How to turn off LTE on iPhone iOS 15

We can, enable or disable the option.

but whatever I push on the subscription a IOS15 or newer does not have the option to disable it. While pretty much any other device user can enable or disable it in the settings.

I’m not representing my employer just speaking out of experience and frustration.

if your subscription has VoLTE enabled try putting your SIM in an android device or a IOS14 device, vòila the option is there.

This is a IOS15 issue not being able to disable it if it’s active on your subscription

It seems like i'm having similar issues. At my job in certain areas when my phone goes 4G I'll get full signal and when it goes to 5Ge I get 1 bar and dropped calls (doesn't work). I noticed this only started happening a few months ago. I contacted Att they said everything is ok from their end. I let the IS department at my job know, they said ATT is in the DAS system. The issue still happens. Again this only happens at work and only for a few months now.

ATT Iphone 12 Pro Max

"5Ge" is "4G". Both are LTE.

"5G" is 5G...

After an admittedly brief scan of this thread, it bears mentioning that there will very soon be absolutely no purpose in disabling LTE, since the ONLY networks that will exist will be either LTE (4G) or 5G. The whole point if disabling LTE would be to force the phone down to 3G, which will not exist any more at all. The carriers are shutting it down.

Which is to be expected - when it can connect to a “better” type of service - 5G E - it will, but that service will use different frequencies, and in your case the signal for the 5G E network is somewhat marginal compared to your 4G service.

That’s where the carrier and the BSC programming kick in - when it can, it wants to move you to LTE.

Depending upon your carrier that “4G” signal may well be going away at the end of February, and “shutting off LTE” would leave you with no signal at all if you weren’t in a 5G area and/or didn’t have 5G service on your plan.

Which is the whole point of this thread. We want back the ability to choose which network our phone is on. I don’t care if that network is going away, I’ll buy a different phone or switch to a different carrier if I have to when I have to. But for the last 3 years, I’ve been able to use my phone at work on 4g, and now I can’t. Even though I know the 4h network is still there

Unfortunately, when you see "4G" in the status bar, you are NOT actually on a 4G network. You are connected to an HSPA+ network, which is actually 3G... Well, 3.5G. That network will be completely shut down very soon. LTE is the actual 4G network.

Carriers like AT&T have really munged things up by re-naming the networks for marketing reasons...

No one cares the technically correct name of the network. We aren’t arguing the tech specs of the network. We are arguing the fact that our phones used to be useful when we had the option to turn lte off, and after the update, the functionality to turn it off is gone and our phones are now useless.

While “4G” may be going away in larger urban areas, it will be a long time before those of us in rural communities see it. I remember how far behind we were to get LTE and 4G before that.

Operator22 wrote:

Nope.

its apple that removed it.

I'm sorry but you're wrong. There are a number of features of iPhones that are controlled by the carrier. In addition to which networks you can access, they control things like how you turn caller ID on or off. Because my phone is active on Verizon, I have no switches for turning it on or off on my phone. My carrier doesn't allow it to be done that way.

Some carriers only made the change applicable for newer phones. Some have been slowly implementing the change for older phones as well.

Vern2222 wrote:

It did not happen till the minute i went to ios 15+

As KiltedTim noted, the carrier updates are often applied when you update iOS. Occasionally, the carriers will also release an update at another time but that's rare and usually to address a specific problem.

I’m not sorry, since this is literally a part of my job at a carrier.

We can disable this option for you, but we can only either enable or disable VoLTE calls. If we disable this you won’t have a option to switch it on. But if it’s enabled you have a option to either enable or disable it.

I literally did it with my subscription with an android device and my IPhone 13.

This is a IOS specific thing. And you can easily switch your SIM card to an android device and see that the option is there while a IOS 15 or newer won’t.

We really don’t want customers calling about voice issues since we still use 2G/3G and will still have 2G when 3G is eventually dismantled.

But it only changed with the new ios. My wife has the auto update turned off and is still on ios 13 or 14 and has the functionality with the same carrier. Apple has several dumb gliches. Also like the hot spot disconecting and not reconnecting unless you open the hot spot page

Vern2222 wrote:

But it only changed with the new ios. My wife has the auto update turned off and is still on ios 13 or 14 and has the functionality with the same carrier.

That is correct. The carrier update was applied to your phone when you updated to iOS 15. But it's still the carrier who determines what the specific settings are. As I said above, the carriers rarely release updates outside of iOS updates.

I'm not having any problems with my Hot Spot. However, if you are, you should start your own thread with that as the subject line. You're far more likely to get help that way than by mentioning it in a thread about something else.

Operator22 wrote:

I’m not sorry, since this is literally a part of my job at a carrier.

Your job at a carrier is updating carrier settings?

We can disable this option for you, but we can only either enable or disable VoLTE calls. If we disable this you won’t have a option to switch it on. But if it’s enabled you have a option to either enable or disable it.

I literally did it with my subscription with an android device and my IPhone 13.

This is a IOS specific thing. And you can easily switch your SIM card to an android device and see that the option is there while a IOS 15 or newer won’t.

We really don’t want customers calling about voice issues since we still use 2G/3G and will still have 2G when 3G is eventually dismantled.

Yes, you can change the provisioning on a customer's account. However, that has nothing to do with the carrier settings as they are applied to phones. Those come from a level well above yours.

And yes, those carrier settings can be different for different model phones. At one point, even with the same version of iOS, pre-iPhone 12 phones had different network options than the iPhone 12 and later.

Operator22 wrote:

We really don’t want customers calling about voice issues since we still use 2G/3G and will still have 2G when 3G is eventually dismantled.

Then you must either work for T-Mobile or a carrier in a different country.

Networking business site Digi summarizes the issue nicely:

Most of America’s largest carriers have already shuttered their 2G service or plan to soon:

+ AT&T stopped servicing its 2G network back in 2017.

+ Verizon Wireless phased out its 2G CDMA network at the end of 2020. 

+ Sprint sunsetted their 2G CDMA network in December of 2021.

+ T-Mobile plans to sunset their 2G network in December of 2022.

[ …]

In Canada, Bell shut down their 2G network in June of 2018. Both Telus and Rogers have also stopped supporting 2G devices. In Europe, where active 2G installations continued longer, Vodafone has promised that they won’t sunset their 2G service until at least 2025, but they will likely start re-farming spectrum ahead of that date.

[…]

+ Verizon will sunset its CDMA network at the end of 2022.

+ AT&T has stated they will sunset their 3G network in February of 2022 with the last date for phone activation on the 3G network being already past.

+ T-Mobile has stated that they will shutter their 3G networks in April, 2022.

+ The last activation date for 3G on the Sprint network was April 2019 and the Sprint 3G network will be shut down in December of 2022.

More information on 3G sunset dates for Canadian and European carriers.

https://www.digi.com/blog/post/2g-3g-4g-lte-network-shutdown-updates

Note as I posted above, AT&T will now require VoLTE to make or receive calls on their network as of the February 22, 2022, so it's not surprising why they removed the ability to shut LTE off.

They even have a list of devices that will continue to work with their network after February:

https://www.att.com/idpassets/images/support/pdf/Devices-Working-on-ATT-Network.pdf