Siri on a data connection

By Troy B, 10 January, 2016

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

I just bought a pay as you go plan from T-Mobile this past Friday, and on the way home I tried to have siri turn voiceover on because I had turned it off in the store so the phone would be easier for the store employees to use, then this afternoon I took the phone on a short outing and tried to get siri to open a few aps and on both occasions siri told me that she was having trouble with the connection and to try again later.

Data is working because under cellular the number of kilobytes keeps going up under the data used heading so what could be my problem? Btw it's an IPhone 5s, and I think I turned off a few things having to do with the data connection while I knew that I'd just be using it on wifi so even if something could be on by default there's a chance that I may've turned it off. I listened to several of the beginner IPhone podcasts on the site to decide what to turn off.

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Comments

By david s on Thursday, January 7, 2016 - 21:19

Hello,

This happened to my ipad when I was using T Mobile. The signal bars were all there but it turned out the signal for voice was great but not for data.

IF Siri said to try again later, you could be experiencing the same issue I did. Launch Safari or other web based apps and see if they work. Do they work normally, really slow or not at all?

BTW, if you’re using IOS 9.2 and have a set data plan, you might want to disable wifi assist under the cellular settings. Cellular data will be used if the wifi connection you are using isn’t good.

HTH and good luck.

By Troy B on Thursday, January 7, 2016 - 21:19

I had 4 of 5 bars the one time I checked my status bar, but of course I was just using data and not trying to make a call.

I'm very new to the IPhone only having it since late November, so is there an easy way to turn off my wifi connection to my phone so that it would switch to data and I could work on the problem here at home? I still need to call T-Mobile and verify this but they told me in the store that it'll only cost me $3 a day to use data no matter how much or how little I use, and since I used it a little bit yesterday it cost me $3 but now if I didn't use my phone off of my wifi connection again until say next weekend then I'd still have the same amount left on my pay as you go plan until I use the data connection again as I do right now.

By david s on Thursday, January 7, 2016 - 21:19

Hello,

To quickly turn off wifi, use control center. Tap once on a status bar item such as the signal strength, then just above the home button, do a three finger swipe up.

Since you’re on a prepaid plan, do you plan to use data a lot? There is a 30 dollars a month plan. Check out the link below.

http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/other-prepaid-plans?clickid=wbowlGScMVHQWn5XE62duUKwUkSxq9yZQXh11M0&iradid=189313&cmpid=WTR_AF_189313&irpid=38664&irgwc=1

HTH and good luck.

By Troy B on Thursday, January 7, 2016 - 21:19

Thanks for telling me how to turn wifi off.

As far as the prepaid plans and how much I'll be using data, right now 90% of the time or more I'll be using the phone at home on my wifi connection, I mainly bought the phone for what I can do with the aps and not so much for texting or making phone calls. At least for now about the only time I'll be using the phone away from home is if I want to listen to a sporting event in the car and I can't get it on the regular radio, so if I understand the plan I got correctly it's perfect for me because I put $25 on the phone Friday, and the only time that amount will go down is when I'm using my data connection, and even then I'll only be using $3 a day no matter how much data I use each day, so with the amount of money I have on the phone now I should be able to use it for like 6 or 7 days, not necessarily consecutively, so unless I use data more than I think I'm going to this $25 could very well last me several months.