Update from my situation...
I received my "new" iPhone 6S on Thursday, and thus far now have the data and voice connectivity that I had before (even during the same heavily congested Friday night football game as before...), meaning... I now am able to use my phone just as I had with the iPhone 6 before trying to switch to the iPhone 7. So i am a happy customer again.
Just to recap...
- Was using the iPhone 6 with AT&T for two years... I could find a few places where coverage was spotty, but over all no major complaints about dropping calls or being able to access data networks.
- I upgraded to the iPhone 7 (still with AT&T), started seeing all kinds of call drops and data transmission failures (not just slow, but failing to connect to servers) - even though the LTE connection showed one or two bars (i.e., the connection did not say "no connection").
- I dismissed the issues for two weeks, thinking that it was just poor service coverage, etc.
- Third week I started testing/comparing my old iPhone 6 side-by-side (my wife now uses that phone with AT&T, so I still had access to the phone), and anytime I was having issues with the iPhone 7, my old iPhone 6 would still work.
- I requested a return of the iPhone 7 and placed order for an iPhone 6S, which I received this past Thursday.
- Since receiving the new iPhone 6S, I have not experienced the issues that I was seeing with the iPhone 7.
please note - I did not try to simply swap the iPhone 7 for another iPhone 7, because doing so was going to put me past the first 30 days, when I could simply return altogether (AT&T buyers remorse return for any reason), and I did not want to risk having to then fight with them for downgrading me, being past that date.
Some have argued that perhaps my phone was just a bad one... that is a fair argument. But... (and while I did not know about the Intel switch before picking up the iPhone 7 and having all the issues) I can say that after reading up on the issues others are seeing with the iPhone 7 with the Intel LTE chip, I fully believe this to be the main factor of my woes. Obviously that is my limited troubleshooting opinion... ymmv