Is anyone having an issue with a weaker LTE signal with their new iPhone models?

TylerLV76

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My boss and I have same Max phone but different carriers.

His losing the network or not getting it back right away stopped moving back to Verizon. The company phones are Verizon or US Cellular.

My phone’s displaying the signal differently than the 7 Plus got better with the first 12.x software update. Actual call reliability has always been good. It seems like the “Gigabit LTE” has my new phone working better in some areas than past phones or other phones.

There might be issues but I don’t see much if anything said in some tech news I follow as an enterprise IT network manager. We use some Cisco enterprise platform products and at times that’s had bulletins or software updates about phone radios - something important for MDM and the WiFi. IOS 12 started problems with an order picking system we use. Careful analysis now shows it’s the app and not any device losing the connections. If something’s going on it sure is hard to see any difference in the way radios are associating and disassociating.

One for sure issue I’ve seen in troubleshooting cellular problems is sticky WiFi. Our delivery vehicles travel all over in a metro area. When I’m a passenger I can see my own phone see many hotspots. Users who are in a retailer’s hot spot plan or have home ISPs with that can have issues. It looks like the MNVO people’s phones are always looking for Google and Charter Spectrum WiFi sources.

The issues been discussed heavily on almost every tech site online since launch. Its also all over Apples forums. Verizon is one of the most referenced carriers to see the issue. At one point it was thought it was only a Verizon issue till all carriers started coming up in conversation.
 

Just_Me_D

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From the one I returned it would show signal but when trying to connect to anything online it said no internet connection.

The problem is when you get to a low signal area it tanks and has a hard time reconnecting.

The issue between carriers being discussed above is not the issue people are having with the phone. It happens regardless of carrier and only on the XS series. I switched the XS Max out for an XR which uses one less antenna and the same modem as the X and the problem does not exist.
Oh okay. Thank you for the clarification...:cool:
 

salscott

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Apple has corroded it's trust in this area. We should have the ability to replace the completely worthless bars with actual dbm reading. When you are putting together a new phone launch, why would you not put more thought and initiative into the signal?
 

Wotchered

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Apple has corroded it's trust in this area. We should have the ability to replace the completely worthless bars with actual dbm reading. When you are putting together a new phone launch, why would you not put more thought and initiative into the signal?

Because they don’t want to point out weaknesses in their products ?
 

joemd60

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What puzzles me, the call quality issues I am having come from the same three people. One has a landline, the other a Jitterbug flip phone.
And lastly, a tired Android device that is having charging issues.
They all say I am garbled and breaking up, yet they sound crystal clear on my end. I was getting the same complaints when I had the 7 plus.
My 8 Plus is on WIFI calling quite often as opposed to LTE.
And I have read where they say shut off LTE for voice calls, that does not nothing.
I do know my signal strength can be all over the place when I am home. Sometimes very strong, other times not so much.
 

Ledsteplin

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What puzzles me, the call quality issues I am having come from the same three people. One has a landline, the other a Jitterbug flip phone.
And lastly, a tired Android device that is having charging issues.
They all say I am garbled and breaking up, yet they sound crystal clear on my end. I was getting the same complaints when I had the 7 plus.
My 8 Plus is on WIFI calling quite often as opposed to LTE.
And I have read where they say shut off LTE for voice calls, that does not nothing.
I do know my signal strength can be all over the place when I am home. Sometimes very strong, other times not so much.

When I was living in my house, my Verizon signal on my old 6s Plus was bad. Especially inside. But, it too, was often all over the place. It switched to wifi calling a lot. My old iPhone 5 did better. But now I'm 10 stories up in a downtown apartment, and have 4 bars all the time. A lot of things can affect signal strength. Trees, mountains and hilly terrain, tall buildings, and even metal. I suspect the aluminum windows at my house had some effect. I now have a new 6s Plus and haven't noticed any issues in my apartment. But in my wife's apartment on the ground floor, I do notice the signal isn't as good.
 

joemd60

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When I was living in my house, my Verizon signal on my old 6s Plus was bad. Especially inside. But, it too, was often all over the place. It switched to wifi calling a lot. My old iPhone 5 did better. But now I'm 10 stories up in a downtown apartment, and have 4 bars all the time. A lot of things can affect signal strength. Trees, mountains and hilly terrain, tall buildings, and even metal. I suspect the aluminum windows at my house had some effect. I now have a new 6s Plus and haven't noticed any issues in my apartment. But in my wife's apartment on the ground floor, I do notice the signal isn't as good.

