Really bad service new iphone 13 pro Tmobile

Took the phone to the Apple store. They found "significant" errors in the phones ability to connect to the network. The Genius Bar notes: "Ran cellular voice and service and this diagnostics showed multiple dropped cellular network connectivity. The diagnostics on our end show that out of 10 days of cellular usage there are 10 days of issues with connectivity". Verizon is sending 2 new phones. We will see.

Thank you for your post Rae Rae,

This issue has been job threatening as the disconnections occurring sound like hang-ups for those I'm calling or those calling me. I'm on my 3rd iPhone 13 Pro Max and had the Apple store test this one before giving it to me, and it failed the "RF cellular" signal strength test. There is no fix and the "genius" said he would escalate the issue. I'm finding out online that it's not just a bad batch distributed locally, but is common among many iPhone 13 owners. It appears to be a hardware issue and not limited to any particular cellular service provider. I have been using Spectrum Mobile, by the way, but have heard from others using different carriers that they suffer from the same issue.

Possible ways to work around

1. I was advised by Spectrum mobile to engage "wifi calling" so that there may be fewer disconnections in buildings
2. A youtube video advised resetting the signal from time to time by going into "airplane mode" closing all open tabs and then turning off airplane mode again. This seems to be a temporary fix though.
3. Honestly, any resetting of the signal usually only provides a temporary fix.
4. I turned off 5 G and selected 4 LTE only and noticed a big signal boost as well, so I'm thinking the 5 G automatic setting won't serve me at all and could be responsible for the signal jumping around and dropping from time to time.
5. I went into low data mode in hopes to reduce cellular call disconnections as well, but not sure if it will.
6. I also selected cellular data "roaming on" in hopes that helps.

All that said, there are many other suggestions from YouTubers on workarounds, but honestly, I think this issue is worth a recall since they haven't figured out how to repair the issue with a software update by now. The phone has been useless in the office I work at, with many disconnected calls and people getting really upset about it (e.g., "You hung up on me again! Why do you keep hanging up on me!).

Best of luck to those dealing with this and hope it's magically fixed soon, otherwise, I'm thinking of trading mine in for an iPhone 12 Pro Max.

Ok, I know this will sound crazy but it will work. I just recently be itching the last month got the standard iPhone 13 through T-Mobile. I will have full bars outside my house and uc connected and it will still have no internet. I went into cellular options and switched it back to lte and it works great. There is some kind of issue with their 5g and iPhone but if you put it in 4g mode it will work

Start by contacting your carrier. Have you tried changing network settings between 5G, LTE or automatic?

It’s a problem of the iPhone 13ProMax, not the network. I have an iPhone 8plus and put my SIM on my new iPhone 13ProMax, the 4G sensitivity is much worse, very low signal, and not only the cellular but also the wifi.

Initially I thought because of the 5g reception activated (I have very low 5G coverage) but also deactivating 5g there is no improvement.

Apple needs to work a lot on the internal antennas, it’s not acceptable in a phone like this to have these problems. In the real world the cellular coverage is not perfect and the antennas sensitivity and reception is of the highest importance.

I don’t need a computer in my hands, I need first of all a phone!

I can confirm switching back to LTE has mostly fixed my issues for the last few weeks!

I have the exact same issue. Our phones never show more than 2 bars signal strength. When we travel internationally or Puerto Rico, our phones simply disconnect from the network and will not reconnect without a hard restart. That connection lasts less than 1/2 hour. The techs have us manually select the network and we do but it always disconnects and defaults back to the Auto network selection and fails to connect. WE have replaced the sim in both our iphone 13 pros, done network resets, account resets (done by Verizon) wipe and reinstall the OS and Verizon apps. No improvement. The techs at Verizon keep closing the ticket when the phone connects and blame it on the network. All other members in our part have iphone 11 and 12 and they never lose network service and all show signal of 3 or 4 bars.

In the end I simply gave up on our phones. There are those on here who keep trying to put all the blame on the networks but there are too many of us experiencing the same problems and even Apple official support agreed it was not a network fault. They did a factory reset by my giving them access to the phone but in the end I could not be cut off all the time.

My old Apple SE and the second hand Galaxy work fine so if your calls are important I would suggest buying a second hand phone. Great shame as these are the first Apple products to give us problems.

Don’t misunderstand, there are certainly some iPhones with bad or failed components out there, but Apple’s diagnostics have been able to detect that.

The issue is that these problems are not indicative of a widespread issue; over 40 million iPhone 13 family devices were sold just over the holiday sales period, and this issue remains not at all common.

In the end, as I’ve always stated, the very first thing to do is contact your cellular carrier.

If they say there is no systemic issue or issue with your local cell tower, make an appointment to have your phone examined:

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

or contact Apple Support directly:

Contact - Official Apple Support

It is almost always a carrier issue.

I’ve described on numerous occasions what’s going on, and when people who have this issue find it fixed, it’s very rarely due to a repair or change on the part of the phone.

It’s likely the hard restart is simply causing your phone to re-associate with the cell tower, something more easily done by dropping in and out of Airplane mode.

If you believe it is your device, have it checked by your local Apple Store or other authorized service agent; there are tens of millions of iPhone 13 family phone users worldwide not experiencing the issues you describe.

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

Apple support also suggested turning airplane mode on and off as it forces the phone to seek a new stronger connection apparently.

You can contact your cell carrier (ex. Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T, Mint, Xfinity etc.) If they can’t fix it, schedule a Apple Genius Bar appointment at your local Apple store at this link: Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

Hope some of this helps.

Regards,

mdp1101

[Edited by Moderator]

Mine has been the best ever, it's never dropped a single call.

That tells me either it's your carrier's network, or your individual device.

Make an appointment to have yours tested at an Apple Store near you:

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

It’s definitely a major problem of the iPhone13ProMax, NOT the carriers. If you don’t live near an antenna but travel a lot like me, and bring like me an iPhone8Plus and an iPhone13 and use regularly the phones (don’t look only at the signal bars) you can experience very clearly that you have much many dropped calls and blind spots with the iPhone13 than with the iPhone8. I guess it is a problem of the internal antennas, not the software, probably due to the addition of many 5G frequencies: as you may know, it’s very difficult to design an antenna that works on many frequencies, and for sure it’s not optimized for any frequency.

The only solution in future phones would be to increase even more the number of internal antennas, each optimized for a small range of frequencies.

So even switching off the 5g in the phone wouldn’t help, you only solve the operators’ problems of the calls handover from 5g cells to 4g cells (calls dropped while moving quickly, due to slow handover process in the operator network)

Use the Get Support link at the top of this page to arrange to have Apple look at it.