3G problems: is this the phone or the network?

[sam59]

I have a google nexus 4 still under the 1 year warranty. It's never been great at connecting to 3G (I am in London, UK, where 3G is supposedly excellent). I switched network from Vodafone to Tesco - who use O2 - because of this issue and the constantly dropping calls/bad call reception. No better with Tesco though, just cheaper!

It most often will not connect to the internet at all when out of wireless range; sometimes it does and it alternates between fast and pretty slow. Unlike I did with an iPhone, if I'm ever to get 3G at all, I have to go to settings and switch wifi off. But even then it won't give me anything but 'page not found/could not connect to DNS server' etc.
This happens in my communal garden at home or out and about. It's immensely frustrating.

I have reported it to my network, Tesco, who thought it wasn't the phone and would look into it, but nothing's changed. I"m starting to think it has to be the phone itself.
I have it in a bumper case (thin one) but don't see how this could affect signal.

Any suggestions please? thanks.

 

[Citizen Coyote]

If you're experiencing this issue in multiple locations with multiple carriers, then it's almost certainly your phone. You can try setting the APN settings to default if you've changed them at all. You can also try a factory reset or, if you're comfortable with it, reflash the OS (you can find the files on the main Android dev website, I believe, but a simple web search will undoubtedly turn them up as well and they may be linked in the rooting subforum). Barring all that, I'd send it back.

 

[sam59]

Thank you for your suggestions. I've not changed any settings as have no idea how to. Last call is to try my network's handset support, and get a PAYG SIM from the one carrier I've not tried round here. If it still won't work, not much point in having a smartphone. I wonder if Google would take it back? I had to swap out the first one they sent me soon after purchase, as it overheated all the time, but we are now a few months off 1 year.
I can't sell a faulty phone either, so it's looking like a bad choice of phone right now, over the Samsung or even iPhone.

 

[Rizy7]

Seems like you have pretty bad wifi or you've set it to connect it to open networks. You need to switch WiFi off otherwise the phone will connect to any WiFi networks available. Even though you may not have access to the internet on that particular wifi network, the phone will still try and connect to the internet through there.