iPhone 5 lte signal/reception problem

Here is an AT&T customer complaining. I have experienced the same thing very poor reception with it kicking me into Edge and No Service! I called and Apple told me to go get a new SIM card, did that, same thing at work, No Service. Called Apple back and they asked a bunch of questions then asked me to restore to new. I did that but I was not able to check it out at work, it tends to be ok at home. I will be checking first thing Monday, my iPhone 4 worked fine at work so I am very disappointed that I have No Service while I am at my desk and I also have LTE off. A co-worker received his new phone Friday (also AT&T) and he has had very poor reception. Can't access the App Store, can't open most apps, cannot connect, try again later........

I will let you know if setting my phone to new made a difference.

Not satisfied at all with the IPhone 5 reception. I have 4 Iphones in the family two 3gs and a 4s. This weekend the 3gs and 4s had service and internet even though it was E or (edge) in the mountains. My I Phone 5 was in and out of service and only had internet once the whole weekend. This is on ATT network in Idaho. No case on the iphone and LTE was turned on and not around any hotspot or wfii.

Ladies and gents,

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/iphone-5-battery-life-reduced-due-to-lte- signal-strength

What this article says, essentially, is that half the advertised time is the norm. I also experienced that, with LTE eating battery so fast it nearly required 1.5 charges a day. Quite a far cry from 0.5.... (or once every 2 days or 2.5)...

presently my cellular is off.. even though I have an LTE plan, it is pointless.. I think I will shortly begin the process to get reimbursed and go down to 4S.

Spoke to a nice representative at Apple Care (800-MY-APPLE) and we're going to try to swap the HW on one of my two iPhone 5s to see if there was a bad batch of HW for both my iPhone 5 VZW's. Fingers crossed that this fixes my problem. Interestingly enough, they had no other reports of this problem, so I suggest that you contact them as well to report your problem if you're having an issue.

I have a Verizon iPhone 5 and before that a 4S. My wife has the iPhone 4. I've been really annoyed with the antenna issues I've been having.

My area has LTE, which is 5 bar strong in some areas and only 2 bar strong in others. I always was able to get 3-4 bars of 3G in my house as well as 5 solid bars outside. If I disable LTE on the iPhone 5 I get decent 3G in my house, though still not as strong as it was on my 4S. The problem is that the phone is constantly fighting between LTE and 3G. I'll have 4 bars of 3G, then it'll drop to 2 and switch over to LTE, then it will lose the LTE signal and rather than revert back to a strong 3G signal, it will get stuck on the edge network / circle icon. The only way to fix it is to turn on airplane mode, then turn it back off. The phone will revert to 3G with a solid signal for a little while.

The other issue is when the phone "says" it has switched back to 3G from LTE, sometimes programs are completely unresponsive. The phone says I have 3G, yet facebook won't load, neither will the app store, and the speedtest app reports basically no connectivity. Strangely, my upload speeds are faster than my download on 3G, where it was always the reverse before. It's as if the phone just gets confused between the LTE and 3G signals, and just gets stuck on edge. I really hope they do something about this because it's ruining an otherwise excellent phone.

I have the same issue... Its def not a hardware issue, Def a Software issue.. I did a DFU, whch helped a little.. Its a way where the phone erases the phone without anything on it, Such as no Software and downloads a fresh copy and installs a new copy...

I suggest you open up a case with 800-MY-APPLE and do a HW swap. They were willing to waive the $29 fee for me after discussing the situation since both my units came w/ LTE unstable. I haven't received the repacement HW yet to see if it fixes the probelm. ce911 claims this is a SW issue. I find that one hard to believe after wasting 11 days of my life on this since I have found other people who claim their VZ LTE iPhone 5's don't have the same problem and they're running the exact same SW, reloading the OS did nothing for me.

