iPhone 12 losing service

iPadSam wrote:

Got the Verizon iPhone 12 mini delivered on launch day and have been plagued with this problem. It’s so frustrating. It seems like it can’t switch from tower to tower? More frequently happens when driving. Tried turning off 5g went to LTE only (no luck). Seems like the 5g signal is constantly weak.

confirming what others say - the only way to fix the phone is to go to airplane mode for a few seconds then back on

The Airplane Mode toggle forces the phone to renegotiate its connection to the network, and this should automatically pick up the best signal. This is a huge clue that the problem is in the radio links, although it only narrows the possible causes a little. It could be failed handoffs between towers, inappropriate channel selection to something the phone does not support, poor network coverage, reflected signals causing multipath interference... and these are just a few of the network-side possible causes. On the phone side it could be poor sensitivity in the receiver path - but this seems less likely if you ever see full strength signals, and there are many thousand (millions yet?) users not reporting the problem so it is unlikely to be a design fault.

For my guess this will turn out to be mainly a network issue. There seems to be a trend for Verizon users to see more problems than other networks which might suggest Vz has some issues still to fix on their 5G rollout. 5G itself is also new in the cellular world, working on new bands at much higher frequencies which always adds to the pain because they are more sensitive to problems.

There are literally half a dozen unique site articles discussing the issue. You think people are seriously randomly coming here, logging in from their personal iCloud address, and making stories up? Huh

“..:You think people are seriously randomly coming here, logging in from their personal iCloud address, and making stories up? Huh...”

If you saw the amount of Spam I report every day then yes I can believe that rival companies (as well as advertisers and poseurs) can create an appleID in order to add to the me-too’s

I talked with two Verizon staff who confirmed that they are receiving a great many connection issue reports and it was their estimate that this was a problem for "perhaps thousands" of iPhone 12 owners. Their words, not mine. They also noted that not all owners had problems. Perhaps it was their frustration talking. At the time both staff members thought it was an Apple issue, and Apple was saying it was a provider issue.

I'm hoping that at some point Apple will publicly acknowledge the problems we've been experiencing.

You have to think from a business perspective. Is it in a carrier or companies best interest to announce at holiday season yeah guys, our most anticipated phone in 5 years has major issues? Obviously not. No company or employee is ever going to do that. We paid hard earned money for these phones, and regardless of 14 or 30 day periods, they need to stand by them and take pride in the quality. If it doesn’t work, that’s not the consumers fault. We have a one year warranty. Help us.

Sillydg wrote:

I talked with two Verizon staff who confirmed that they are receiving a great many connection issue reports and it was their estimate that this was a problem for "perhaps thousands" of iPhone 12 owners.

"Perhaps thousands" out of millions of phones sold shows that it is likely a carrier issue and I suspect probably has to do with one particular vendor of cell tower switchgear.

That doesn't help those experiencing the issue, but it does show it's not a universal hardware issue.

I have solved the problem with my phone and will be unsubscribing from this group. Thanks to all the me too comments, and knowing mine was not an isolated case, I returned my iPhone 12 and purchased an iPhone 11. No cellular issues or dropped calls. Problem

solved. If you purchase as 12 KNOW the return policy from your store and use it if needed.

So I’m home on the phone and bam my phone says no service, So I think to myself let’s restart the phone which I did ..... didn’t work. So then I say let update my phone and try again .... that also didn’t work. So now I’m here and have no clue what to do

Hi. I'm from Italy and I’ve been a loyal Apple customer since from iPhone 4. 

I tell you my story. 

One month ago I was very happy to have bought from Amazon my new iPhone 12 mini, coming from an iPhone 8. Immediately, the phone started to loose connection, even if I'm stacked home and I'm smart working all the day. The problem is very bad because nothing advise of the disconnection and people trying to contact me cannot reach me. The SIM is the same I was using with iPhone 8 without any problems. 

I asked Amazon for a replacement and few days after I had a new iPhone 12 mini. Unfortunately, few hours after the phone loosed again the connection. Very disappointed, I've asked Amazon to return the phone and to have the money back. Now I'm back to may iPhone 8, that never loosed the connection for years (with the same SIM). 

I hope Apple will aknowledge that there is a generalized problem and that it will be solved.

At that point only, I could go back to buy form Apple.

Eva

Apparently, this is either a difficult-to-solve problem, or experienced by too few users to get Apple’s attention for a fix. I continue to recommend an immediate return of the device, before you cannot do so, and wait to see what happens. Apple will always sell you another one.

I am in Italy and have had the same problem with iphone 12 pro. I tried everything but nothing the phone was losing the telephone network. I returned the phone and went back to Iphone xr which always worked perfectly.

Just bought a new Iphone 12 PRO Plus. Keep having very little to no signal significantly impacting my usefulness. Is this a Software or Hardware issue? Old iPhione Xs had NO problems! This is not a good way to start.

I doubt my observations will add much, but here goes. I bought a 12 Pro. Immediately brought it home and noticed that my LTE signal was weaker, in that people couldn't hear me when the phone was exactly where it's been for years with my X. We have almost no 5G in my area, but I noticed when I drove to areas that were supposed to be 5G, I never saw the icon. After troubleshooting with Verizon, they finally admitted that the old plan I was on, that clearly shows it should work with 5G, actually didn't. At that point I upgraded my plan (almost no price difference). Since then I have driving through 5G areas and it shows up and works very well. I have not had any "no signal" messages or loss of service, but the signal is still weaker in my house than before, suggesting at least that the antenna isn't as good in this phone. But here's the deal: if this is due to the carrier and not the phone, why not just find others in your area that also have the phone and see if they have the same problems in the same area? If they do, but it works in other areas, then clearly it's the carrier and the specific towers. Certainly some of you must have two new phones in your house (if you have I didn't see it in the thread). To me it makes sense that the phones are not the problem, since so many aren't having the problem so it's not likely to be a hardware problem unless it's only present in a few phones; that's certainly possible, but I'm betting it's the towers and the channel switching that's the problem.

This is a hardware problem. After two weeks of yelling and cursing both T-Mobile and Apple , they finally relent to give me another phone with a disclaimer from the Apple tech that he could not guarantee that it will work. So it was a let down but what choice do I have ? So I took the new phone and walah! It worked! The signal is smooth! No more signal problems!

davidra wrote:

I have not had any "no signal" messages or loss of service, but the signal is still weaker in my house than before, suggesting at least that the antenna isn't as good in this phone.

The weaker signal inside buildings and other structures is likely to be a consequence of the higher frequencies used by 5G. Quite simply, higher frequencies have higher attenuation and significantly worse penetration of obstructions, and many of the 5G assigned frequencies are at least 2x what any network has used in earlier systems. This is governed by the physics of radio waves and attenuation, there is nothing the networks and phone manufacturers can do about it.

The only practical solutions are higher power from the towers and base stations, either by reduced distance or by increased transmit power. However, increasing the Tx power is only half a solution because it doesn’t help your phone transmitting back to the tower, and increasing the phone’s output will reduce battery life. 5G coverage is (as I expected) not proving to be as great as the hype predicted.