iPhone 14 Pro Signal Issues

This same issue comes up every time a new iPhone is released, and it occurs for the same reason:

Cellular carriers need to properly optimize their towers and antennas for the latest cellular frequencies.

When it comes to 5G, the iPhone 12 supports the following frequency bands:

• 5G NR (Bands n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n20, n25, n28, n38, n40, n41, n66, n71, n77, n78, n79)
• 5G NR mmWave (Bands n260, n261)

The iPhone 14 Pro supports the following frequency bands (differences from iPhone 12 in bold):

• 5G NR (Bands n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n14, n20, n25, n26, n28, n29, n30, n38, n40, n41, n48, n53, n66, n70, n71, n77, n78 n79)
• 5G NR mmWave (Bands n258, n260, n261)

When a cell phone connects to a cell tower, it tells the tower "Hi, I'm this kind of phone, and I support these frequency bands."

The tower says "Great, let's see what's least congested… OK, use frequency band (as an example) n48."

If the cellular tower isn't properly adjusted/optimized for the assigned frequency band (again as an example) n48, your iPhone 14 Pro may see little to no signal where your iPhone 12 on frequency band n28 sees full bars.

If the tower assigned your iPhone 14 Pro to use band n28 as well, everything would work as it did before, but because the newer frequencies are most likely to be less crowded, that probably won't happen.

Long story short, contact your cellular provider, only they can fix this.

No, I'm suggesting if you have an issue your carrier needs to correct it at the cell tower at which you are having difficulty.

All carriers have this same problem, and sometimes it's something as simple as the antennas were configured in winter and in spring tree leaves interfere with the frequencies involved; other times the inverse is true and snow interferes with the signal.

Sadly, Apple can't make any of the cell carriers spend money to correctly optimize their antennas; they've tried for years, but for the most part the cell carriers do things on their own schedule and one phone vendor isn't going to make them pay for the cost to send out a crew.

It can't be helped what people who don't take the time to understand an issue think about a device due to their own misconceptions, and if you do an Internet search you will find people with the same complaints about the latest Google and Samsung devices in various areas.

But as always, if you think there is something wrong with your phone, make an appointment to have it examined.

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

or contact Apple Support directly:

Contact - Official Apple Support

That's why I've said multiple times to contact your cellular carrier to complain about the issue.

The only way to get the issue resolved is via changes the carrier needs to make, either by adjusting/reaiming the antennas at the tower or by modifying the BTS (base transceiver station) parameters to modify power levels or not assign devices to that channel.

Sometimes it can also be corrected if carriers issue a revised Carrier Settings Update, but that's quite rare as it would modify frequency band assignments for the entire network.

It's completely in the carrier's court and will not likely be addressed until they receive a sufficient number of complaints about the issue. The good news, if you will, is most carriers will log the complaint in an internal database, even if the rep on the other side says it's due to your choice of device.

I have battled this problem with my 14 pro max for months on calls and especially trying to open a page or app or website I can not begin to tell you how much time I have spent on calls to my carrier tech support and Apple support and about 3 weeks ago I was able to finally find a representative at my carrier who told me to check if I have a vpn on my phone and to make this post shorter that was the problem turn off vpn and disable the auto refresh on vpn and I have not had any problems with connectivity for 3 weeks now since then

Well that’s the difficult part.

I have friends who work for carriers who can’t get the problem addressed as they almost entirely run on number of complaints.

So the complaints of two experts pale compared to if 50% of those using the tower complain.

I am aware of one case where Apple corporate got directly involved, and even then it took months to see the issue resolved. Why? Despite market valuations, the carriers see Apple as “just” a vendor and its all about their financials and resolving some of these problems takes senior technicians and time.

A great example is one area that had issues like this crop up each Spring that went away each Fall, and it’s because that frequency was attenuated by the leaves on trees between the user and the tower; other frequencies were fine as they were not affected by foliage.

In short, the best option is to complain to your carrier, often if possible (“It’s been a month, it’s still an issue.”)

