iPhone XS Max Is the mobile reception on the xs Max even worse than iPhone X ?

[Nhwhazup]

I'm not totally sure of that. There are people who probably do not even know that their phone does not work properly. We know that many Apple followers buy only for the brand, and do not understand how it works or detect if it works well. Ojo, I do not say that all fail, there are people out there enjoying their purchase, but I am also sure that there is a percentage that simply does not know / does not care.

I totally agree with you here. I noticed my first Max losing connection several times in areas where my 6S Plus was fine. I looked on the forums to see if anyone else was having problems and of course found this thread. So maybe without coming across this I may have been totally ignorant of the problems that others were also having.
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My testing

I am sure that most people don't live in fringe areas and have saturated cell phone coverage. A good way to test out your phone is to stream music or video and drive around. You might be shocked at all the drops you will have and those times you also can't make calls either no matter how many fake bars you have on your phone . But most people want to be a cheerleader for apple and ignore the real truth . I am sure that they will also report this post and try to get me banned but it's all good

This is exactly how I realized something wasn’t right - my daily walk listening to NPR.

 

[archer75]

I have TMobile too. I’ve found my xs max is on par wit my 7+ in regards to cellular.

Same here. Our daughters have a 7 and a 8+. Our reception on our maxes is the same as those.

 

[Nhwhazup]

Any idea what band the ATT microcell tower uses? Neither of my Maxes had any problem reconnecting with the Microcell.

 

[Nikhil72]

I notice on the SF muni it hangs onto the LTE connection longer when leaving the stations but no data as to be expected. Apple is giving the allusion you have service when you don't.

When I said it seems better I mean I can actually transfer data, send texts, and reload twitter. So,not an illusion.

 

[chripuck]

This one is fairly easy in my book: Anytime you still get a LTE signal you are not in a difficult location.

Find a location where your 7 is getting barely 1 bar 3G or 4G. Then let us know what your Xs does.

This is where my 6 and 8 stay connected and my XSM does not.

I get it even in places where it shows one bar of LTE, nevermind 3G or 4G.
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I recall reading this thread when it was young, but I thought this was a Verizon mostly issue? I have not experienced any slow speeds or cellular/wifi issues especially after the most recent patch which fixed my wifi issues. I have AT&T. I got better speeds than my Samsung N9 or S9+ with speed tests for download speeds. Trying it again now, same results, but Upload speed is bad on the iPhone where my S9+ got much better upload speeds. Same server.

I have the XS Max.

View attachment 797105 View attachment 797106

It's same with my iPhone 7, but I'm on TMo. I get 4-6 upstream on my 7, but .5 on my XS at the exact same spot with near identical numbers in field test mode.

 

[madKIR]

Because software fix is easier than hardware fix Apple will fix this issue when the new iphone get release in fall of 2019.

I have been saying this all along, but many seem to be in denial, I guess. When the iPhone 4 was released and the antenna design flaw was revealed, it was very easy to replicate it, hence Apple was forced to address it. You can't really replicate issues with the Xs/Xs Max in this regard. It only affects people in low signal areas. Apple is not going to really address this. Granted, they're most likely working on a fix, but that will be a hardware revision for next year.

 

[chripuck]

So if I run 5 speed tests I’m using over a GB of data? Where’d you get those figures?

Do you mean MB or Mb?

If the speeds are fast enough, yes. If you're getting 100 mbps, then that's roughly ~10 MB every second.
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Since this thread moves so fast I'm going to ask again.

How does one perform the above tests on their iPhone? I'd like to try on my own and report back with my results.

Google Field Test Mode on the iPhone. It's a sequence of numbers in the phone dialer.

 

[solodogg]

iPhones do not like band 13. In many instances, an iPhone will NEVER connect to the LTE Network Extender if you don't toggle airplane mode upon returning home. It should gracefully connect since you've got a tower in your house with a strong signal. Yet, upon returning home, many times the iPhone will happily sit with 1 bar of band 4 from the cell tower for hours and never connect to the Network Extender. Basically, the phone never looks for alternative options if the band 4 signal is above a certain point and it will only connect to band 13 as an absolute last resort.

