6s Plus Reverts to 4G

Isn't LTE and 4G the same thing?

 

No att has hspa plus which is really not 4G and it's terrible just like AT&T in general that's why they're getting sued for $300 million from the FCC for throttling customers

 

Ah OK, in the UK HSDPA is marketed as 3G (well 3.5G), 4G is real 4G (aka LTE) here. Sorry to be of no help

 

Yeah the confusion comes though that on other networks/countries such as in the UK an iPhone will only display 4G, not LTE. And when it says 4G it really means 4G. HSPA+ shows as 3G on a UK iPhone for example. So this switching between 4G and LTE makes no sense to a lot of people.

However, to the original posters point, could it just be battery saving to fallback to 3G when there isn't a data throughput need to actually use 4G? A lot of non Apple phones switch off HSPA+ and fall back to generic 3G for example when they are just idling or doing minimal data, in order to save battery power.

 

It's really tugh to say what is going on here. Do you have another phone that is NOT doing this? It's netirely possible that, wherever you are, ATT's network is having issues. It would also be helpful to say where you are experiencing the issue. This certainly isn't a nationwide thing else we would see threads like this blowing up all over the forums.

 

I hate that US carriers have decided to market them differently. And I hate more that Apple gave in to US carriers and allowed it to happen.

HSPA shows up as 3G on the iphone
HSPA+ shows up as 4G
LTE shows up as LTE

It's confusing, espcially when discussing on forums. I don't know who did it first, but AFAIK, all carriers in the US treat the terminology the same way. :/

 

I had a similar problem turns out it was my new metal case, if you have a metal case remove it and see if that helps.

 

If pother phones are not dropping to 4g at all in the same locaion than I would say there is a decent possibility there may be a hardware issue. Are we talking about the same sim in different phones as well? I'd start with troubleshooting through ATT first. They are likely to blame the phone though lol.

 

I believe T-Mobile was the first to do it, I remember them claiming they had the nations largest "4G" network before all the other carriers were mass deploying LTE.

 

Yeah, 4G = LTE in the rest of the world, except for the US. Now let's move on.

OP: I think the cause is the network and not your phone.

 

Does this happen at the same spot (your office) or everywhere? There are certain spots where my phone will go back and forth between 4G and LTE. Of course I'm using Tmobile.

 

I was going to make that claim myself but I wasn't sure lol. Either way they're all guilty and it's rather annoying. Especially for people visiting from overseas.

Unsure how Canada treats their cellular signals but I think the is is literally unique (in a bad way haha)

 

In addition to what the guys mentioned above, try a network reset.

 

I suspect it is because AT&T coverage nationwide is oversaturated, awful and gets worse day after day and year.

 

Does it just happen in one location?

If you notice the problem moves with the SIM card, I'd get that replaced first. Did you try your SIM card in the 5c as well as your 5s? Did you try the SIM card from your 5s in the 6s?

C

 

Also you might dig around in settings and see if you have the latest carrier update. I've been having the same thing going on with my 6s+ and expect it will be sorted out with the next at&t 6s+ carrier update. I've seen this BS before with AT&T and try not to stress over it. Ultimately the underlying issue is that AT&T is awful, but for various reasons I'm stuck with it. All the carriers are terrible for different and overlapping reasons.