No service bars, only dots.

Hi...and thank you for the reply. I will try to address each suggestion you have given and perhaps we can go from there. I will say this from the beginning though...hopefully the answers you're looking for will provide some idea on how to 'fix' this issue, as if we are working from home, or the phone is just sitting next to us, we have no idea if there are just dots rather than bars so we have no idea if someone is calling or texting...or not, until we have tons of calls (could be very important) that all come in at one time. Hopefully that makes sense and I do NOT mean to sound sarcastic, but the phone should work period...whether on wi-fi or not.

• First issue Has the iPhone been reset to factory settings and set up as new? This is a bit different than erasing via the Settings app. Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings. The phone was purchased brand new and all data from previous phone was transferred with the phones next to each other (previous was iPhone X). So yes, they were set up as new but I/we have not reset them to factory specs as if brand new again and then lose all that we have on the phones and have to figure out how to it all back in. If that would have to be the case to 'see' what might work, I would push for Apple to just send us a NEW phone, we can transfer stuff and they can have this phone back. So NO...have not reset them to factory specs, have not erased all of what we have on the phones.
• Second issue: While Verizon and Spectrum are different carriers they use the same bands, does this issue only occur at home or in other locations such as the grocery or while driving, etc? We have not seen this happen while driving because we are usually showing LTE with some bars or no bars at all...never just the dots. As far as at different locations, we are in Michigan and have been pretty much in a lock down situation due to this virus stuff. So I am medically retired, my wife works from our home and my daughter and son work from their home. My wife went back to work today, but again, she is at work and cannot spend all her time looking to see what is on her cell phone. We purchase limited data because we have wi-fi and home and would expect the phone to work on wi-fi and it shows that is what is in the upper right corner of the screen. My are of town does not have the best cell service so we have home wi-fi be cause of that...again, it should work on wi-fi if that is what is showing. We use Spectrum Mobile...my daughter and son-in-law use Verizon. We were all on Verizon previous to getting the iPhone 12's and never had issues with our old iPhones...never had them as we are experiencing now. rather than a location issue...it would sure make sense to assume it's a phone issue.
• 3rd issue: If you turn Wi-Fi calling off under Settings > Cellular > Wi-Fi Calling, does the issue persist? We have NOT turned wi-fi calling off as that is the reason we have wi-fi, so we do not use data. So no, have not turned it off. Would that perhaps give you a clue as to what the issue is with the phone? And yes, the next time we 'notice' that it is in that situation, I will turn wi-fi off and see if it corrects it. The only thing that has corrected it so far is after calling Spectrum Tech service a multitude of times, they've had me turn it on air plane mode and then turn it off or take out the sim card and put it back in. A lot of wasted time doing all that for a phone that should be working.
• 4th Issue: When you drop signal, if you turn Wi-Fi off entirely under Settings > Wi-Fi, are you immediately able to connect again? Again, I would have to answer this the same way as the previous issue. No...have not turned it off and back on as we should be able to use the phones on wi-fi if it is available. But if that will help with your thought process on what the problem is...we will make a not to try that also.

Again...do not want to sound sarcastic, but this is frustrating. We aren't teenagers who stare at the phone all day but do expect it to work, since they are not cheap items. As far as what procedures we've taken (with Spectrum, my daughter has Verizon and all she would do is turn it off and back on)...initially we've turned the phone off, then a few minutes later turned it back on and text and missed calls would then appear and we would have service bars instead of dots...along with an excellent wi-fi signal still being on the screen. As I mentioned earlier...Spectrum has had us do the air plane mode and sim card thing...again, it corrects it but it's like buying a new car and whenever it decides it don't want to start, you have to jump it with battery cables or something. You buy something new so it should work.

I appreciate your reply, I don't know how much the info I've put in here will be of help to you but I do hope to resolve something soon. I also hope that I have made some sense of this in my reply above.

Thank you again...Thank you.