You do understand that LTE band steering is controlled in the carrier profile that Verizon sends to your phone, and not by Apple themselves, right? Verizon wants you to be on B4 as much as possible, and leave B13 for those people that cannot obtain a usable signal on the higher frequencies at their location, especially since B13 is only 10x10 nationwide while quite a few markets have 20x20 B4 coverage.

 

[jkozlow3]

You do understand that LTE band steering is controlled in the carrier profile that Verizon sends to your phone, and not by Apple themselves, right? Verizon wants you to be on B4 as much as possible, and leave B13 for those people that cannot obtain a usable signal on the higher frequencies at their location, especially since B13 is only 10x10 nationwide while quite a few markets have 20x20 B4 coverage.

I've heard a lot of different stories as to who controls the band-steering logic. I've heard it is controlled by the tower, by the carrier profile and by Apple's software (in the case of the iPhone). Heck, even one of the Verizon engineers I spoke with said there is NOTHING Verizon can do to improve the logic of when to fall back to band 13 and that it is up to Apple to fix! Not sure if he is correct, but that's what I was told.

And why would iPhones not reliably connect to Verizon's own Network Extender (band 13) when a weak band 4 signal is present on the cell tower if this is something Verizon could control?? That makes no sense. Yet I've had the issue on 3 different iPhones (7, 8, XS) with 2 different LTE Network Extenders. And the Verizon Engineer said that he generally doesn't see issues with Samsungs connecting to the Network Extender on band 13 - only iPhones. So again, if Verizon could control this, why wouldn't they?

 

[Nhwhazup]

Go look at the results page on the Speedtest app. It’ll tell you how much data was used for each test. The higher the speeds are in a test the more data used. So it depends on the speeds you are getting. On a test that resulted in 86Mbps download it said it used 144MB of data. The upload portion of that test used 27MB of data.

OMG. Too funny. I was wondering why I was using so much more data this month. LOL. Love MacRumors.

 

[imtoomuch]

Field Test says Band 13 and rsrp0 is -101

Sometimes when I go into LTE>Serving Cell Info it is BLANK

No idea what those settings mean. Thoughts?

Also, do you guys have Wi-Fi Assist turned on or off?

 

[ET iPhone Home]

Still.... Connection issues!?!?!?!? Okay, I just got my XS Max and I'll be testing LTE when I head to work tomorrow doing iPhone tasks. If this hell-of-a-phone gives me any issues with connections, I am returning it. So far, my calls have been good - no drop calls. My bluetooth connection to my car paired perfectly, and connecting to home wifi showed no difficulty or issues. Now we'll see about LTE and report back in a few days.

 

[jkozlow3]

Field Test says Band 13 and rsrp0 is -101

Sometimes when I go into LTE>Serving Cell Info it is BLANK

No idea what those settings mean. Thoughts?

Also, do you guys have Wi-Fi Assist turned on or off?

Field Test screens being blank is a bug. Not sure when it started. Sometimes you have to exit field test and go back into it a few times. Or simply go back to the main Field Test screen and try again a few times.

rsrp of -101 is an OK LTE signal. Not spectacular, but good enough. Once you get above -106 to -110 or so, this is a fairly weak LTE signal.

Are you always seeing band 13? No other bands? Even after a few minutes? My iPhones have always locked onto band 13 immediately after toggling airplane mode but always fall back to band 2 or 4 with Verizon after 30-60 seconds or so.

WiFi Assist = on for me. All that does is tell the phone it's OK to use LTE instead of WiFi if the WiFi signal is bad enough. You'll stay connected to WiFi, but your phone may use LTE in the background instead. It only does this when the WiFi signal is total crap. If you look at Settings>Cellular and Scroll down to WiFi Assist, you'll see how much LTE data in MB your phone has used vs. WiFi. My phone has only used 6MB of WiFi assist since I got it a month ago.

