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Apple iPhone 7 128GB Matte Black Dropping LTE to 4G

I have an iPhone 7 128GB Matte Black that is constantly dropping LTE service to 4G randomly while my wifes iPhone 6 works perfectly fine. This is my 2nd iPhone 7 of the same specs since I received the first one Sept 16, 2016. With the first one, I did the usually troubleshooting to include replacing sim card, turn VoLTE off and keep only data on, restored the phone and set up as new, reset network settings. Alot of troubleshooting for an $803 phone. I've read that Verizon customers are experiencing the same problem with their phones, same model, and Verizon is aware of the problem and is working with Apple to address the problem.

Has anyone else experienced this issue and is AT&T working to figure out why the phones they are selling are dropping service??

Responses

raphaelulz

Former Employee

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258 Messages

8 years ago

Hey mike! There are known documented issues with LTE to 4G fallback, but nothing specific to the iPhone 7 from what I've been able to find.

You mentioned that you've tried turning off VoLTE; have you tried the following: calling your wife's phone while VoLTE is enabled on both devices and seeing if the call quality is VoLTE-level quality?
Run a speed test using the Speed Test app, and also using fast.com and see if the 4G speeds on your phone are similar to your wife's LTE speeds

What I'm trying to accomplish with this is that it might be the phone just saying it's connected to 4G when in reality, it's utilizing LTE. Lemme know what happens; in the meantime, I'll keep my eyes peeled for other solutions!

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mikesicily

Tutor

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5 Messages

8 years ago

I haven’t noticed any notable differences between turning VoLTE off and on. While my phone was running on 4G, I was preparing my wife’s phone for speed tests. During that time it switched back to LTE. For the heck of it, I ran the speed tests regardless on both phones. After my phone switched back to LTE, I ran the test using fast.com at the same time as I ran the test with my wife’s phone. My phone ran a 6.4 Mbps download speed after returning to LTE while my wife’s phone ran a 13 Mbps download speed. I turned airplane mode off and on, on both phones and my phone doubled and sometimes tripled the speeds of my wife’s phone.

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mikesicily

Tutor

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5 Messages

8 years ago

I haven’t noticed any notable differences between turning VoLTE off and on. While my phone was running on 4G, I was preparing my wife’s phone for speed tests. During that time it switched back to LTE. For the heck of it, I ran the speed tests regardless on both phones. After my phone switched back to LTE, I ran the test using fast.com at the same time as I ran the test with my wife’s phone. My phone ran a 6.4 Mbps download speed after returning to LTE while my wife’s phone ran a 13 Mbps download speed. I turned airplane mode off and on, on both phones and my phone doubled and sometimes tripled the speeds of my wife’s phone.

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raphaelulz

Former Employee

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258 Messages

8 years ago

To give a reference: AT&T's 4G LTE download speeds range from 5-20Mbps, and upload speeds range from 3-10Mbps. Regular ol' 4G is 2-6Mbps for download and 0.5-1Mbps for upload. The speeds you're reporting for your phone fall into the LTE range. It's good that you're getting LTE speeds but the one thing that concerns me is that you're not getting a noticeable difference in audio quality between VoLTE and non-VoLTE calls --- There should be a huge difference. A VoLTE-quality call should sound similar to Facetime/Facetime Audio. What may be going on is that you get those LTE transfer speeds, but LTE-specific services like VoLTE calls, Wifi calling, etc. aren't functioning correctly.

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Busternutt

Professor

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3.2K Messages

8 years ago

@mikesicily This doesn't sound like the problem your having, but may be the fix you need anyway.

http://www.macworld.com/article/3131097/iphone-ipad/ios-10-0-3-now-update-available-for-iphone-7.html

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mikesicily

Tutor

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5 Messages

7 years ago

Yea this update didn't help at all. It was really those phones dropping service completely where as mine is just dropping LTE to 4G.

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mikesicily

Tutor

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5 Messages

7 years ago

Honestly, I never saw a difference in voice quality even before. Me using data is what concerns me most. As for the voice, I care more about whether it's dropping calls or not which doesn't happen. So just minutes ago, the phone went to 4G with 3 bars. The same amount of bars as my wife's LTE. I quickly grabbed the wife's phone and ran a fast.com test. My phone hit a whopping 2.4 Mbps while my wife's hit 5.1 Mbps. Within a minute my phone switched back to LTE on its own and when the happened, I ran another test. Speeds jumped to an 11 Mbps. So, clearly the phone is actually using 4G speeds and not just saying 4G. It's extremely annoying.

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GLIMMERMAN76

ACE - Expert

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23.9K Messages

7 years ago

It's the cheap Intel radio chip they used in the gsm version of the phone. The ones with Qualcomm chips are 30% faster. Verizon sprint and the unlocked one sold at apple stores have the Qualcomm chip. This is nothing more than apple trying to save a buck. http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/21/technology/iphone-speed-modem/index.html?category=technology

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GeekBoy

Master

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4.1K Messages

7 years ago

Actually, it's a bit more than a buck, but yes, it is a money thing. Qualcomm charges a licensing fee to use their chips that support CDMA, so for carriers which don't support CDMA, Apple chose to use the Intel chipset to save a little money.

I bought my [matte] black iPhone 7 from Apple directly using their iPhone Upgrade program so it came unlocked. When I first got it, I noticed that it was using 4G and not LTE, but over time, it has been using LTE solidly, and I have not noticed any drops to 4G.

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mikesicily

Apple iPhone 7 128GB Matte Black Dropping LTE to 4G

raphaelulz

mikesicily

mikesicily

raphaelulz

Busternutt

mikesicily

mikesicily

GLIMMERMAN76

GeekBoy

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