Signal loss on IPhone SE

I went to the Apple Store again to see what the next step was and they would not replace my phone this time. I went over to the T-Mobile store and ask them what I should do. They put a bunch of notes in my account explaining what was going on. I then called T-Mobile technical support and they opened a ticket for me which I am supposed to know the resolution by tomorrow or Monday.

Here is an update. Earlier this month, after going back and forth with TMobile and Apple Store several times I got my SE replaced a 2nd time. This is the 3rd SE I've had since April. It still has the same problem.

I went to a couple T-Mobile stores and was able to reproduce the problem on their SE displays in-store just by opening Safari and going to any random website. TMo associates at the store say they had never seen that problem before I showed them. But then again most of their customers are on the larger iPhone models and not the SE. I have yet to find a T-Mobile store with a working display model that is on the new IOS 10 to see if the problem is fixed in the new IOS. Most of the display models are still on 9.3.x.

Earlier in September I opened a case with Apple phone tech support. The technician I was assigned to played phone tag with me over multiple days and weeks. Most of the time he never answered his phone and emails were rarely responded to. He had me download and install a baseband diagnostic/debugging profile on my iPhone. It collected over 1 Gigabyte worth of log files in just 24 hours which I uploaded to them and he said would be sent over to the engineering team for evaluation. After a week or so he finally got back to me. He did not relay any technical information from the engineers as to what exactly this problem is and what is causing it. Basically, I was given the runaround solution to update my phone to IOS 10 and the latest carrier settings bundle and that would fix it. My carrier settings right now is version 24.2. The latest carrier settings for TMo is 25.2 right now. But I am not sure if that will install on IOS 9.3.5. I am going to try to restore my phone to factory settings in iTunes for the 17th time and see if it will prompt me to do the carrier settings update without forcing me to install IOS 10 first.

I opened three trouble tickets on TMo. The first 2 times they said the engineers found nothing wrong. The 3rd time they said there is an issue where the phone hands off from tower to tower (or cell to cell) and that it will be fixed later this month. So besides them and Apple giving me the runaround, this still does not explain why the handoff issue is not occurring on the iPhone 6S model but it is happening on the SE.

Basically, the timing of all this really *****. IOS 10 just came out, and I am not someone who jumps to the latest IOS major release. Quite frankly I don't want IOS 10 or any of its mickey mouse features. Some of the UI changes I've read about are completely disappointing. I will wait a couple weeks or until the .2 comes out so they can squash some bugs before installing IOS 10, if I even do. Apple refuses to support me any more with this problem until I update, and I refuse to update until I know that IOS 10 will solve this problem. I thought by now I would've been switched to a 6S because Apple knows I've never seen this problem happen on that device. Oh, the sheer arrogance of this company.

On Reddit, I posed this exact question to the T-mobile sub and a systems engineer confirmed that the iPhone SE uses a smaller and less powerful antenna than the 6 and 6s. this explains why (in my non band-12 enabled area) that I have more dead areas and dropped calls than I did on my 6, the only reason I switched was due to the smaller profile and band-12 capability.

We're getting dropped calls and connectivity issues because the antenna is ****. apparently under certain scenarios on higher frequency bands the 5s would have similar issues. I'm holding out for band 12 to come online down here, if I still have cell issues after this i'm probably going to switch to the 6s.

So, after updating to IOS 10.0.2 and carrier settings 25.2 this problem is worse than ever. Now as opposed to just resetting the LTE signal for about 10-15 seconds, the phone MORE OFTEN falls back to "No Service" altogether, and it won't search for a signal for up to a minute at a time.

I finally demanded to speak to someone at Apple Customer Relations. I have been playing phone tag with them for the last 3 weeks and so far no one has offered to replace my device with a 6S or a 7. I spoke to T-Mobile relations, and unlike Apple they seem willing to help me with a replacement device. I am so ready to wash my hands of this iPhone SE.

Apple is sliding further and further into mediocrity. Jobs is for sure rolling in his grave. Stuff like this is just the tip of the iceberg about how Apple is doing very little to innovate and improve their software. If Android or Windows was the lesser of three evils, you could bet I'd be using one of those instead. But I can see Apple rapidly starting to slide behind them. This arrogant company deserves to have all of its overseas wealth taken away and redistributed to its customers and employees.

IM having the same issue with my iphone SE with reception also very week single compare to my old 4s and I'm not on T-Mobile I'm with Koodo monilty in Canada. im thinking of getting my money back

How's the SE reception is it fixed now ? Have the same phone also and I find the signal week compare to my older phone

HAve you got the SE reception fixed ? I just got the phone I find the 3G and LTE reception very week

you still have the SE ?

Its so bad people give up on calls say they will email or WhatsApp call me

Apple support has made me run from post to pillar for this problem. I have been calling me mobile service provider Vodafone since I bought the iPhone SE and they are puzzled how they have just one guy in the area with a bad connection. Apple wants me to submit the phone for testing, but the service centre guys know there is no solution, they tell me I'm wasting my time. Bought it in June-end and still no end in end-November to the problem. Better buy.a cheaper smartphone, if it doesn't work one can throw it away.

This is the most logical answer. I've the same issue and was suspecting the same thing. SE basically use the same components as 5S (except for the camera, processor and RAM).

Apple swapped my phone out with a new one today. New phone doesn't have the issue. Apple must have had a bad batch of phones.

I'm on my second se. And I'm fading in and out Verizon tried everything. Back to the Genius Bar. Frist

Only one bar most of the time

Apple changed my phone 3 times now and still the problem happen sometimes every minute. Very anno