Question About 4G LTE Service
KatieMcNemar
Enthusiast - Level 1

Hi! I’m not sure if I’m posting this question in the correct location, so if I’m not, I apologize in advance. Just point me in the right direction and I’ll gladly post this somewhere else if need be. 
 
We have 8 lines on our account, 2 of which are Apple iPads. We have been with Verizon since 2007. We do live in a rural area so I understand spotty coverage and such. However, we moved to our current house in May of 2015. We have never had any problems with our service until this year. All of the lines on the account work great at home for the most part, occasionally the signal will be weak and we’ll have to power off the devices and turn them back in or toggle with some settings and everything is good to go. The problem is my line though. I’m the main line on the account and my phone is almost unusable unless I’m on WiFi. The problem with that is we have satellite internet and somehow our satellite internet is faster than the 4G LTE service with Verizon. 

This all started in January of 2020 when I upgraded my line from the Apple iPhone XS Max to the Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max. If I could go back in time, I would have never done that, unfortunately I did and here we are. Almost right off the bat, the 11 Pro Max would get really poor service with the 4G LTE and would be extremely slow. Mainly at home but even if we go somewhere that had decent service, it wouldn’t be as fast as everyone else’s. So I get a hold of Verizon Customer Service and Tech Support and I was instructed I was within my 14 days and to take the phone back to the store and they would swap it out for a new one. Okay, great! I take the phone to the store, they swap it out and assure me I would be fine. I get home and it happens again. But like I mentioned before, no other device in the account has the same problem, just mine. I spend days, weeks and months chatting and calling Verizon to troubleshoot my phone and nothing works. Finally they send me a new SIM card in hopes that would fix the problem. Long story short, it didn’t.

So they send me a warranty replacement back in June 2020. Same thing continues, I’m more than frustrated at this point because again, I can’t use my device at home unless I’m on WiFi. Even phone calls are horrible because people couldn’t hear  me on the other end, they said I would cut in and out and it would sound like a lot of static. I tell Verizon, they don’t seem to care, so I just terrible it up and use WiFi at home. Well, the end of August rolls around and 2 out of my 3 kids are getting ready to go back to school and they are doing remote learning through their district. I need my phone to be able to communicate with teachers, especially for phone calls and such. I finally convince Verizon to send me another warranty replacement after being blind transferred to this department and that, I would get hung up on, chat would just magically stop. I had to call in 3 separate times to speak to a supervisor because the representatives kept hanging up on me. Finally the supervisor agrees to send me a brand new Apple iPhone XS. I originally just wanted to be able to go back to the Apple iPhone XS Max but they were out of stock online and the stores. 
 
I received the brand new Apple iPhone XS Friday. Everything seemed good and I was so excited and so happy that it felt like Verizon was finally listening to me. Then Saturday night rolls around and this time it goes from LTE to 3G to 1X to absolutely no service on my brand new phone! I reset the network settings and erased settings and nothing. Then via chat I’m instructed to remove the SIM card and that worked for about 15 minutes, then the problem happened again. I call and chat yesterday (Sunday) and talk to 4 different representatives on the phone about the SIM card. First representative told me to pick up the SIM card at the store, I get there and they refuse to give me one unless I pay out of pocket because they’re not a corporate store. So I call Verizon and it takes 3 representatives to finally agree to send me a SIM card. The last representative I spoke to on the phone was a “supervisor.” I get no email or notification that my order has been placed so I open up a chat to check on it and there was no order placed for the SIM card. So the representative I was chatting with places the order for me and I immediately get an email notification about the order while chatting. It shouldn’t have taken that many people to help me, but for whatever reason it did. 

So my question is, is it possible for only 1 phone (my phone which is the main line) on the account to have an issue and the others work fine? Has someone at Verizon toggled with my settings on their end? I say that lightly because I really don’t want to believe that, but at this point and the way this year has been going, I’m starting to believe anything is possible. It’s so weird because no matter where I go at home such as a different room or outside/inside my phone will constantly lose signal but everyone else’s will work just fine and I can’t understand why. 

I’m sorry that this is so long, but I wanted to give as much information as I could to better help someone understand what is really going on. Any help would be appreciated. 

0 Likes
Re: Question About 4G LTE Service
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

KatieMcNemar

We appreciate all those details. It is possible for one device to have issues while other devices have no problems at the same location. This is an indication that the problem may be isolated on that phone. The SIM card is what connects that device to our network. Changing the SIM card is the next best step towards resolving the signal fluctuation issue on your phone. We hope that this explanation is helpful to you. 

 

 

 

 

0 Likes
Re: Question About 4G LTE Service
KatieMcNemar
Enthusiast - Level 1

Thank you, Verizon for your prompt response, I do appreciate it. If this was the first device and first SIM card, I would be inclined to believe you, but it’s not. I’ve had multiple SIM cards and devices and no change. Here I am now with a brand new device, not a certified refurbished, this came out of box with plastic wrapping around that I had to take off to get to the phone. It was preloaded with a SIM card, how is a brand new device’s SIM card faulty right off the bat? Like I stated previously I am having a new SIM card sent to me, it’s scheduled to be here Wednesday September 23, 2020 and I’m willing to give it a shot. However, I have a gut feeling it’s not going to work, it’s going to be the same problem I’ve been having. So the next question would be why? Why do I continuously have this problem no matter what I do? 

0 Likes
Re: Question About 4G LTE Service
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

@KatieMcNemar I totally get where you're coming from. We appreciate your willingness to go through with the troubleshooting. I'm confident we'll be able to find a solution as long as we follow the right steps. We don't want you to continue having issues with your service. Please follow up with us once you try the SIM card and we'll be happy to continue troubleshooting.

0 Likes
Re: Question About 4G LTE Service
jadriannej
Newbie

I am having this issue too! 

Brand new iphone 11 and if i have less than 4 bars of LTE my service gets extremely slow or doesnt' work at all.

My boyfriend who has ATT can have as little as 2 bars of 5G and still have better service than me. I have to use his hotspot constantly .

I need to figure this immediately out or will be switch to ATT asap.  Verizon calls itself a top network and yet I rarely have good service 

0 Likes
Re: Question About 4G LTE Service
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

Hello jadriannej, we're here to help! We've sent you a Private Note to better assist. Please reply to it. ~Baldo

0 Likes