I just got my iPhone 5 yesterday morning (10/18/12) and all went well with the changeover from my iPhone 4 until I made my first call, mobile to mobile, to a friend who is also on the Verizon. The friend doesn't have a Smartphone but I have talked to her for the last two years from my iPhone 4 without ANY glitches or problems, and clear as a bell.
I am in a small town that is supposed to get LTE by the end of the month so I was on the same 3G as I've used for two years on the IP4
She said her end was fine (my voice) but my end (her voice) was terrible. Same as described in all the other post here, tinny, faded in and out, sort of like wavy, strong and then nothing. I sat in the same chair I have talked to her from with the iPhone 4, so nothing different. The call was terrible.
(backing up a bit).. earlier in the day I wanted to see how the new earbuds sounded so I watched part of a Star Trek movie and it was wonderful, so the new buds are fine. So the IP5 is working just fine on anything except a phone call.
During my call to my friend I was using the new buds but since the call was bad I started to experiment. I changed my new buds for the old buds.. no difference. I tried the speaker phone.. same, no difference. I got up and moved around.. same N.Diff. I went outside and moved around trying to get more bars (I had 3).. N.Diff.
The call was a total flop. Sounded terrible, faded in and out but didn't drop the call. I have a very expensive set of Bose earbuds that I didn't think about trying but since the other two sets of Apple buds work fine on my IP4 I didn't think of trying them.
This morning I called Verizon and got bumped up to a higher tier of support and the rep tried everything. Power on and off, pull the Sim card, etc. Nothing worked. As we were trying different things she would call me on my IP5 (I was on my land line) but nothing worked. She said she would note on my account that I was to go to the nearest Verizon store to get a new Sim card but when I did that this afternoon the local Verizon store would not change it out (saying they didn't have any, but I think that was a lie) because the Sim card would make no difference in the call quality. Plus they didn't have any iPhone 5's to swap out so I had no options there either.
So I came home and called the Verizon rep back and left a message (we are on different coasts, so she was gone). Maybe she will call tomorrow.
In the mean time I will be using my new phone until it gets close to the 14 days and I have to return it if nothing gets any better. I will just go back to my IP4 and be happy that it has worked flawlessly for the last two years.
I turned off the LTE since it will be a couple of weeks or so until they get it changed over around here and I also turned off the International CDMA and will experiment with that for a while.
Not sure if anything will come of it but I paid $800.00 for my IP5 32 gig in order to keep my unlimited data plan with Verizon so I'm not going to keep a $800.00 paperweight that fronts as a phone, it will go back for credit before the 14 days are up.
Thanks for all the posts, I'm sorry (but also glad) that I am not the only one that is having this problem as I am a long long long time Apple and Mac user but have a bad feeling that Apple is rushing things like they used to in the past and dumping them on the public to work out the bugs (which was almost their downfall until they brought S. Jobs back).
I just get the feeling that the guys at the Verizon store know more than they are passing off because even though I never mentioned it, the rep a the store said something off hand about the ear bud plug when I asked if others were having a problem but of course he ended by saying.. not a single problem at their store with the iPhone 5. He didn't remember that when I was in there last week there was another customer that had purchased a new IP5 that was very upset about the reception and call quality, complaining rather adamantly to another Verizon rep.
