Apple engineers gave me a reply back finally and told me they suggest that I back up my iCloud and then I go into my settings - general - reset - erase all content and settings.
it worked, but I’m ****** I had to do that because of all of the unfavorable hoops Apple put me though during this process.
at first the man denied it’s an apple problem, “99% of the time it’s the carrier”.
and then I had to reach back out to them after they said they would call me.. which I didn’t receive, and now I have to redownload all of my apps again and set up my phone like I just spent $1000 bucks on a new phone.