Samsung S3 Mini Dropping call (Out of service area)

[Oooompie]

Hi guys, My wife is having a problem with her Samsung S3 Mini all of a sudden. She got the phone in January 2014 and it was working great until two weeks ago. All of a sudden when she receives a call the phone will drop the call after anything from 5 seconds to 30 seconds and tells you "out of service area".
This also happens when making a call. Sometimes after three or so tries it works fine.
Took it back to MTN at Canal walk and referred me to Samsung. Took it to Samsung and they mentioned MTN upgrading their towers. I am in Parklands, Cape Town. The same area all the time. Have not tried it in another area.
They flashed the phone and reloaded the software two days ago. Today it happened again when receiving a call. Only after the third attempt it did not drop the call.
Any advice please. Tower problems? This is an intermittent problem. Can it be hardware related (antenna)? Whatsapp and messaging works fine.
Thank you.
Mods please move this post to the correct forum if it not in the correct one.

 

[upup]

Try insert another simcard, ie vodacom and test. You can also try a telkom mobile sim, but they also use mtn sometimes.
Long time ago, my wife had to set her network 2 2G only to fix a blackberry problem.

 

[Oooompie]

Try insert another simcard, ie vodacom and test. You can also try a telkom mobile sim, but they also use mtn sometimes.
Long time ago, my wife had to set her network 2 2G only to fix a blackberry problem.

Thank you Robertvv. Mtn did check this simm. I will however try and get hold of a Vodacom simm as you suggested.
That would tell me whether it is the phone or reception (MTN)

 

[deonjansen]

Hi,
Was this Samsung mini "out of service area" actually resolved ? I am currently sitting with the exact same problem, my sim work fine in another phone and also my wife's sim gives the same error in the s3 mini. MTN and Samsung is just sending me from pillar to post blaming the network, I get emails,whatsapps etc. just fine, but calls are dropped after 5 to 10 seconds , I have not however tried VODACOM yet.