Phone or SIM failure

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My wife and I have identical iPhone4 phones with the same carrier. When together in a 3G reception area both our phones register a 3G signal but whereas my wife can access the internet as normal my phone acts like a paperweight. Email gives an 'Email server cannot be found' error, most other apps just show a spinning circle and then give up although Twitter sometimes manages to get an update after a while.

Is this behaviour likely to be a hardware phone problem or a SIM card error?
 

chscag

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It could be either one, but since it's easier to swap out a SIM card that's what I would try first. Your carrier can copy any data from your current SIM card to a new one. I have had a SIM card go bad on me before. The symptoms vary from the phone losing the carrier signal while showing 4 bars, to intermittent operation of the phone's functions.
 
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Sawday
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Thanks chscag. Even though both are still under contract my supplier wants to charge me £10 for a new SIM 'to see if that fixes it'. Not too impressed with that sort of 'service' but I'll see if I can get a free replacement from them 'to see it that fixes it' and buy if it does or return it (and the phone for repair) if it doesn't.
 
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Quickest way to test phone will be to swop SIM cards with your wife and see what happens.
 
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Sawday
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Quickest way to test phone will be to swop SIM cards with your wife and see what happens.

I thought of that and tried it but seemingly not so straight forward. Having swopped, we could not access any email (Hotmail, AOL, Zen) either using Mail or Safari on either phone. Either got the message that mail server was not responding or a message to say check settings. On my phone (with my wife's SIM card) Facebook would update (but not display any posted images) but Twitter app resolutely would not update. On my wife's phone neither would update. Similarly neither would display BBC news app nor find Amazon on Safari. My wife's phone responded as expected once we had returned her SIM card to it.
 

chscag

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As you found out, you can not swap sim cards between phones as each sim is programmed for that particular instrument. Again if possible, ask your carrier to try a new sim card in your phone. I don't understand why they wouldn't do that for free. A £10 fee for a replacement sim isn't very good service.
 
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It was the carrier that suggested we swop SIM cards first!!!
 
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Update. Thought I'd have nothing to lose by updating to iOS 7. This has fixed the problem! 3G working perfectly.
 

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