iPhone 5 lte signal/reception problem

My Verizon iPhone 5 has odd LTE issues. I thought that iOS 6.0.1 had fixed the problem, but it hadn't. The phone still doesn't always switch properly between 3G and LTE (or, more often, directly from wi-fi to LTE without first switching to 3G), but the problem is intermittent. In areas of my neighborhood where I get five bars, the phone always switches to LTE. Where the signal is weaker, it's a crapshoot. I have not, however, had any problems with streaming music when the phone is in LTE mode. The stream doesn't die or experience interruptions.

yes - I've done that...I guess I should have posted it clearer....I've turned LTE off....tried the Airplane mode....swapped sims....firmware upgrades....everything...I've tried different apps....(Live365, Pandora, Spotify, TuneIn)....I've accessed the stream from a website instead of using the app...

Everything you could imagine....

Like everyone here, I'm experiencing all these same issues. I'm in NYC. It's particularly bad in my office, but happens everywhere. I went to the Apple store last night and the genius refused to swap out my phone, saying a restore might fix it. Big surprise, it didn't. The SIM had also been swapped previously. Here's my question, though: in my office for instance, when in field test mode & on LTE, i get service in the range of -77 to -82, which is actually okay service, right? yet i have 0 bars, it switches between 3G and LTE constantly (or plain old doesn't stay on LTE), and even when i'm "connected" to LTE, nothing loads, until i toggle airplane mode on/off. with those same readings but on 3G, i get 3/4 bars. does that make any sense?!

I have the same issues. I work in a mall where there is a Verizon store and an apple store just a walk down the hall and yet I have "o". When I got the phone I had lte at work And it Seems as the weeks go on the worse my service gets. :( and since I have had LTE in the same spot before and on my old android it's very bizarre

VZW Exec team was willing to assist me, but not in a way that made financial sense since I was silly enough to buy the 64G version and they are unwilling to take my phone back and return my money, so I'm likely going to sell my iPhone 5 and buy another replacement device (non iPhone) at full retail to put an end to this pain. I was also asked to not report service outages unless I am going to be in the same location for at least 2 days, which means I should never report a service problem to them since I am rarely in a location more than 2 days other than my house (bad service) and office (fair service).

Pete,

I am at a point, in NYC, where I cant tolereate VZW service anymore. In your, and others experience, will ATT be drastically better?

I am thinking of selling my Phone on ebay and just pay the ETF.

Any help appreciated.

Thank you...

VZW will waive the ETF for you, just get to the right people and have cases to document your poor service. As far as AT&T vs. VZW, my NYC experience was only 3 days primarily in Times Square, 34th and West Side with one trip to the East Village in October, and AT&T (GS 3 in this case) was far superior to my VZW iPhone 5 service. I documented my experience from mid-Oct in this thread if you read back, including every location I tested.

My experience in Mass is that AT&T GS3 is 20-50Mb/s almost everywhere and my iPhone 5 struggles to even stay on 3G. Sure, I get LTE every now and then, but it's very rare (with almost no building penetration) and when I do, the speeds very rarely (although they have every now and then) come to close to 10-20Mb/s. A few Mb/s with pathetic upload speeds are normal. I have also used my VZW iPhone 5 in the Bay Area of CA and the service was vey strong there, so while I blame the phone for some of this (esp. the very horrible signal strength and poor transition speed back to LTE when returning to a high signal area, the VZW network seems to be to blame for a lot of this)

Here's an update to my story, hope it helps. After being denied a new phone in my first go round with Apple, the the same issues were occurring after the restore, as I said. Yesterday, I lost LTE service early in the day and watched as the phone sat and sat and sat and did not acquire it back. Checked twitter to make sure verizon wasn't down, it wasn't. This time, I decided to NOT toggle airplane mode or reset the network settings so I could show Apple (since the first genius didn't believe me) that even when there's LTE available, the phone just isn't seeing it. Made another genius appointment for that evening. Ran errands at lunch which required me to go to three different areas of Manhattan - upper west, flatiron, and midtown. And all during that time, not once did the phone get LTE service again on it's own. Not ONCE. This continued through the evening and into my appointment with Apple. Showed the genius and he swapped out the phone for me quite easily this time. Even in their own store which I'm sure has a network extender (and where just 2 days ago at my first appointment I had had 5 full bars of LTE) there was no LTE service on the phone.

The 2nd phone is working MUCH better. Service in my office is still lackluster (in terms of bars), but the difference is the phone is connecting to LTE MUCH faster and STAYING on it, not losing it or hopping back and forth. In my office elevator, where I was never able to connect previously, the phone hung onto the LTE service most of the ride and I was able to load twitter and use iMessage no problem. Never happened before. And when walking around outside, the phone picked up LTE right away after exiting the elevator, versus before when it would require an airplane mode toggle to turn back on.

Point of that longwinded story for my fellow NYers/anyone: I'm sure part of the crappy service in certain locations is Verizon's fault, however, I wouldn't go switching carriers before getting your hardware swapped at least once. I'm much happier with the new phone. It's finally behaving how it should. Give it a shot!

Glad to hear that your phone swap fixed some of your bad behavior. I found in my case, a SIM swap fixed the behavior you are describing, but after the SIM swap, I still have very weak signal strength and poor LTE speeds except when in a very strong LTE location. The phone will always go back to LTE now, but it takes a very long time after I have returned to a strong LTE signal area before it swaps back. I had tried a phone swap early on and in my case, there were no noticable improvements.

I looked up my phone based on the SN and it says:

Production year: 2012

Production week: 37 (September)

Factory: C3 (China)

I'm curious what the production date is for your old SN vs. new SN.

Thanks! I had already done a SIM swap a couple of weeks ago and it didn't make the old phone any better. Don't have my old SN w/ me (but got it launch day). New SN:

Year: 2012

Week: 45 (November)

Factory: DQ (China - Foxconn)

I am also facing the reception problems when I turn ON LTE. When on 3G I get full bars as soon as I switch ON the LTE, network bars goes down to 2-3. Switching also not smooth, sometimes I have to make airplane mode ON and OFF. It's been just 2-3 days since I have an iPhone 5.

I had my phone swaped out today in NYC. Apple is great. Really nice. I dont see any changes yet. The Apple employee told me ATT service is the best in NYC with VZW being second and said its most likely network issues. Wish I never swtiched from ATT to VZW now.

If this swap doesnt work going to move back to ATT.

Pete Boston, what department should I reach out to to try and get my ETF waved?

I am in the same boat. I wish I never switched. I am selling and switching back but would like to not have to pay for the ETF. Any help would be appreciated.

I don't think these issues with the iPhone five has very much to do with what network the phones are running on. I think these issues are partly due to hardware and software defects, time will tell if this becomes another antenna gate

Hi All - MY PROBLEM APPEARS TO HAVE RESOLVED.

Believe it or not I downloaded a different application to run the radio stream and it works fantastic. Absolutely no problems so far and streaming like a champ. It even goes between 3G and LTE smoothly...then over to wireless and back to LTE smoothly.

This leads me to believe it had something do with the particular application(s)? This doesn't resolve your issues of signal coverage but I thought I would share. I have also done nothing special other than use the different app (TuneIn) - I had problems with Live365, Spotify, Pandora and a few others. All would cut out and still do! But TuneIn works like a champ.

That being said I can't imagine what would be causing the issues with all the others but I can no longer say for sure that it's a VZW or Apple issue. It's literally like night and day and I couldn't be happier at the moment...