The good news, as it were, as more phones using the new frequency bands are released, the rate of complaints go up and it’s hard to blame “the new iPhones” when your customers with Samsung and Google devices are complaining too.

Go to Settings/Cellular/Cellular Data Options and set Voice & Data to 5G auto. If that doesn’t fix it go back and set it to LTE; perhaps 5G in your area is weak.

No, that's a carrier issue that they will need to resolve.

Your phone is switching frequencies (as it and the cellular network are designed to do) but it ends up on frequencies for which the tower is not properly optimized.

Ironically because of the low signal, those frequencies are likely to be less congested, which makes the cellular tower more likely to move your device to one of them.

Carriers love to blame the phones because a tower visit is expensive as you have to pay a crew.

Just wanted to leave a update it’s been about 3 months and I have still not had any more connection problems since turning off the vpn

Signal bars are only relative between copies of the exact same device and cannot be directly compared between different models and different generations of device.

Or, getting three bars of signal on an iPhone 13 Pro Max does not mean you will see three bars on an iPhone 14 Pro Max.

Have you contacted your cellular carrier to see if they are having issues?

After a clean reset Ive just install app that was necessary to setup my esim. When this was done and working fine I did reset again without removing esim and backup everything from icloud. I guess backup didnt overwrite new esim, which was causing trouble. Now I have both in 5g auto mode and i never went down under „3 bars” after all that.

I jumped from 11 pro to 14 pro and maybe this is why first backup with „old” esim was problematic. From 4G to 5G on both network providers.

This is first time I haven’t had smooth experience with Apple products.

Yes, it is a cellular tower issue (not even a provider issue, but a tower issue - if you go several miles away you may have no issues with signal at all.)

I've mentioned before, the frequency bands for the 13 Pro/Pro Max (bands not supported by the iPhone 14 Pro/Pro Max in italics):

• 5G NR (Bands n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n20, n25, n28, n29, n30, n38, n40, n41, n48, n66, n71, n77, n78, n79)
• 5G NR mmWave (Bands n258, n260, n261)
• 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)

The frequency bands for the 14 Pro/Pro Max are (additions in bold):

• 5G NR (Bands n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n14, n20, n25, n26, n28, n29, n30, n38, n40, n41, n48, n53, n66, n70, n71, n77, n78 n79)
• 5G NR mmWave (Bands n258, n260, n261)
• 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)
• TD-LTE (Bands 34, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 46, 48, 53)

So what this means is that if the tower assigns your iPhone 14 Pro to one of the frequency bands in bold, you might only see one bar of signal where an iPhone 13 Pro would see full bars because it can't be assigned to one of those.

Likewise, your iPhone 14 Pro might see full signal bars but an iPhone 13 Pro might see one bar of signal if it were assigned to one of the frequency bands in italics.

Capcontulsa wrote:

Previous posts have strongly suggested the root of the problem is that the latest phones(Apple as well as Samsung) try to use a frequency that;

1) was not available on X, 12 and 13, and

2) has not been optimized by the tower operators.

To be clear, as Lawrence stated the phone does not "try" to use a frequency; rather it informs the cell tower of which frequencies it supports and the tower's base station controller tells the phone which frequency it must use.

The problem arises when carriers have updated the software to tell the controllers to use new frequencies but a crew has not visited the tower to optimize its antennas for the new frequencies.

It sounds strange, but there are all kinds of factors that come into play here, including one notable and not apocryphal story that a carrier updated a tower and users had no problem connecting during the winter, but in Spring they began getting complaints.

It turns out the new frequencies were in a range that got attenuated by leaves when trees between users and the tower started to leaf out.

Because it’s not Apple’s problem - their device works as designed.

You need to call and complain to your carrier, as they need to fix it.

Android users experience the same issues with newer phones, so it’s not just iPhone 14s.

Actually I just found out it’s not the carriers issue it’s the phone’s fault. I’m in Europe and we don’t have Verizon here. Swapped between the two largest carriers in my country and both get low signal so it’s clear where the problem is coming from.