iPhone 5 Volume Buttons Don't Affect Ringer Volume

This thread concerns the brand new iPhone 5 running IOS 6.0 and the loss of volume button functionality with regard to controlling the Ringer and Alerts volume levels.

Here are the symptoms;

1. When the volume buttons are pressed on the home screen I see a generic speaker symbol appearring with no text (label) above it such as 'ringer' or 'headphones'. The generic speaker level indicator DOES increase and decrease as I press volume + or -.
2. When in Settings, Sounds, and I press the volume buttons, I again get the generic speaker symbol with no text above it. Everything is the same as above in bullet 1. The intended behavior should be that the Slider, for the Ringer and Alerts area, should increase and decrease with respect to the volume button presses. It is unaffected regardless of the setting of the 'Change with Buttons' option. I have tried it Off and On, numerous times.
3. When I manually slide the Ringer and Alerts volume slider with my finger, the ringtone and alerts volume is correctly changed.
4. When I manually slide the Ringer and Alerts volume slider, the phone plays a 'sample' of the current ringtone at the chosen and appropriate volume level. *** At this exact moment, the Volume Buttons do actually work correctly for about 2 seconds of the sampling. After the ringtone sample/demo stops playing, the volume buttons go back to behaving as in the previous steps.
5. If I go to the Ringtone selection area, where I get the full list of ringtones to choose from, I can select a different ringtone to use. As usual, when I select a new ringtone from the list, it plays back that ringtone for me to hear. *** At this exact moment, the Volume Buttons will correctly and successfully alter my Ringtone and Alerts volume until the ringtone playback stops. Then it goes back to the broken behavior yet again. Note: I successfully see the volume slider for Ringtones and Alerts going up and down as I adjust it with the Volume Buttons until the ringtone playback stops.

Is anyone else experiencing this? Apple, can you assist?

Thanks,

Alan