mean a poor device experience it’s still usable. 

[bristolian · Accepted solution]

There is nothing inherently wrong with a 1-2 bar connection, I rarely get more than that in my home and have no service issues because of it. This is borne out by "my data, texts and calls don’t seem to be adversely affected / slow"

This does sound like the serving site is still off-air, the "report a problem" section of the status checker is always the first place to report concerns with network service.

[Northerner]

Hi @OneLungAmy 

If it doesn't impact your service then don't worry about it.

Thanks 

[OneLungAmy]

Thanks to everyone who replied. These explanations are really helpful and now I understand a lot better.

I was starting to think that my antenna was faulty, but the signal bars have gone back up to 4 now and it’s been stable over the last hour, so I think it was the same temporary issue with the network as previously.

Have a good weekend, guys, and thanks again for your help.