iPhone 5 drops calls as fast as my confidence in Verizon

[MrEd123420]

I've been a happy Verizon wireless subscriber for roughly the past 7 years. I've always had LG flip phones, and in that time have had perhaps 2 dropped calls. In July 2013, I upgraded to an Apple iPhone 5 16GB in black. As each day passes, and my iPhone 5 drops more and more calls, my regret about the poor choice I made in accepting Verizon's offer to upgrade, exponentially increases.

I live in the same home as I did with all of my LG flip phones that performed flawlessly on the Verizon Network. Never was there a dropped phone call. I transmitted a great deal of data via text and picture messaging with out any significant or frequent slowdowns in speed. I never had problems in the timely receipt of my incoming texts. When I turn on either of my old LG phones and place them next to my Apple iPhone 5, they all match, showing 2 or 3 bars of service and LTE.

Conversely, my regrettable, disappointing, and obviously flawed Apple iPhone 5 does outperform all others when it comes to call dropping dependability. I can count on my iPhone to drop 100% of the incoming and outgoing calls, 100% of the time in my bedroom and in my home office. The rest of my home is about a 70/30 crap shoot in favor of it eventually dropping the call where none were ever dropped in the prior 7 years of my Verizon service using LG phones. People will send me text messages over the span of hours, or a day, and they appear to stack up somewhere until I receive an incoming phone call which pushes all of them through at the same moment as the phone begins to ring. Never had that problem before. People will phone me, and I never hear my phone ring or receive a missed call notification. Hours later my iPhone will suddenly go off with the voice mail notification, all the while between showing 2 or 3 bars of reception when I check the phone wondering why expected calls haven't called me, yet. Short of having to walk outside, trying to have a voice conversation on my iPhone 5 reminds me of the old days, and the family having to get into those awkward "TV viewing positions" and holding old style TV antennas and aluminum foil just to get a favorite station to come in better. Thanks to my Apple iPhone 5, I have to do the same "assume the position" when trying to send any picture or large data files.

No, I do not have a case on, or around my phone.

Yes, I keep my iPhone 5 in the same indoor locations that worked well for LG, and have looked for other "convenient" places to locate them for potentially better reception, with no luck.

I am located in zip code 98663.

The 4G coverage map indicates my location is deep within Verizon's  "supposed" coverage area.

I've done the recent IOS 7.0.4 software upgrade, and I think it got worse afterwards, if possible.

All 3 roaming functions are enabled.

I've tested the device in multiple places in and out of the house. It does NOT drop calls outside and data is faster, HOWEVER the iPhone continues to register the same 2 or 3 bars of reception outside as it does inside, including LTE.

I do not power cycle daily, but I do power cycle often.

I have tried resetting the Network Settings in the past.

When others are in my home and are serviced by Sprint and AT&T and others, I can use their non-Apple, non-Verizon, phones, and have ZERO DROPPED CALLS indoors.

I've been told I need one of those $250 network extenders. HAHAHAHA!!! Never had one problem in 7 years in the same house on the Verizon wireless network prior to my poor decision to accept Verizon's upgrade offer. Why, exactly, is it my responsibility to pay $250 to fix a problem that has clearly resulted from either a phone that is lacking in quality that Verizon (ironically?) "upgraded" me to into, a wireless network that is inadequately designed in my area to be compatible with some of the products Verizon sells, or both. 

This whole nightmare has severely diminished my confidence in Verizon's commitments to both quality and customer care. I sincerely hope that this plea for help from Verizon will bring an acceptable resolution and restoration of my confidence that Verizon is still willing to defend it's once good reputation, and is the wireless provider that I should be proud to be a member of, for the rest of my life. Hate to jump ship, but if there is no loyalty towards customers, why stay?

Thank you.

[vzw_customer_support]

Wow! I'm so sorry your having issues with signal since you upgraded your device MrEd123420. I can understand the frustration of having issues after having some awesome coverage with previous devices. Yes, I show your area has great coverage but of course signal can change depending on tower location, building structure, weather and congestion of that tower. We want you to be happy with your decision to stay with us. Have we filed a trouble-ticket for your issue? Have we tried replacing the device? Did the trouble-ticket indicate your area is ok and coverage inside may be challenging and the network extender could help? I hope to hear from you soon so that we can get this resolved and so that you can enjoy your service with us.

KinquanaH_VZw
Follow us on twitter @vzwsupport

[MrEd123420]

KinquanaH_VZw:

Thank you for the reply to my concerns.

