LTE/5G very slow afte upgradint to iphone 13 pro max

Same issue here. 5G speeds are hardly hitting 20 when they used to get over 100. On uploads it’s even worse, I’m hardly getting 1 when ion my 12 Pro Max it was in the 30’s. Both also seem erratic and not steady. Lots of fluctuations. I’m on ATT with strong 5G signal. I turned 5G off and LTE was about the same on download but faster on uploads. Maybe a carrier update is needed for these new phones?

I’m equally frustrated. Pretty disappointed with apple. My friend on iPhone 13 pro not max doesn’t have this issue. Both on same carrier same phone plan, same location. Might only be affecting max version of phone.

Hi,

Sorry to hear you are having issues with your iPhone.

If you have already confirmed the issue is unrelated to your carrier and its supported plan for your device, I would recommend resetting all settings on your device, then try to replicate the issue again.

• Settings > General > Transfer or reset iPhone > Reset > Reset all Settings

If this does not resolve your issue, place your device into recovery mode to erase and reinstall the latest iOS again, in the event the issue is software related.

• If your iPhone won't turn on or is frozen
• If your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch won’t connect to a Wi-Fi network
• If you can't update or restore your iPhone or iPod touch

Lastly, if that does not resolve your issue, contact Apple Support to further assist.

Hope this helps.

Another important thing to remember: when upgrading from earlier iPhone models before iPhone 12, your old SIM card from that previous model is not provisioned for 5G, as 5G did not exist then nor is it compatible with that model.

When you upgrade to an iPhone 12 or later, you are supposed to get a new SIM Card from your carrier that is included with the new iPhone. This SIM is provisioned for 5G.

• Use 5G with your iPhone

If you are seeing 2G, 3G, or 4G as an available cellular data option within Settings > Cellular > Cellular Data Options > Voice & Data, then your SIM card has not been provisioned for 5G. I would recommend ordering a new one, or requesting the carrier to provide one that is compatible with that iPhone model.

• Learn the meaning of the iPhone status icons
• View or change cellular data settings on iPhone

I have an iPhone 13, with carrier AT&T, a business unlimited plan, and I have zero complaints with cellular service or device functionality. I also received a new SIM card with my iPhone 13.

The issues you are experiencing are not related to Apple or the product.

You may contact Apple to run diagnostics on the device to confirm there are no hardware failures for cellular components. When the diagnostics pass, you would need to speak to your carrier, switch to another one, or get a new SIM card.

Hope this helps.

If you think it’s your phone, have it checked by Apple, either at a local Apple Store or by sending it in:

• Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple
• Contact - Official Apple Support

Note that iPhone 13s ordered from Apple typically don’t come with a physical SIM at all, but rather are sent from Apple with their eSIM pre-activated for the appropriate carrier network.

Hi there Ashton_z,

Thanks for taking the time to post in the Apple Support Communities. It sounds like cellular data isn't as fast as you expect it to be. Check to see if Low Data Mode is turned on. Here's how: Use Low Data Mode on your iPhone and iPad. Although you noticed this after switching to a new iPhone, it's a good idea to contact your carrier to make sure there aren't any outages that could be causing this.

Reply to this message if you need more help.

Take care.

Ashton_z ,

Thanks for the reply. Apple may have some additional support options for you. The best step forward would be to contact them again. In case you need it, these links can be used to get in touch with them: Get Support or Contact Apple for support and service.

All the best!

Apple did make a device that works with all carriers, it's your carrier that has their tower not configured or optimized properly.

This is why standards exist; Apple's phones comply with standards, if Verizon doesn't want to configure their system properly, it's not Apple's issue, sorry.

Apple can ask Verizon to fix the issue; Verizon is quite likely to not worry about it because you're paying your phone bill and it would cost them money to send a tech to the tower.

Note that when people had similar issues when the iPhone 12 was released, in every case I know of it was fixed by the carrier finally fixing the issues at the local cell tower or via a carrier settings update; it was not fixed by an iOS update.

If you ultimately can't live with it, you have 14 days from the date of purchase to return your iPhone for a full refund and purchase something else. (Note there are various threads on other message forums detailing similar issues with newish Android models for the same reasons.)