I would normally just do as you said and swap the phone, but my phone is perfect in pretty much every way. Not a single pixel issue, not a scuff mark in sight, the home button feels great...it's perfect. I would hate to risk getting a phone with more defects just to discover the problem exists in it as well. I'm hoping it's a software issue, considering I'm able to get very high LTE in spots, and in areas where there is no LTE to be found my 3G is perfect. It just seems like the phone is getting torn between the two signals instead of quickly determing which is stronger and sticking with it.

I feel the same as you, but not being able to have LTE work reliably (pretty much at all) at all is a showstopper for me, doesn't matter that there isn't a scratch on the device or a dot on the screen. If the replacement HW comes and it does not fix the problem and/or it causes another problem, you can speak with the Apple folks to return back the replacement HW instead of your original one, so you will be fine.

Iphone 5 Verizon in Connecticut, same issue here, while sitting in home office, 2 bars reception, shut off LTE, immediately goes to 4 bars. Have tried this at other locations around my region with same results.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, 800-MY-APPLE had no other reports of this issue when I contacted them. Please open a case on the topic. My replacement HW looks like it will be here today, so I can let you know if it fixes the problem or not.

Going to your local Apple store is a waste of time, mine plugged my phone in to a Mac, told me everything was fine even though I showed them that I could only pull down 2Mb/s in their store with 4-5 LTE bars and I showed them a picture I took of a non-Apple LTE device on VZW right next to it pulling down 26Mb/s.

Pete, It might be hard to believe, but seeing is believing.. LOL but its the truth, look at how many people are having issues with rattling, You can replace all day long and you might get a unit with no ratteling but majority of units have it so its a design thing and not a defect. As for the LTE issue, its a software issue, The software is not telling the phone in a organized reliable way what antenna to use, alot of people are exsperiencing this issue, its not like only a few people are. This is all new to them, I guarntee within 3 months they will have a software release with bug fixes, If there really is an issue with hardware they would announce a recall and do some sort of program to satisfiy there customers. They are not the types to say screw our customers.. Getting HW replacments sometimes is the answer but more of a hassel, You also forgot to mention when you do this you need to give them 600.00 or more to hold on your credit card until you send back the old unit.

If you guys remeber when the 4 came out, there was an reception issue where the signal strength meter showed 5 bars but service was really 2 bars or somthing simular where it showed higher but actually lower, people were dropping calls left and right, then apple came out with a software release which showed accurate reception.

I had no problem giving Apple a $930 hold on my credit card so I could determine if a HW swap would work, if that is an issue for you, I definitely understand. Keep in mind that Apple has sold how many million of units to VZW customers. There are only 100 or 200 of us complaining and I have a bunch of friends who have VZW LTE phones and are experiencing no problems, which is why even though I was convinced originally it was a SW problem as well, I am not as convinced.

Perhaps I will be convinced back to my original theory of a SW problem if the replacement HW shows up today and doesn't work.

Either way, if you guys are just sitting here posting complaints in this thread and not calling Apple's 800#, they are not working on this problem for you. So even if you don't want a HW swap, open up a case and report your symptoms. I will report back to this group immediately after setting up the device to either report that the HW-swap has the same problem or that it fixed my issue and then you guys can decide how to proceed.

The only thing I ask is that you call the 800-MY-APPLE and open yourself up a case. There is no cost to do this and they cannot be aware of how serious a problem they have (whether it's SW or HW), unless they are being told of this. Also, while you're at it, open up a VZW case as well. When I opened mine up, supposedly nobody else in the country was reporting it to them either 🙂

BTW - field test menu is under Phone *3001#12345#* Call, this will report -112 to -115dBM for me most of the time I have a LTE signal.

I am going to call Apple and at least notify them of the issue, per your recommendation. Please let us know how the replacement works out. Thanks.

edit: As for Verizon, they're full of it. They always say they have no other reported cases of something. It's happened several times where a forum with hundreds of people all called and complained, only to be told this is the first time Verizon had heard about the issue, lol.