One problem that many iPhone users have noticed after the recent 1.1.3 firmware / software upgrade is poor signal, low and/or continuously fluctuating signal strength no matter where you might be positioning your iPhone – resulting in poor reception and calls being unexpectedly dropped. It seems that this does not apply to a large majority of 1.1.3 firmware / software iPhone users, but certainly a significant number enough to raise awareness of its problem, the problem itself is also not limited to 1.1.3 firmware users on non-jailbroken iPhones but also those with iPhones that have been jailbroken via whatever method available.

Hopefully the following tips may be worth trying in order to help restore your iPhone’s proper signal, at least near where it should be. We certainly don’t understand why it is behaving the way it is, but the signs of the problem are mainly:

• Signal dropping suddenly to zero or very low without any warning
• Or the display of the message ‘Call failed’
• And most annoying and frustrating of all: the signal coming back straight after a phone call which was experiencing poor signal reception (we experienced this quite a few times!)

So after trying out some of the methods suggested by both iPhoneHacks and iPhoneAtlas we felt the below methods are worth trying. Begin with the first from the top which is simpler and work your way down:

1. Place it into the dock for a good full meal charge and leave it alone until it is fully charged, ideal if you drain all the battery away first before charging (this method does sound ridiculous, but it’s worth trying before you go on to methods that mess with your iPhone’s configuration)
2. Some have suggested that just connecting the USB cable to your iPhone without plugging the other end to the computer helps improve the signal, however, this didn’t work for us when we tried
3. Reset your phone’s network settings, go into Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings. This will restart your iPhone and any stored Wi-Fi connection passwords, etc… So be prepared!
4. Resetting your iPhone, restarting from scratch
5. Restoring your iPhone and iPhone’s settings using the files which were last backed up files
6. Some sites have suggested taking out your SIM card and putting it back in again, we think however if you haven’t dropped your phone significantly enough recently then it is rather pointless to do that, but nonetheless it is still worth trying!

Lastly if all else fails, bring it back to your local CarphonesWarehouse or Apple store (we’ve not tried this yet to be honest!).