 

[imtoomuch]

Field Test screens being blank is a bug. Not sure when it started. Sometimes you have to exit field test and go back into it a few times. Or simply go back to the main Field Test screen and try again a few times.

rsrp of -101 is an OK LTE signal. Not spectacular, but good enough. Once you get above -106 to -110 or so, this is a fairly weak LTE signal.

Are you always seeing band 13? No other bands? Even after a few minutes? My iPhones have always locked onto band 13 immediately after toggling airplane mode but always fall back to band 2 or 4 with Verizon after 30-60 seconds or so.

WiFi Assist = on for me. All that does is tell the phone it's OK to use LTE instead of WiFi if the WiFi signal is bad enough. You'll stay connected to WiFi, but your phone may use LTE in the background instead. It only does this when the WiFi signal is total crap. If you look at Settings>Cellular and Scroll down to WiFi Assist, you'll see how much LTE data in MB your phone has used vs. WiFi. My phone has only used 6MB of WiFi assist since I got it a month ago.

I checked numerous times tonight and freq_band_ind is always 13. I've been at my house all night. Is sticking to band 13 good or bad?

 

[Packers1958]

Field Test says Band 13 and rsrp0 is -101

Sometimes when I go into LTE>Serving Cell Info it is BLANK

No idea what those settings mean. Thoughts?

Also, do you guys have Wi-Fi Assist turned on or off?

Toggle airplane mode on and off, and it will display it.

 

[jkozlow3]

I checked numerous times tonight and freq_band_ind is always 13. I've been at my house all night. Is sticking to band 13 good or bad?

Are you on Verizon? I'm not sure if any other carriers use Band 13 or not.

Band 13 isn't bad...in some cases I wish my phone would use it more often. Data is often slower on band 13 vs. the other bands in most markets (i.e. Band 2/4) and has less capacity. Not an issue if you are on WiFi at home however.

iPhones/Verizon don't like to use band 13 (I'm not 100% sure if this is due to Apple's software or Verizon's carrier settings). So I'm guessing you must be in a weakish signal area where the weaker bands (band 2/4) don't have sufficient signal to be usable. If they did, your phone would most likely be on one of them instead. Bands 2/4 are like 5GHz WiFi - shorter range but (usually) better speeds and higher capacity (more users) vs. band 13 which has better range (like 2.4GHz WiFi) but usually lower speeds and capacity.

As I've stated before, I think *some* of the issue with the XS is not falling back to the stronger reaching bands (i.e. Band 13) soon enough. It hangs onto band 2/4 for dear life instead of falling back to band 13 when it probably should. So maybe the band 4 signal is "good enough" 99% of the time but then a truck passes by your house and that disrupts the signal just enough to cause the call to drop. Had the phone fallen back to band 13 due to a lower threshold in the software, the minor disruption would have been a non-issue. But the minor disruption, even though it was only for a split second, caused the cell signal to go from -110 (usable) to -120 (unusable). The phone couldn't switch bands fast enough and the call dropped.

This is just an example, but I believe some of this behavior could certainly be improved by software. On Verizon: If phone falls below 2 bars of signal on band 2/4, switch to band 13 instead. Done.

 

[imtoomuch]

Are you on Verizon? I'm not sure if any other carriers use Band 13 or not.

Band 13 isn't bad...in some cases I wish my phone would use it more often. Data is often slower on band 13 vs. the other bands in most markets (i.e. Band 2/4) and has less capacity. Not an issue if you are on WiFi at home however.

iPhones/Verizon don't like to use band 13 (I'm not 100% sure if this is due to Apple's software or Verizon's carrier settings). So I'm guessing you must be in a weakish signal area where the weaker bands (band 2/4) don't have sufficient signal to be usable. If they did, your phone would most likely be on one of them instead. Bands 2/4 are like 5GHz WiFi - shorter range but (usually) better speeds and higher capacity (more users) vs. band 13 which has better range (like 2.4GHz WiFi) but usually lower speeds and capacity.