Using your own logic, if there are four bands new to the iPhone 13, since the BSC will assign frequency bands based on congestion, as the least congested bands odds are all new iPhone 13s will get assigned to those bands as the others will be clogged with every other type of phone the BSC is dealing with.

Ultimately, as the customer, you (at least theoretically) have greater import than Apple does since you're the one that can switch to T-Mobile or AT&T if you like.

I don't expect you to call in complaining about a frequency band, as there's no way for ordinary users to even know which frequency your phone is using, but rather you call and complain about poor signal and service. Eventually your carrier will see a pattern - "Hey, only iPhone 13 users connected to tower 4317 are complaining of low signal." Then it's a matter of if they think it's worth sending a tech out and when; it could be the next time any maintenance is due at the tower over the next year or tomorrow, if it's a local CEO who's threatened to switch his 1500 corporate cell phones to another carrier if they don't get it fixed immediately.

Apple literally has zero power in this situation, as Verizon doesn't care if every iPhone owner returns their phone and buys one of the old iPhone 11s many Verizon offices still has in stock, or an Android any more than your local gas station owner cares about what model of car you drive.

What you are asking is akin to having Sony come out and make sure their televisions are compatible with every television station in the USA; no, they build their TVs to meet the appropriate ATSC specs.

One that just a miniscule proportion of iPhone owners seem to be experiencing? Yes.

While if there is an Apple component to this, I'm sure Apple will address it, carrier misconfiguration is far more common should the issue arise.

If you feel it is your device, have your phone examined:

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

If you feel it is an Apple issue, remember no one here can do anything about it, and you should make your comment to Apple here:

Feedback - iPhone - Apple

Finally, the speed test results I posted above show that the issue is by no means universal.

Toggling Wi-Fi has absolutely nothing to do with which cellular band you are connected to.

Of course shutting Wi-Fi off will force all data to use the cellular connection, but only toggling the cellular connection off and back on can affect the cellular connection.

To avoid any miscommunication, when using Control Center:

The Wi-Fi connection toggle is the one in the lower left; the cellular connection toggle is in the upper right.

It would make sense that toggling Cellular would cause renegotiation with the tower resulting in a possible 5G UW connection; toggling Wi-Fi would have no effect whatsoever.

You say "no one is suggesting the 11 had 5g" yet you said "Something is wrong with the iPhone 13 with regards to it's 4g/5g connection" when comparing it to the 11.

Again, this is tower configuration and frequency related.

You can't just grab two phones and make these assertions, and the differences with the 11 are frequency-based for the most part as they were with the 12.

I'll give LTE as an example:

• iPhone 11: FDD‑LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 29, 30, 66, 71)
• iPhone 12: 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)
• iPhone 13: FDD-LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 66, 71)

I've emboldened the differences between the 11 and 12, and bold/italicized the differences between the 12 and 13.

The way this works is your phone communicates with the cell tower and says "Hi, I'm here."

The base station controller at the cell tower says "Great, you're an iPhone 13, let's see, you support frequency band 21, 21 is uncrowded because only newer phones support it, so use frequency band 21."

Now, if the tower is poorly optimized for operation in frequency band 21, your iPhone 11, which might be assigned to frequency band 17, sees full bars while your iPhone 13 has poor reception on band 21.

Your iPhone 13 can't just unilaterally decide to use band 17, it doesn't work that way.

Further, you can't directly compare and say "My iPhone 11 has four bars, my 13 has two" because bars are relative according to that phone's radio capabilities.

Hi,

Sorry to hear you are having issues.

Could you confirm what the exact issue is in order to further isolate?

I see you have already performed various troubleshooting steps; thank you for confirming whats been done so far.

