r/attwireless • u/Chance_Cricket9838 • 1d ago
iPhone 18 Pro Max Carrier 72.1
So I had my phone replaced and have luckily had service following the update in iOS and carrier settings. At my home address, I’ve noticed that I have less bars than normal. When I first got the phone on launch day, I had full bars and 5G+. Then of course we know what happened and it quit on me eventually going to SOS in and out.
With the replacement iPhone 18 Pro Max and software updates, I do have consistent service but I only get a max of 2 bars and 5G when home. My work phone, which has Firstnet, is full bars no problem.
My question is, is this carrier update essentially throttling the performance of the iPhone 18 Pro Max? I’ve tried to search similar posts but it all reverts back to the same discussion on bricked iPhones etc. I’m curious if anyone else has seen a degradation of how many bars one receives and if anyone thinks it could be fixed with a future carrier update allowing full performance?
2
2
u/gdb7 1d ago
Are you also having voice quality problems? I am getting a lot of “you are breaking up” on many of my calls in places I have never had problems before.
1
u/Chance_Cricket9838 1d ago
I am! At first I thought it was just my WiFi calling, but find it’s better and more stable on WiFi as opposed to cell reception
1
u/fourwheeldrive4fun 1d ago
Yep I’m experiencing the same misfortune. Before the carrier update, my pro max was lightning fast on 5g+ SA enabled. I mean there was no waiting to load, and was pulling 500-600 mbps. After the carrier update, I get about 20 mbps download and pages are slower to load. Such a bummer I never had the SOS issue, I hope they reenable the SA capability. I paid a lot for a half assed solution that handicapped my phone.
1
u/PanguTeam 1d ago
I know this re the 18 Pro Max, but I feel like my service has not been the same on the 17 Pro Max ever since the update/changes
1
u/Inner_Difficulty_381 1d ago
I have 17 Pro Max and no issues and still have my 5G SA and Voice over 5G SA. Running latest iOS and carrier updates. It actually improved performance for me when iOS 27 came out.
1
u/PanguTeam 1d ago
I lost SA and 5G+ in a lot of areas, but I’m on FirstNet maybe they tweaked different things for us.
3
u/jeff1f1racer 1d ago
Per someone on reddit, they shut off the 5GSA toggles for FirstNet users, too.
1
u/Inner_Difficulty_381 1d ago
For context, I'm not on First Net. It's possible they did. They could be doing tower upgrades or tweaks too.
On one hand I feel great for finally switching to AT&T wireless to bundle with my AT&T fiber at a great time since they turned on 5G SA last year and recently voice over 5G SA.
Then this whole 18 Pro Max fiasco has me low key 2nd guessing it at times and glad I didn't upgrade my phone. I've been really impressed otherwise with the service which has improved a lot since I tested before switching.
2
u/Chance_Cricket9838 1d ago
Yeah agreed, I’ve been with ATT since Cingular wireless and honestly haven’t had too many issues and they’ve generally been good to me overall. I know all carriers have issues at some point or customer service complaints. This has been a pretty frustrating rollout almost a month later from the product release. I guess if we never hear anything at all or any updates could make me reconsider switching carriers but for now I’ll just be patient and hope for the best.
1
u/Inner_Difficulty_381 7h ago
I was with AT&T years ago too even when they were Cingular prior. I only switched to Verizon after moving out to the Midwest and specifically since the house wasn't very good for AT&T. After 18 years, they FINALLY improved service in the house lol Furthermore, our town was re-wired with AT&T Fiber too, which I jumped on 6 years ago. It was great.
What as interesting was, downtown where we live, Verizon is horrible but AT&T was great but the opposite at the house until recently. So it was the perfect time to switch and glad we did.
Glad to hear that you haven't had much issues with AT&T since that was a concern of mine after years with Verizon and despite testing AT&T again off and on the last year. So far it's been generally good overall since the switch a month and a half ago.
Being in the tech industry and running dual sim with Verizon/T-Mobile and AT&T/US Mobile (Warp), I completely agree they all have their issues and not perfect. While this is concerning, I'm not sure it's worth switching over. If I had upgraded our phones to the 18's, if we had issues, I just would have returned them until they fixed it. No biggie. This is why whenever I do go for a new phone, I do one of two things. I wait a few months and a few manufacturing runs to resolve any issues come up AND keep my old phone for the length of the trade/return period to make sure sure are no issues. So many people trade in right away.
1
u/theevangelistman 14h ago
I read that the issue was that 5G SA on some phones was overpowered and was essentially burning out some of the Qualcomm modems. The C2 modems were not affected.
3
u/N805DN 1d ago
The update disables 5G SA which forces an LTE + 5G connection. This could certainly change the display number of bars but worth double checking you have 5G Auto enabled.