As I've stated before, I think *some* of the issue with the XS is not falling back to the stronger reaching bands (i.e. Band 13) soon enough. It hangs onto band 2/4 for dear life instead of falling back to band 13 when it probably should. So maybe the band 4 signal is "good enough" 99% of the time but then a truck passes by your house and that disrupts the signal just enough to cause the call to drop. Had the phone fallen back to band 13 due to a lower threshold in the software, the minor disruption would have been a non-issue. But the minor disruption, even though it was only for a split second, caused the cell signal to go from -110 (usable) to -120 (unusable). The phone couldn't switch bands fast enough and the call dropped.

This is just an example, but I believe some of this behavior could certainly be improved by software. On Verizon: If phone falls below 2 bars of signal on band 2/4, switch to band 13 instead. Done.

Yes, I am on Verizon. My home is also in a weak signal area.

 

[Packers1958]

I checked numerous times tonight and freq_band_ind is always 13. I've been at my house all night. Is sticking to band 13 good or bad?

After running field test mode, it's best to reboot your phone, as it keeps running in the background if you don't.

 

[solodogg]

I've heard a lot of different stories as to who controls the band-steering logic. I've heard it is controlled by the tower, by the carrier profile and by Apple's software (in the case of the iPhone). Heck, even one of the Verizon engineers I spoke with said there is NOTHING Verizon can do to improve the logic of when to fall back to band 13 and that it is up to Apple to fix! Not sure if he is correct, but that's what I was told.

And why would iPhones not reliably connect to Verizon's own Network Extender (band 13) when a weak band 4 signal is present on the cell tower if this is something Verizon could control?? That makes no sense. Yet I've had the issue on 3 different iPhones (7, 8, XS) with 2 different LTE Network Extenders. And the Verizon Engineer said that he generally doesn't see issues with Samsungs connecting to the Network Extender on band 13 - only iPhones. So again, if Verizon could control this, why wouldn't they?

Why would Verizon admit fault if they had someone else to blame? Also, have you personally witnessed a Samsung not experiencing the same issue, because my S8 always prefers a weak B4 signal over a strong B13 signal at my house and office both, to the point where calls will drop before it switches.

Some time ago, when iPhone 5 was first released, B13 was the preferred service. Once Verizon started mass deployment of B4, after some time they updated carrier profiles to make B4 preferred with B13 as a backup. The carrier profile is also responsible for allowing WiFi calling and VoLTE, as well as carrier aggregation groups for each of the providers.

 

[vinegarshots]

rsrp of -101 is an OK LTE signal. Not spectacular, but good enough. Once you get above -106 to -110 or so, this is a fairly weak LTE signal.

The dumb thing (IMO) is that my Max shows full 4-bars of signal with a -95 signal. I'm not sure how they are calculating the bars these days, but -95 doesnt seem like it should be a 4 bar signal to me.

 

[jkozlow3]

Why would Verizon admit fault if they had someone else to blame? Also, have you personally witnessed a Samsung not experiencing the same issue, because my S8 always prefers a weak B4 signal over a strong B13 signal at my house and office both, to the point where calls will drop before it switches.

Some time ago, when iPhone 5 was first released, B13 was the preferred service. Once Verizon started mass deployment of B4, after some time they updated carrier profiles to make B4 preferred with B13 as a backup. The carrier profile is also responsible for allowing WiFi calling and VoLTE, as well as carrier aggregation groups for each of the providers.

No, I haven't witnessed Samsung devices switching to B13. Like I said, I'm just going off of what I've been told and the fact that iPhones often don't connect to Verizon's own Network Extender (B13) if the B4 signal from the cell tower is "good enough". That's just ridiculous. Sounds like Verizon's network is just as flawed as the rest of the carriers if they have logic that prefer to drop a call on B4 vs. switch to B13 and Verizon is in fact causing this behavior (vs. Apple's software).

