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I'm not sure why this happens, but I've lost connectivity (phone service, 3G) with my service provider a number of times now. Not just for a short while, I may be off the air for hours. This is worrying, as I'm not aware that this is happening. I have to reset the mobile.
I have a Samsung Galaxy SII.
I encountered the same issues sometimes and I couldn't detect it without trying to make a phone call. I then went into the parameters panel, into the Mobile network part. There, I force the phone to select my operator (and remove the auto-detection option).
Since this modification, when I'm disconnected from GSM network I have a little warning sign (grey triangle with a white exclamation point inside) in the notification toolbar.
To force reconnection, I go in the same menu and force the phone to search available networks, I select mine and it is (almost every time) reconnected.
Is there a way to get a notification that I'm off the air?
I don't think this is possible, but there might be an app out there for it. I'm not sure. I'm fairly certain that it's not a native function in Android though.
Is there a way to reconnect without rebooting the phone?
Airplane mode on/off seems to be the easiest route. If that doesn't work, you can try going into "More..." on the settings menu and look for available networks manually. Maybe you'll find that you find other networks, just not your carrier, and in that case it's actually a coverage problem, or a problem with their equipment since you can actually see networks, just not the one you want to connect to.
Is this something that happens to others, or am I just lucky?
Connection drops to the network is very common, but it's usually different kinds of drops for different reasons. If you have rooted your phone and you're running a custom ROM, you might need to check out GetRIL. If you're running stock, try a factory reset/reinstall of your device first, or see if there's any updates available from Samsung.
I get drops at times on my Galaxy Nexus as well, but I only lose data connection, I still see my carriers name and I can recieve SMS/phone calls. This sounds completely different from your issue if you are actually losing contact with the GSM network completely.
I'd recommend that you check out if you can find other carriers networks or not (mentioned above), if you can find others you need to notify your carrier first of all. If you can't, it's probably phone-specific but even there your carrier/Samsung should be able to help you if you still have warranty and the device is not rooted.
I have same problem with my Samsung Galaxy Y Pro Duos. The second SIM often loses the connection to the GSM network, but the phone fails to notify me about that. It reports network signal strength as usual, but the number is inaccessible. It happens several times a month, the last time I did not notice it for several days - very bad.
It seems this problem is common on Samsung phones. The Galaxy Ace I bought for my mother did it a few times too, but it happens less often on this phone.
I upgraded the software on both phones with no luck. I tried to hard-select the network, so hopefully I will at least get the notification.
On one SIM phones you could try this app; it notifies you when GSM connection is lost. I can't tell if it works though, because it only works with the first SIM and I get trouble with the second one. If it relies on info from Android, then it probably won't work, because Android thinks it is connected all the time (the signal bar is on even if the SIM inaccessible).
I am actually thinking about switching the phone and avoiding Samsung and/or Android in the future, because this is obviously not an isolated problem and neither Samsung or Google seems to care to fix it.
