I have an iPhone 14Pro and the signal is not as good as my iPhone 12 that I use for another line. I have noticed this in several states and almost all locations. Any suggestions?
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
iPhone 14 Pro, iOS 16
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:
The iPhone 14 Pro supports the following frequency bands (differences from iPhone 12 in bold):
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.
It’s your carrier, so of course they want to blame Apple.
The fact that your signal levels fluctuate the way they do is proof of that.
All you can do is complain to your carrier, as only they can fix it.
Any solutions for the fix? I just purchased the 14 I’m not happy. I had signal checked in the store to make sure it was backed up. Came home and now I’ve lost all photos connected to signal. So bummed, I tried to recover data, however, I need the old phone to do so.
So I just got the 14 pro three weeks ago and the signal doesn't always stay on five lines. It switches from one to three and back again to five. Pretty random. Carrier said it's the phone's fault of course. This poor signal drains my battery pretty fast too. How could I fix this does anyone know?
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.
Hi Lucas1312,
So far the only solution is to set the phone on LTE(go to settings/cellular data options/voice and data and chose LTE). The phone is not compatible with the current Verizon network settings. This will help with the battery as well. The unfortunate part is that you will not be able to use 5G on this setting, bu it is faster that the 5G with this phone as it is now. Please let us know how/if that works for you.
While it is isn't accurate to say the phone is not compatible with Verizon network settings, shutting off 5G will save battery power as the 5G radios do use more power.
However that won't help any if your phone isn't connecting in 5G mode in the first place.
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.
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.
lucas1312 wrote:
Swapped between the two largest carriers in my country and both get low signal so it’s clear where the problem is coming from.
A tower that isn't properly configured for the frequency you are being assigned to.
Swapping carriers doesn't necessarily switch towers or local device to tower frequency.
Do you mind listing who the two carriers were?
There’s no chance you know them but it’s VIVACOM and A1.
So basically returning the phone and getting a replacement or getting this one to a service wouldn’t make any difference? Only fix would be to ask them to check the tower which will probably sound like a joke to them?
Likely not, but if your retailer is willing to swap out your device, you can certainly try it.
I asked as sometimes cellular vendors announce whether they are sharing towers or not and I wanted to try to find out whether they were in fact doing so but wasn't able to find out much.
Sadly, though they may take being asked to check the tower as a joke it's truly the only way to get it fixed.
Can you try driving around 40 km away and see if you have similar poor results communicating with a different cell tower?
Lucas1312,
Let us know how it works out. From what I’m hearing and reading, there seems to be a problem with some of the iPhone 14 series modems. I would be curious to see if a repair or a different phone will fix the problem. It is tough to have the latest phone and the worst connection in many years.
This has nothing to do with modems per se, rather it’s the cellular radios that connect to the towers.
Most people do not have signal issues and in fact many find it to be the best.
I know personally I no longer drop calls in areas I used to with past iPhones.
That having been said, I know it doesn’t matter if your phone is unusable to you, so the biggest thing you can do at present is call and complain to your cellular carrier.
Dogcow-Moof,
We are all looking for solutions. It seems you are very knowledgeable about how the phones work, but you haven’t offered solutions.
Most people are not concerned what band the phone is assigned to, but whether it it works or not.
If you could tell us a way to get the signal or band reassigned that would be helpful.
Thank you for the input, but please offer up helpful comments.
I stated why you can't make that assumption; you have no idea if your two devices are using the same frequency band or not, and it's very possible your iPhone 14 is assigned to a frequency band the iPhone 12 couldn't even use.
As each frequency band needs to be optimized at the cell tower, you can see where the issue gets complex quickly.
iPhone 14 Pro Signal Issues