 

[solodogg]

No, I haven't witnessed Samsung devices switching to B13. Like I said, I'm just going off of what I've been told and the fact that iPhones often don't connect to Verizon's own Network Extender (B13) if the B4 signal from the cell tower is "good enough". That's just ridiculous. Sounds like Verizon's network is just as flawed as the rest of the carriers if they have logic that prefer to drop a call on B4 vs. switch to B13 and Verizon is in fact causing this behavior (vs. Apple's software).

I don't know that I would call it flawed necessarily. Low frequency bandwidth is pretty limited on all 4 carriers, so it does make sense to steer devices to use higher frequency bands when possible. Unfortunately, there's no reliable way to test whether or not the services on the higher frequency bands are functional outside of signal and quality measurements, which is what each device relies on.

IMO, the thresholds to drop back down to low frequency bands could stand to be a little lower, but I don't see any of the carriers making that adjustment anytime soon. When they were setup that way previously, data was basically unusable on B12/13/17 across the carriers due to limited bandwidth and backhaul, which is compounded more by the fact that lower frequency transmitters have to be placed at further distances apart to keep from interfering with each other. T-Mobile really struggled with B12 being all but worthless for this exact reason, and Verizon isn't much different aside from having 10x10 nationwide vs 5x5 on 700mhz.

 

[jkozlow3]

The dumb thing (IMO) is that my Max shows full 4-bars of signal with a -95 signal. I'm not sure how they are calculating the bars these days, but -95 doesnt seem like it should be a 4 bar signal to me.

Well, we've gone from a 5-bar scale to a 4-bar scale. I think -95 is probably right on the border of what I would call "full bars" for LTE. -95 is actually fairly decent for LTE from what I've read.

 

[solodogg]

The dumb thing (IMO) is that my Max shows full 4-bars of signal with a -95 signal. I'm not sure how they are calculating the bars these days, but -95 doesnt seem like it should be a 4 bar signal to me.

LTE signal strength is calculated and displayed completely different than 1x/2G/3G/FauxG services. RSSI was typically used with older services, where LTE is using RSRP and RSRQ.

http://usatcorp.com/faqs/understanding-lte-signal-strength-values/

Well, we've gone from a 5-bar scale to a 4-bar scale.

And from my experience, it just appears Apple dropped the 5th bar instead of adjusting for a 1-4 scale. My Xs matches signal strength bar for bar to my Sync system in the car (1 bar on the phone shows 1 bar on the car display, 4 bars shows 4 on the car display, etc.), but I will see the 5th bar show up on the car from time to time.

 

[jkozlow3]

I don't know that I would call it flawed necessarily. Low frequency bandwidth is pretty limited on all 4 carriers, so it does make sense to steer devices to use higher frequency bands when possible. Unfortunately, there's no reliable way to test whether or not the services on the higher frequency bands are functional outside of signal and quality measurements, which is what each device relies on.

IMO, the thresholds to drop back down to low frequency bands could stand to be a little lower, but I don't see any of the carriers making that adjustment anytime soon. When they were setup that way previously, data was basically unusable on B12/13/17 across the carriers due to limited bandwidth and backhaul, which is compounded more by the fact that lower frequency transmitters have to be placed at further distances apart to keep from interfering with each other. T-Mobile really struggled with B12 being all but worthless for this exact reason, and Verizon isn't much different aside from having 10x10 nationwide vs 5x5 on 700mhz.

Well perhaps the phones should assess the situation more frequently and even take WiFi status into account. If I'm on WiFi, why should the phone not be more eager to switch to a lower frequency band such as B13 or B12? Voice takes up very little bandwidth vs. data. The threshold for switching bands is not low enough IMO. Why even have Band 13 if almost NONE of your devices can even utilize it anymore due to ridiculous thresholds before a device will switch to it? Seems like they've tipped the scale too far in the other direction.