Poor signal with iPhone 12 Pro Max

Your assumption that a base station issue would be common to all frequencies or towers is not true.

For example, if there was a bad cable to one antenna on a tower, that would cause phones that communicate on those frequencies to drop.

If you've seen issues on multiple towers, it could also be a configuration issue, or a bug in one particular brand of base station controller.

Good luck with the reset.

Not all, just the ones causing you and others difficulty.

Millions of people around the world use their 12 Pro Maxes every day with absolutely zero issues, so obviously a majority of cell towers do not need reconfiguration.

If you feel your own phone is at fault, contact Apple Support directly:

Contact - Official Apple Support

You, apparently, are one of the lucky ones. I've had issues from the beginning of this iphone 12 pro max. I thought it was everyone else (on the dropped calls), but when people tell me daily they tried to call and couldn't get through, I began to realize it was me and this phone. Perhaps it is a Verizon tower issue, but when I read everyone is having the same issue with different carriers, It's definitely the phone. An iphone XR sitting beside mine can have 3 bars of service, while I am barely hanging on to 1. I can't wait for an upgrade. I am an Apple person, but this is by far the worst money I've ever spent!! I actually hate this phone. I spend my day returning calls and apologizing for dropped calls.

I live in Canada and have same issue with iPhone 12 Pro Max. My friend uses a different cell phone provider same problem. The antenna sucks, while you are driving it can’t switch from one tower to next. No reception, people can’t hear me. Tried everything, I have tower at end of my street and can go right underneath it and poor quality reception. Tried 5G LTE everything. 4 new SIM cards. No help from Apple. It’s a piece of junk, maybe the people who aren’t having problem received a different batch manufactured lot number. But I have a lousy one. I took my SIM card and placed it in my old 4 year old or more Samsung. Guess what no issues. No dropped calls no reception issues no issues while driving. Clear reception. Apple needs to address this issue and not ignore all of us who are having similar. problems. My friend gave up and purchased a different new phone. I’m going to revert to my old Samsung while trying to deal with Apple. By the way I have Apple Care , I will be trading in this piece of junk as soon as new phone comes out. If it’s an other problem I’ll go back to android. Dependable to run my business. Apple iPhone 12 Pro max 256 memory isn’t. I’m wondering if it’s got to do with memory, my friend also had 256 memory. Maybe these are the bad ones?

Though that's not what's happening here.

A great example is in 1945, the FM Radio band in the US extended from 88 - 106 MHz. Within a few years that was extended to be 88 - 108 MHz.

If you had an early 1945 radio, you couldn't receive frequencies above 106 MHz.

So if the radio station was telling your friends with old radios to tune to 95.1 MHz but you to tune to 107.5 MHz to receive their new, better signal, but they hadn't yet turned on their transmitter at 107.5 MHz, you'd have the exact situation you see now.

Except you don't get to choose the frequency to tune to, the cell tower base station controller tells you, based upon which frequencies your device says it can receive.

Older phones don't get told to use frequencies only newer phones can receive, but if the provider hasn't yet optimized their towers for the new frequencies, you get exactly what you see: older phones told to use old frequencies work well; new phones told to use newer frequencies do not.

You can't compare bars between devices, they're just a measure of relative signal strength; e.g. three bars on one device does not mean the same signal strength as it does on another.

However, more importantly, you have no idea which cellular frequency your device was assigned to, so as I have stated several times now, if the tower assigns your 12 Pro Max to a frequency it supports that your other device does not, you may see wildly different signal strength readings and may drop calls on one while you have no issues on the other.

So your assertion is in no way supported by the data.

Each device seemingly supports a different subset of frequencies - strange but true,

Also, carriers make a huge difference as well; there are many areas around me that have one bar on AT&T and full bars on Verizon, and others with full bars on AT&T and No Signal on Verizon.

What makes it worse is antenna design and placement on each tower also comes into play.

It’s not your carrier. I’ve been experiencing the same issue on Verizon’s network. Never had any issues on my X. Now, in areas that I used to get 4 bars, I have no service. I’ve tried every single “fix” out there, and nothing works. It appears that Apples attempt at 5G has left us with nothing but useless wi-fi bricks. The wife’s work phone, an X, on Verizon’s network performs flawlessly at delivering strong signals.

