iPhone 5s call signal strength is 3 bars and my calls are breaking up?

I am having similar issues to the original poster. The signal strength of my new 5s is significantly lower than any of my previous phones (3G, 3GS, 4, 4S, or 5). While I have yet to have a dropped call, I have had several instances where the audio breaks up or falls out completely and I am unable to talk to the person on the other end of the line until it kicks back in. Nothing about my location has changed. I am using my phone in exactly the same places as I used its predecessors.

Also, as I have AT&T, I am assuming it is an issue with the phone more so than the particular service providers we have?

I'm not having a problem with the calls breaking up but I have noticed a decrease in signal strength after switching from an iPhone 5 to this 5s. My wife has a 4S and we were in the store last night and I had no signal and her phone had 2 bars of 3G service.

Yep I'm having exactly the same. iPhone 5S is rubbish compared to my old 4S. If Apple doesn't get this sorted with a baseband update my 5S is going back within the return period as I can't believe Apple have brought out a new phone with WORSE performance than the previous ones.

I am having the EXACT same problem. My 4S had four to five bars in my office, the 5S has one. When I make phone calls, the voice at the other end complains the call is breaking up, that I disappear altogether, or that I am in a tunnel. I took the phone back to the Apple store and they exchanged it. The new phone has the same problem. Interestingly I live in a high rise that has Verizon towers on the roof and I still only get two to three (shaky) bars at home. At a minimum the iPhone needs to function as a PHONE!! It does not do it well. I am ready to go back to my 4S OR switch to a non Apple product. None of my friends that have Galaxy phones have this problem.

I am also having the same exact issue. I had an iPhone 4S with Sprint servince and always had at least 4 bars of service (4 dots after iOS7 upgrade) and I am now fluctuating between 1 and 2 dots on my new iPhone 5S. I am also having people I am on the phone with tell me that I sound like I'm in a tunnel and or that I am breaking up. I am also hearing the breakup of voice service even when speaking to someone on a landline. I took my first iPhone 5S back to the store and traded it in for a new one and am having the same exact problem with this new 5S phone. I was told by the salesman at the store that the problem was due to the 5S is using different towers than the 4S and that the new towers for the 5S were still being implemented. Do I know this to be true or necesarily believe this? No. Do I hope it's true or that Apple will come up with a fix for this problem in the very, very near future? Yes. Apple, what is going on with my service? It's obvious that it's happening to users from all of the major American networks.

I would be happy with three bars! I only get one and sometimes two. I've also had the voice breaking up issue. I am on Verizon. My previous phone, Samsung Droid Charge was also on Verizon and I got four bars and no garbled voice complaints. The new iPhone 5s is a nifty gadget... But shouldn't the main focus be a PHONE?!

I have an iMac and an iPad so switched to iPhone and this is what I get. Thanks Apple.

You may want to check with the Apple Store to make sure your phone is OK.

Especially given what we've seen in the past, were this affecting all iPhone 5S units, there would certainly be a lot more posts about it here and in other news outlets.

My 5S doesn't seem to have noticeably worse performance than my 5 did.

I too had the same problem. I returned the 5s to Sprint and reactivated my old trusty 4s. Fortunately I did not do the iPhone buy back, so was able to test the phones side by side. The old 4s consistently had 2 or more signal bars than the new 5s [$199]. Sprint has an entire floor of staff in my office building, as a result, there is a Sprint transmitter on the roof. For the past 11 years I have enjoyed a solid 5 signal bars on my Sprint phones in the office, including the first floor in the elevator. [even on the old flip phones] With the 5s, my signal limped along at 2 bars in the office. The clincher was I went to a college football game 90 miles away where I always had solid service, and nada. Totally unacceptable. I returned the 5s the next day. Not without hassle, for Spint wanted to charge me a $35 restocking fee for the inferior phone.

Note that you're not necessarily doing a fair comparison, especially if your old phone was not running iOS 7.0.3.

The signal bars (actually dots now) are relative, not an absolute measure in dBµ.

Still, if you're dissatisfied, that's why the return window exists.

Interesting comment, actually I did upgrade my 4s to the new operating system weeks before I purchased the 5s and it works fine. To your comment, the signal bars may be relative...however the inability to make calls or surf the web in two cities that the 4s worked perfectly is not. My experience was there is a fundamental signal flaw with the 5s.

Ottojax wrote:

My experience was there is a fundamental signal flaw with the 5s.

That's the key; there was an issue with your 5s and perhaps those of some other posters here.

I notice no difference in my ability to make or take calls, and if it were really an issue common to the phone we'd see an uproar here and in the tech press, who just live to bash Apple.

I have the same problem. My new iphone 5s have one bar were my old iphone 4 had 3-4 bars. One other thing is that it will not drop the 3g conection and use egde insted. My old iphone 4 jump to the edge at once it have any problem with 3g signal.

I'm having the same issues!!!

But I'm with tmobile and they even sent me a signal booster which helped kinda but still don't even get full bars and every other phone in the house does

I thought I was the only one with this issues!!!

I was told by one rep that it was a known issues and they are working with Apple to fix this problem

But I don't know if it's a network issue with them or hardware I wasn't really giving a straight answer

I have exactly the same problem. I upgraded my iphone 4s to iphone 5s. The iphone 5s has such bad signal! When my wife can make calls, my iphone 5s can't find any signal and keep searching for signal! I made such a bad decision upgrading to iphone 5s. For anyone else, please don't upgrade.

BTW, I tried to turn on and off LTE options, it doesn't work at all.