Reply with your answers to the following:

1. Current iOS version? Settings > General > About > Version. It should be running iOS 15.3.
2. Reproduce the issue. On a normal day, describe any and all issues you experience with your iPhone.
3. Is cellular data slow? If so, does this apply to all apps or features when using the iPhone, or is it isolated to something specific?
4. Do you experience call drops/fails?
5. Can you send and receive iMessages when the issue occurs? Are you ever able to send SMS messages?
6. Do any alerts/errors ever appear on the screen?
7. Are you able to successfully make and receive a FaceTime call with no distorted audio and/or call drop issues?
8. Are you able to set up and use Wallet & Apple Pay, as well as Apple Cash?
9. How did you complete the setup assistant when setting up this iPhone? QuickStart, restored from iCloud+ backup, synced via Mac/PC, or set up as new? When you received a replacement iPhone, did you set it up the same way as the first one, or differently?
10. Is your old iPhone still associated to your Apple ID for iMessage & FT, or have you deregistered it? If it is associated, are you able to send and receive iMessages on your old iPhone as normal?
11. I noticed you stated you got a new SIM card prior to getting a new phone with another carrier. Was the new SIM card able to complete activation successfully, and you are still having issues with cellular service, or, was the new SIM card unable to be activated when replaced?
12. Have you tried to reset all settings vs resetting network settings? Settings > General > Transfer or reset iPhone > Reset > Reset all settings.
13. Have you reinstalled iOS? I know you restored to factory settings and reset network settings, but I would recommend reinstalling iOS using iTunes on a Mac or PC. You would place the iPhone in recovery mode and then erase and restore. This erases the iPhone as well as iOS and reinstalls a new version of the latest on the device in the event the issue is software related.
14. Does anyone you know, friends or family, also have a 5G compatible iPhone that is not carrier locked? If so, have you tried putting your SIM in their iPhone and confirmed if cellular settings were able to activate properly for 5G? If you still have your original SIM from your old iPhone, what happens when you put it in the new iPhone?
15. When you go to Settings > Phone > My Number > does it have your phone number listed or is it blank?

If the iPhone passed diagnostics with Apple Support, there were no failures found with hardware components for cellular connectivity. The issue would then be isolated to the carrier or software. If hardware failures were found, the iPhone would be replaced free of charge due to being within the Limited Warranty timeframe.

As I've explained several times throughout this thread, different devices support different subsets of cellular frequencies and capabilities, and the 2nd generation SE does not support true 5G service at all.

When you are having difficulties, is your 13 Pro Max connected to your carrier's 5G service? If so, there have been many articles in the press detailing how 5G is providing poor performance than LTE for many customers because carriers have been so anxious just to get your phone to display the little 5G logo in the corner that they've been turning it on before they have adequate infrastructure to provide service to people connected to 5G frequencies, such that people are seeing better throughput with regular LTE service.

Here's one from Forbes from last year:

Feel Like Your 5G Network Is Slower Than Promised? You Aren’t Just Imagining It

If you are just using LTE, here's what I mean:

The 2nd generation SE supports these LTE frequencies:

• FDD‑LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 29, 30, 66, 71)
• TD‑LTE (Bands 34, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 46, 48)

The 13 Pro Max supports these, I've noted additional bands supported by the 13 Pro Max in bold:

• FDD-LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 66, 71)
• TD-LTE (Bands 34, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 46, 48)

So for example, if the SE is assigned by the cell tower to FDD-LTE band 20 and the 13 Pro Max to band 28, it's possible the SE could work perfectly while the 13 Pro Max could see one bar of signal or even none at all and/or very slow service.

It's also more likely the 13 Pro Max would be assigned to one of the additional frequencies because they are likely to be less crowded than the frequencies supported by more phones.

Contact your cellular carrier.

There are often three major factors here:

• 5G Speed
• Backhaul speed from the cell tower to the Internet
• Throttling because of congestion or your use of cellular data

There have been several articles printed on several tech sites addressing both, and the fact that this is due to issues with carriers, not with your phone.

A selection:

• Here's one from ZDNet: Why is my 5G so slow? Comparing the hype to the reality
• Forbes: Feel Like Your 5G Network Is Slower Than Promised? You Aren’t Just Imagining It
• Reuters: 5G IS HERE, SORTA

I’ve just upgraded from the 11 pro max to the 13 pro max Should say down graded to the 13 pro max it’s like a snail compared to the 11 pro max here are the speeds on my WiFi before and now it’s either a software problem in the phone or its just a complete disaster of a phone I’ve done all the stuff you have done too.

iPhone 11 Pro Max

iphone 13 pro max on my same WiFi at home