You cannot compare bars from phone to phone; the bars only show relative signal level as a proportion of what the phone can receive and a given signal level will not read the same between an iPhone 8 and iPhone 12.

Yes, same issue. It is obviously a 5G issu. My home is on the edge of good 5G reception. I don’t understand why my 12 doesn’t have the option of switching to 4G when 5G is not giving enough reception. The option is LTE, which I had to switch off when I had a 8S phone in order to get better reception. I want 4 G please.

I have a 12 pro and a 12 pro max and have had service on Verizon and ATT in Jacksonville, FL. Both phones exhibit all the problems described in this thread and beyond. Short version, both phones have been tested by Apple who claims there is no problem with the hardware. Both carriers claim they can't even manually connect to nearest tower (1 mile). I have spent an incredible number of hours with both the carriers and Apple, who in turn continue to refer me to the other party. Frustrating is an understatement, particularly when I have other, older 4g phones in the house that have no issues on the same carriers. Personally, I don't believe these networks are prepared for the technology in the 5G phones and neither the carriers or Apple seem interested in resolving.

Contact Verizon and ask if they have plans to fix/update their tower near you.

I have the same issue. Here is a quote from my wife this morning;

"My iPhone 7 has all four bars.

iPhone 12 Pro Max is sitting right next to it and his two bars."

I had been a very loyal business customer of Sprint for 12 years. I have spent the last 3 solid days talking to 3 different countries and I can't tell you how may people trying to activate my iPhone 12 pro Max. After being told by 4 tech reps the SIM card from T-mobile, that came with our 2 brand new phones, was wrong and we needed a Sprint SIM card which they then ordered and sent out. Went out regular mail and took 4 days. While waiting after 3 days, I spoke to another senior tech at T-Mobile in the Philippines that was able to activate phone with the original SIM card from T-Mobile.

Day four... Took a drive in $65,000 car with Car Play and was unable to connect. Called T-Mobile Tech-PHD line and phone dropped the call 4 times trying to get help. After 5 calls to five different people the last one referred me to Apple and said it appeared to be an issue with the Apple phone or software. Apple tried numerous times with me and had me reset phone which was completed last night at 12:30. Had to re-enter passwords, previously set up, next morning. Apple scheduled a call at 8:00 am and someone from Apple called at 8:06 on my Apple cell#. I gave her my land line and she said she would call me right back. It is now 8:25 and still no call back.

To sum things up I gave T-Mobile a 10/10 on ease of ordering the new iPhone 12 Pro Max. Service from T-Moble trying to get phone activated and addressing technical issues I would rate a 1/10. VERY POOR SERVICE

It is now 8:30 and still no call back from Apple.

When is Apple going to take these issues seriously and do some thing about them? I to have had Apple phones for the past seven or eight years after reluctantly giving up my BlackBerry. I have never had such poor poor phone performance in my life.

I’ve called Apple several times and while they’re very helpful and take me through various procedures, nothing has worked. I also noticed several of the people posting on this board have T-Mobile or Sprint. I wonder if it is a connectivity issue between the phone and the carrier? I started out with a T-Mobile sim card and had terrible service because there’s very Poor 5G service around Naples Florida. I then went back to the store and got a sprint Sim card which everyone said was going to be better. When there was no improvement, I contacted Sprint and the guy there did everything possible to remove any kind of T-Mobile software from my phone. That too did not work! I had spectacular sprint service prior to changing my phone from the 10 to the 12 pro! So Disappointed. My son wants me to change to Samsung and I’m seriously considering it.

You guys in the US aren't alone - here I am in the UK with my new(wish) iPhone12 (OS14.4) and I am getting terrible calls using WiFi. We are in the lee of a hill and so don't get great cell mast coverage (EE - a BT company).

My old iPhone6s (OS14.3) worked just fine on WiFi, and connected with a new Blaupunkt Skaggen 370DAB BT radio just fine.

Not the same happy story with the iPhone12, which admittedly connected with the radio in another car OK.

So was/ is it the OS, the radio or the iPhone? I updated the OS on the iPhone6s to OS14.4 and it still connects via BT to the Blaupunkt 370 just fine ..... so the only problem I have is solely common with the iPhone12 ...... come on Apple! What have you done the degrade this fine product, which can no longer be called "fit for purpose" .... give me back connectivity and reception I can use!