Poor signal with iPhone 12 Pro Max

Is this happening with the 5G on or does it happen if even if you turn the 5G off? Could be poor 5G in your area if that’s the case so you might for the time being want to opt to use the LTE signal only. Not a great thing to have to do when you wanted the benefits of 5G but there seems to still be a lot of inconsistency in 5G service in a lot of areas unfortunately. I haven’t had any issues with either of the 12 Pro Max devices in my home but service is pretty strong here. Since you mentioned the signal was never all that great even on your wife’s phone (but at least better than you are experiencing) it might be a good idea for you both to utilize WiFi calling when possible too so your signal is more reliable.

i went to the apple store and they ran diagnostics on my 12 max. All was well. The tech turned o. Tower roaming and turned off 5G. 5G is not ready for prime time except in very large cities. Medium size cities are still far from fully operational. Sonce doing those two things the reception has been much better. However no where near as good as the 8 Plus that was my previous phone.

Thank you Dogcow-Moof! You are exactly right. Finally my issue has been resolved— Verizon activated my phone utilizing the E-SIM. As a result, they said, “the phone/SIM cards/network could not communicate.”

what a mess.

Good Luck to all.

What does your cellular carrier say about it?

You cannot directly compare two phones like that because you don't know what your local cell tower is asking the phone to do.

There are a range of frequencies that the cell tower can ask the phone to use, and it may be asking your iPhone to use a frequency it is incorrectly configured for. This would cause your iPhone to fail when a different phone has no issues.

For example, the 11 Pro Max supports FDD‑LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 29, 30, 66, 71).

The 12 Pro Max supports FDD-LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 66, 71).

So the cellular tower may ask an 11 Pro Max to use band 30, but since a lot of devices use band 30, it may ask a 12 Pro Max to use band 32, as relatively few devices can use it so it will be less crowded.

But if the antenna for band 32 isn't optimized it also means the 12 Pro Max will see little to no signal while the 11 Pro Max will have no issues.

I'm not saying that is what's happening, but it's one way issues could be occurring.

Sadly, it's pretty much up to your carrier, as I suspect it's still a matter of your local cell tower assigning your 12 Pro Max to a frequency the tower does not handle well due to configuration, local conditions or whatever. Because the 12 Pro Max can handle that channel, it's being assigned to that channel and your experience is the result.

For example here are the FDD LTE frequency bands supported by both devices:

• XS Max: FDD LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 29, 30, 32, 66, 71)
• 12 Pro Max: FDD-LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 66, 71)

If the cell tower base station controller sees the 12 Pro Max can use band 28, which will be lightly congested as not many other phones use it, but there are issues with those frequencies due to tower configuration, foliage disturbing propagation, etc., you'll see your XS Max have no issues but your 12 Pro Max will drop the signal. When it rejoins the network, the controller will again see "Oh, a device that can use Band 28" and… rinse and repeat.

It's really cellular carriers trying to wash their hands of the issue and leaving customers stranded if you will as a result.

To "fix" this your carrier would need to send a tech team to the site, run tests on that band, notice that certain bands have issues and either fix the issue at the tower if possible, or program the controller not to assign devices to that band - all of which require an expensive crew to go out to the site and spend time there. This is also why when that does happen, suddenly the phone starts working with or without a carrier settings update but without an iOS update.

…and it does.

Even my 11 Pro Max dropped calls on occasion, my 12 Pro Max has not dropped even one call since I activated it three months ago.

Many have reported there is a new Verizon carrier settings update, 45.5.7, that is beginning to roll out across the network that has solved this for them.

Update your carrier settings on your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

There is no solution to this problem - I have contacted Verizon and tried everything there is to try on every forum and it boils down to the IPhone 12 5G service being absolutely horrific. This is by far the worst phone I’ve ever owned ... my service is always stuck at 1 bar anywhere I’m located in my apartment - and if it’s in my pocket or I walk into certain areas - I lose service completely and it won’t come back unless I restart the phone or switch airplane mode on and off ... I have already done the troubleshooting through Verizon and Apple ... I cannot believe I had to pay over $1000 for something that can’t make or receive phone calls or texts ....

iPhones sell for a good price on eBay and then you can buy another Android… problem solved.

It’s not a snarky comment - obviously aren’t going to be happy with your iPhone so why put yourself through that?

No one product is right for everyone’s needs, that’s why companies offer a choice.

I went to a Verizon Corporate store and they installed a new SIM card. It’s only been a couple weeks, but I actually had cell service on my trip to the Oregon Coast. I am hoping this will fix the the problem.

I traded in my old iPhone for the 12 Max and reception at home is terrible. Need to be by a window and only works in one room of the house. Drops calls as well as my kids can not call me from another state.

I have spent hours with various techs without success. But did get an amazing tech yesterday who tried his best to increase the signal in my house. It was better yesterday, but today, not working again. Now cannot use the phone in my car. Apple is sending me a new phone next week and is providing a return for my old phone.

Really sorry for getting rid of my old phone now.

Try turning off wifi momentarily and look at the signal indicator at top right corner of the screen and see if you're really not receiving any 5G signal. If you see 5G, it is just the phone prioritizing wifi over cellular to save battery and cellular data. You can change this in settings.

I have the same carrier and same location that I reside at. My iPhone XS Max does not have the low signal and zero call drops in the same house with same SIM card. However, my newest iPhone 12 Pro Max exhibits a poor signal reception in and around the house (wifi being turned off, as you suggested earlier) and frequent call drops as well with the same SIM.

I, in fact, requested a service call-back from the apple care call center and they sent an email that their call went to my voicemail while I booked a call-back from the same phone at same location just 15 minutes ago. The call center representative acknowledged that the call was dropped that apple made while trying to reach me. There was no change in location and no change in the carrier between my call and Apple's callback.

Apple care representative booked me a visit to the Apple service center to run the hardware diagnostics. I was told the tool did not report any issues with the Antenna. However, the center representative acknowledged the call drops were seen in the phone logs.

I was sent home suggesting to reset the phone and try using again. That's an attempt which will require a data backup and restore which I am avoiding.

Anything else that you could suggest which might help in this case before I attempt the suggested reset?

Sadly no, that's all done by the base controller.

If the culprit is 5G and you have 5G on your account, you can try turning it off to see if that improves things any, otherwise there may not be anything you can do.

It's also not specifically Band 28, that's just an explanation of what the problem could be and how it's very possible for it to be an issue with the 12 Pro Max but not because anything is wrong with the 12 Pro Max.

I'm in New Orleans right now. My iPad Pro (not 5G) had 4 solid bars on LTE. My iPhone 12 pro max has 1 bar. These two devices are right next to each other. So, reading through these replies, I turned off 5G in cellular settings and restricted it to LTE, but that did nothing. still the same terrible reception on my new 12 pro max and solid reception on my iPad pro. I'm not seeing any other solutions coming from this group, even with Apple support. That tells me the 12 pro max has a bad receiver. big bummer.

Express your dissatisfaction to your cellular carrier, as they are the only ones who can fix the issue.