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

No one is suggesting 11 had 5g. Jfc. The plain and simple is the 11 didn't have connection issues. The s20 right next to the 13 has NO issues so it's likely NOT a carrier issue unless it's a carrier issue with the 13 specifically. People are telling you the experience is different and the only thing that changed is the phone not the carrier. Jfc it's like talking to a brick wall. Their support specifically says it should default back to LTE/4G and if the 13's LTE/4G is worse than 11/12 then that's also a phone problem.

While the band analysis may be interesting to you, the issue is just a customer experience issue to us. This isn't the 1990's and we're checking which bands work with which carrier and which tower. Apple made the iphone to work with all carriers. We're on Verizon, one of the largest carriers. If they desisgned a phone that doesn't work with Verizon efficiently, that's a failure on their part. We've also contacted our respective carriers and have been told there are no known issues with the towers at this time, so calling them with this band information is basically useless. It's really simple, if Apple is going to sell us a $2k phone, they better make sure it works with Verizon, and in the middle of a well populated areas like LA and Orange County, this isn't like out in the boonies.

Further, we can definately compare a flagship iphone 13 to an iphone 11, with a major carrier, in a major city, not having good service period. If Apple didn't consult, and work with Verizon to optimize for the iphone 13, that's also on them. The simple fact is if it doesn't work, we'll get a different phone. We've reported the problem, we don't need the explanation that isn't going to fix it for us, Apple needs to talk to Verizon if the bands aren't optimized for their phones, customers calling in about X tower possibly not handling bands 11 * 21 isn't going to get them to change it for us. Also 2-4 bands difference out of 24 bands, based on population change, iphone adoption vs other phones, its UNLIKELY that the band efficiency is the issue, and unlikely the issue on every tower in southern california.

We were on ios 15, we'll try 15.1 now and report back.

If Sony made TV's that didn't work with a nationwide "carrier/broadcaster" in major cities, they can assume no one would buy their TV's. Users bought the phone assuming it works on 4G/5G they shouldn't be expected to confirm which Bands, its not on us to troubleshoot the details, just to report it and get a response they'll work on fixing it. I don't know why you don't think Verizon doesn't have an interest in making sure iphones work on their network, they get data packages, watch lines, etc etc, and literally have to work with apple to get these devices synced up with apple's services.

If we switch we wouldn't switch to a lower version iphone...

Actually, Verizon doesn’t have to work with Apple any more than again, broadcasters work with Sony on their TVs.

You act as if service is broken everywhere, yet there are literally millions of iPhone 13 users in the metro areas you mention not having issues.

That doesn’t minimize your issues of course, but it points out the impasse. Apple is not going to break their devices because they work properly elsewhere; they are also powerless to get Verizon or any other carrier to fix their networks, just as they can’t force car makers to fix misbehaving CarPlay head end units. Apple would be happy to work with them but they can’t make them work on it.

You’re right, you don’t need to diagnose the issue, but all Apple can do is complain to say Verizon but Apple isn’t their customer, you are.

My comments aren’t to force you into diagnosing the issue, they are merely to explain to you what is likely occurring given the data and why.

As I stated, except for once, where a user was able to get Verizon to go out to their local tower and take readings at Apple’s and the user’s behest, every other iPhone 12 user who had the issue resolved had it fix itself one day with zero updates to their phone, or after a carrier settings update.

Same Issue when going from a 11 pro max to a 13 pro max. I'm on Verizon and the tech i spoke to said it was a "known issue" with some iPhone 13 models. I see that T-Mobile is also experiencing this.

My tech said to upgrade to 15.1 and hope that a fix was in there.

What a pain Apple!

Of course Verizon is going to blame Apple when it’s their network that’s at fault.

Don’t believe me, do an Internet search on a phrase like “5G slower than LTE” and you will see that it’s the networks that are at fault. People are reporting the same issues with Android devices.