I have not had a trouble ticket created over this problem. Since the iPhone 5 continuously drops calls, I have not tried to call *611 from it due to the long hold times. Early on, I made several attempts from my land line to call the 800-922-0204 number for customer service. After holding for up to 20 minutes on different days of the week and at different times of the day and never reaching an agent I became frustrated and chose to live with the problem, realizing that Verizon would be of no help to me. When I finally became disgusted with the call dropping, and related poor reception issues, I decided to research the problem, read what others had experienced, how they coped, what  problems they specifically reported,  how they communicated their problems, how they were treated by Verizon, and finally what solutions were offered by Verizon, and the ability of those solutions to improve the problem to the satisfaction of the complaining/unhappy customers.

From what I was able to dig up, it appeared that replacing the iPhone was successful in satisfying the customers issues with call dropping less than 10% of the time. Statistically speaking, I felt that replacing one iPhone for another would be a waste of my time. Besides, if I can't get through to customer service on the phone, requesting a replacement is the least of my concerns.

You mention some other things that can affect service:

-Location of tower - Lived in same home for almost 50 years. Unless you moved the tower the day I activated my iPhone and deactivated my LG Chocolate (which received flawless reception in my home). I doubt that is the problem.

-Building structure - Again lived here for almost 50 years. It has not changed since the LG had flawless reception and the iPhone has been less than satisfactory.

-Weather - In the 4 years with the LG Chocolate we had about every type of weather that is typical for this region, and never a problem. In the 6 months I've had the iPhone, the weather here has been pretty consistent and good and there is no noticeable difference to the constant call dropping.

-Tower congestion - Admittedly there were consistent blocks of time Monday-Friday that I did notice the LG slow a bit on data transmission, and attributed it to tower congestion. However, even at minimal usage times, such as 2, or 3, or 4 AM, the iPhone still is quite reliable in it's ability to drop calls and transmit data slowly.

In addition to the above things that can affect service, please keep this in mind, I have friends with smart phones on other networks, specifically Sprint and At&T. When they visit my home, I am quite envious of their reception, even when putting the phones side by side in worst spots in my home, theirs outperform mine in every test I have asked them humor me by doing. Other friends with Verizon smart phones that are not Apple products, receive better phone and data service/reception in my house than I do, but not as good as those with other providers.

From the data I was able to research, customer complaints and resolutions, and comparisons of reception in my home before and after the iPhone and with other providers, I concluded this:

Were I someday able to get through to customer service, I would be willing to jump through the hoops, as I am now, so that you can verify and collect what ever technical data you need regarding this problem.

Ultimately, I would be offered the same choice, or two, as all others having the same problem with their iPhone as I am. Exchange it for another iPhone, which is unsuccessful about 90% of the time, and/or I should purchase at my own expense a network extender. If I, and others, had always had poor reception/service in my home, I would have no problem paying for one. Since the case is the other way around, I decided to be proactive about my feelings on having to purchase one, resulting in my plea for help on the message board.

I do apologize for the length of my message, but I wanted to try to cover all of the potential questions that would be posed to me in an effort to look for causes that would eliminate the iPhone or the signal quality provided by Verizon of any blame.

Anyway, I am happy to have you open a trouble ticket and to answer any questions that anyone needs to ask, and do what needs to be done to find a solution. If you were unable to locate my account through my user name or email address I will provide that information below so that you can get started. If there is anything that involves asking a lot of questions, I suggest it be done via email, as over the phone will probably even frustrate the technician or CSR who has to call me back 20 times to complete the questions due to call dropping.

I sincerely hope that you are able to find a mutually beneficial solution to this problem.

Thank you,

>>Personal information removed to comply with the <<

Message was edited by: Verizon Moderator

[vzw_customer_support]

Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today MrEd123420. I have noted your account with the option we discussed should you choose to reconsider. We look forward to continuing to serve your wireless needs for many years to come.

JonathanK_VZW
VZW Support
Follow Us on Twitter@VZWSupport

[MrEd123420]

While I consider your offer on behalf of Verizon, I have attempted to search high and low to find a way to edit or delete my reply containing my phone number and address which I mistakenly thought was in a private email going to customer support. Would you provide me with detailed instructions how to do that, or a way to contact the discussion moderators who have the ability to edit.

Thank you

Ed

[verizonmoderator1]

>>MODERATOR COMMENT:  Personal information has been removed from previous post<<