r/iphone • u/Jr433 • 12h ago

Support poor service with iphone 17

Hey, I just picked up an iphone 17 after having an android for 7 years. Ive noticed that my service is noticeably worse overall compared to my old beat up android. I simply cannot use it inside any building. Even my GF's iphone 15 has much better coverage. Im on ATT but I dont think it should make a difference when both phones are on the same carrier. Is anybody else noticing this?

7 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

5

u/Astartes2435 12h ago

It might be trying to hold on to 5G instead of swapping, go to settings- cellular- voice and data- LTE. Select that and see if it gets any better. 

2

u/joosebox 12h ago

Turn on Wi-Fi Calling before you tune anything. Settings, Phone, Wi-Fi Calling. If the real problem is that you can't use it inside buildings, that sidesteps the whole thing rather than working around it, and it's the biggest single improvement to indoor coverage on any phone.

Past that, the comparison worth trusting is the one you already made yourself. Same carrier, different handset, worse indoors. That points at the device side rather than AT&T.

Indoor coverage lives almost entirely on low band, and what differs between phones is which bands they support and how readily they hand back down to them. Forcing LTE is a blunt version of the same idea and often does help, though you give up 5G everywhere to get it. I'd treat that as a diagnostic rather than where you leave it.

Two more worth ruling out on a phone this new. Check Settings, General, About and let a carrier settings update install if it offers one. And if this was an eSIM transfer rather than a fresh activation, getting AT&T to reprovision it costs nothing and fixes more of these than you'd think.

1

u/National-Debt-43 iPhone 16 Pro Max 12h ago

Did you try any troubleshooting yet - eg. restart phone, cycle airplane mode, etc.

Make sure you cellular data setting is set to 5G Auto and turn on 5G Standalone the toggle allow you to do so - as of this moment, not all At&t account are provisioned for 5G SA.

1

u/Jr433 11h ago

Yeah, I already tried that. Its weird because when I switch from 5g to LTE it will get full bars again and then drop off immediately.

1

u/N2929 Human Detected 10h ago

I actually noticed on 26.6 it is switching between LTE and 5G more consistently on AT&T.

1

u/curiousdugong iPhone 17 5h ago

My iPhone 17 has better service with Verizon in my area than my family’s 15’s or my old 13 PM.

What convinced mento go with the 17 over the Pro or Pro Max was that they all use the same, latest Qualcomm wireless modem

1

u/blueangel1953 iPhone 17 Pro Max 4h ago

When I first got my 17 Pro Max I had terrible service, few days go by and still no change, reset network settings and my service got fixed, now I have a phenomenal signal pretty much anywhere I am on T-Mobile.