I am in somewhat of a valley here, so I know that doesn’t help. But I don’t think it should affect the call quality.
I will be siding my house soon, and getting rid of the aluminum, plus new windows.
I’ll be curious to see if there are any changes. Again, I don’t remember Verizon being this bad here in the past. Or I would have left AT&T for another carrier.
It’s also why I don’t agree with the coverage maps online.
Verizon told me once, their LTE service isn’t so good here. Yet the map shows otherwise.
 

imwjl

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FWIW, I'm now 4 days outside the US traveling with people who have new Samsung Galaxy, iPhone 6 - 8, and my XS Max. It's a a place that used to be mostly GSM, and "3G" still shows. One in the party has to chose CDMA roaming and then have it off. So far the XS Max with latest software works as well outside the US as it did in upper Midwest states and TX.

I believe some might have problems but my phone from the first wave of deliveries has pretty much worked perfectly since the first software revision that fixed charging issues. These have been out long enough now that I think a wide spread problem would be news outside of a few device and tech forums and sites.

It's an expensive phone but I would not hesitate to recommend it. All of the XS series and XR owners in our enterprise are happy. If it helps, most are Verizon and US Cellular customers.
 

scruffypig

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I switched the XS Max out for an XR which uses one less antenna and the same modem as the X and the problem does not exist.

The iPhone X, according to iFixit uses either a Qualcomm or Intel modem: Qualcomm MDM9655 Snapdragon X16 LTE modem and PMD9655 PMIC. But Apple is dual-sourcing the modem, and TechInsights found an Intel XMM7480 (PMB9948) in their A1901 model. Even though the modem is capable of it, Apple isn’t supporting Gigabit speeds with the Qualcomm part.

According to iFixit, the XR uses: Intel 9955 (likely the XMM7560 LTE Advanced Pro 4G LTE baseband processor), 5762 RF transceiver, and 5829

The iPhone XR supports more LTE bands than the X.
 

Cladster

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People have been having signal problems with XS/Max in Australia too with our best network, i have had a Max since release and definitely noticed a weaker signal strength than the 8 i had, which is a blue tick phone here meaning better signal in rural areas, only the 4s,6s and 8 iPhones have had it previously.
So much so the main reason i just sold my Max 64GB and got a as new 8 256gb and pocketed $800, my phone is a business phone and calls are more important than anything and i travel rural a lot.
I was getting drop outs streaming radio on the max in areas the 8 doesn't too.
 

Wotchered

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Having never had a 4g phone before, I can’t say its weaker.But I can say that my phone connectivity is no better/ faster on my XS than on my 4s !
 

Rob Phillips

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Having never had a 4g phone before, I can’t say its weaker.But I can say that my phone connectivity is no better/ faster on my XS than on my 4s !

Oh come on, there’s no way a 4s is as fast as an XS, especially when you have a decent LTE signal.
 

Wotchered

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Oh come on, there’s no way a 4s is as fast as an XS, especially when you have a decent LTE signal.

Sorry pal, but if I go out in the streets where I live in South West London and try to call someone there is no noticeable difference in my connection time. There may be - but if there is, it’s as close as makes no matter.
 

Rob Phillips

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Sorry pal, but if I go out in the streets where I live in South West London and try to call someone there is no noticeable difference in my connection time. There may be - but if there is, it’s as close as makes no matter.

That’s a phone call. You probably won’t notice much of a difference there except maybe call clarity using Voice over LTE if it’s available. How about data speed?
 

Wotchered

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Disappointingly clarity is not much better, using Bus Times or my Kindle app seems maybe a little quicker, and I really have had no need to use Safari away from wifi since I bought my XS. No Wow factor whatsoever.
 

Tpence2177

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I have noticed that some places my phone would drop for a second then pick back up one phone calls has gotten better since newer betas. My old 6 plus would just cut out for a second then start back. When I first got my Xr would drop for several seconds then with 12.1.1 would drop for just a second and now is a lot better one 12.1.3 betas. I think it’s more of a Verizon tower problem now.
 

imwjl

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I came from Sprint to AT&T and noticed nothing but improvements. *

A business rep and COSTCO kiosk manager did a hard sell on an attractive Sprint switch promotion but I don’t know how the T Mobile and Sprint combined network will be. Over and over and up to the past week Verizon has the network performance I need as an enterprise IT admin.

More and more I think some might have issues but the new phones are at every moment great or fine. Mine came first day but now I have several users and associates who got XS and Max phones. I’ve travelled in and outside the US without problems. Upper Midwest, TX, and Southeast all trained up to Verizon fine. The overseas trip revisited an area where coverage used to be poor or require choosing CDMA roaming. The phone handled old and new infrastructure fine.

At times I wonder if there’s a display vs real modem issue. On Friday I was at a conf table in a known bad spot for any coverage but US Cellular who’s got a tower on that building. One associate said he had 1x display but nothing worked. I didn’t see anything displayed on screen but got a text message when he said what he did.

Something else that makes me a skeptic as far as how much of a problem is some of these new phones are in the hands of our execs and delivery people where their personal nature and nature of the work puts their problems in my lap right away. It’s not happening except for the first IOS 12 software update.
 

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