Most often, it’s been because the cellular companies have allocated a very small percentage of their network bandwidth to 5G (less than 5% in AT&T’s case), and with all the new 5G devices coming online the 5G frequencies are overcrowded and often slow to speeds that are slower than 3G networks were.

(Why? The carriers wanted to be able to advertise they had 5G service but aren’t willing to slow down the 90% or so of users who are LTE-only at the moment.)

There is nothing that Apple, or for that matter Google, Samsung or any other phone vendor can do about that.

The only thing that will help is when cellular companies build out their infrastructure and allocate more bandwidth to 5G frequencies.

What was going to help with that is the sunset of 3G services in many areas, but that has been delayed as there are numerous non-phone services that use the 3G network, such as burglar alarm systems, point-of-sale systems, and weather stations, and converting all of those has been going much slower than was originally thought.

If you’ve ever tried to make a call or use data at a sports stadium or a theme park, you know the type of network congestion I am talking about. Only now it’s occurring on the 5G networks because of the new phones.

You may be saying to yourself, well Apple should just allow you to shut off 5G and use the LTE network. Unfortunately that is up to cellular providers, not Apple; in many cases the cellular providers do not allow them to provide such a switch.

So yes, due to these factors, we really are in a situation at present where an LTE-only phone, like the iPhone 11, or new iPhones on cell plans that don’t allow 5G (like the original iPhone unlimited data plan with AT&T) will see faster data transfer speeds than 5G phones using a 5G network. This will improve, but it may take months to years; the LTE network took several years to get to where it is. (There are several rural areas near me that are 4G networks, as they still haven’t received an upgrade to LTE.)

There is absolutely nothing Apple can do about it.

Apple sold you a race car, but unfortunately the current road network is a two lane highway clogged with traffic and you can rev your engine all you like but traffic is moving at 3 MPH.

And another thing. Based on your band listings, the newer phones have MORE bands. But the number of users is roughly the same, ie congestion hasn't really changed. Er go the newer phones should be BETTER at distributing the load, but at minimum should be as good as the 11, and the additional bands should make it better giving it more option to distribute but if the signal is worse on that band, then they shouldn't switch to a weaker band. If they didn't program it to prioritize the older bands for stability, and run an update later to add in the other bands in the optimization after the towers have been adjusted, thats dumb on apple's part as well, for adding bands and yet making service worse. Tower load is essentially the same, not that many new babies are using cellphones now.

not sure if related, but i felt like having some slowness of my 4G when i was on iOS 15. upgraded to 15.1 seems to have fix it. Not sure whether it was my telco problem at that point of time or was it just the iOS version. I cant confirm this. Are you on iOS15.1?

I’m also having same random slowness issues on iPhone 13 pro max V 15.0 on T-Mobile network and even on wifi. This is compared to an iPhone X 14.X. I don’t think it’s a carrier issue since it seems to be on all carriers and wifi. I’ll upgrade to 15.1 see if it makes and difference and report back. It’s concerning so many people are having the same issue.

After updating form 15.0 to 15.1 I don't seem to be having the issue so far (two days in). If this is the case it looks like it might be some combination of this phone and OS version but can be solved by upgrading.

Thanks for the response. I didn't do a quantized comparison of speed so there is probably room for improvement as you say. But with version 15.0 the internet was unusable at times with pages not loading even though I had 4 bars of signal. Now at least pages load. It would be nice to see a faster phone than my old iphone X given I now have access to 5g signal.

Modem updates are normal for iOS updates, so that’s in no way proof of an issue.

I’m glad the update seems to have improved things for you; I saw none of these issues on AT&T with 15.0, 15.0.1 or 15.1, though my phone connects with my local tower using “5G E” (LTE) far more than 5G in my experience.

same problem.. and please stop with the “check your carrier stuff” 😂. Ive tried 3 carriers in two different countries.. way faster on my old 8 compared to my new 13.

please can apple pay attention as its driving me nuts.. and yes ive reset everything, disabled apps, have no vpn etc etc..