2G not switching to 3G. Why does this happen?

[#1]

Hello all. 

This is driving me a little nuts. I've used my Life Mobile sim in a Mate 20 Pro & a P Smart 2019 and it seems it affects both.

In area's where both 2 & 3G signals are strong I have to manually switch to find the 3G service, it won't switch automatically then where 3G singal is weak the handset remains on 3G and won't switch to the stronger 2G signal 🤔

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks.

[#2]

Apologies if this is asking the obvious, but are the settings in your phones correct? eg. preferred network type, 2g/3g/4g selected? And automatically select network.

I'm no expert but, if the 3g signal, although weak, is enough to use, I'd expect the phone to remain on 3g?

I've just checked my phone which is set to "Prefer 3g" where it shows a 4 of 5 signal. Selecting "Prefer LTE" the signal indicator drops to 2 bars. "2g only", 5 of 5 bars.

[#3]

Might be an issue with the sim card, i would ring customer service and have them replace it, with new PN sim card , that Life Mobile sim card must be at the very least 4.5 years old

Also if you are on a Life Mobile tariff, you will be able to get a much better tariff and save some money

[#4]

If you are still on a Life tariff Life closed on 29th Nov 2016 as ITWorks said ask for a new sim card 

Life only do 3G not 4G so it's time to go onto Plusnet 4G which will be far better

I would call 500 from your mobile the 1 then 3 the "you are thinking of leaving button "

They answer very quickly and have some very good deals more than are advertised I am sure they will look after you and you will need a new sim to go onto Plusnet

Good luck and please let us know how you get on 

[#5]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Just to cover some point mentioned. The sim has been replaced with another Life Mobile sim at the back end of last year. Also, I'm reluctant to move from Life to a Plusnet ultimately because it only costs me 1.13 a month, I got lucky on a pricing error a few years back.

What I have found out is both Voda and o2 have an option that resides on the sim itself, not phone depended that allows the manual switching between 2G/3G/4G whereas Plusnet doesn't have that option, they'll only allow auto 2G/3G/4G if that makes sense. Maybe it's worth calling to see if they could sim update with this option, maybe?

[#6]

Hiya @dofbeer321, thanks for getting in touch. I'm sorry for the problems that you have with your network settings, I can imagine it's quite annoying having to manually switch between networks!

I'm really sorry, there isn't anything we can amend our side on your account that would impact this. 

I have a p30 pro and mine is the same with the network selection settings, I can't change it from auto. Luckily, I don't ever need to amend mine I can usually get good 4G in most places. I do have an issue with signal inside my friends house and it automatically drops itself there, though I think that's cause it can't get 3/4G inside her house.

From memory, I don't remember having the option when I was with my old provider either who I got my handset from. 

What kind of issues do you see when you have to manually switch to find the 2/3G service?