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AT&T told me to get off iOS 6.

B

BlueMoonForever

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 2, 2012
303
16
Called AT&T tech support due to horrible LTE speeds. They began troubleshooting and blamed the bad performance on IOS 6 running on my iPhone 5. She's like, "sir you are 2 versions behind and you need to upgrade your device ASAP to 8.2." I said I do not want bright colors and bright. She said older firmware is why I experience slow LTE speeds.

I just found this insulting. I should run any version of IOS I choose too.
 
BlueMoonForever said:
Called AT&T tech support due to horrible LTE speeds. They began troubleshooting and blamed the bad performance on IOS 6 running on my iPhone 5. She's like, "sir you are 2 versions behind and you need to upgrade your device ASAP to 8.2." I said I do not want bright colors and bright. She said older firmware is why I experience slow LTE speeds.

I just found this insulting. I should run any version of IOS I choose too.
Click to expand...

Have you always had less than stellar speed? Have you researched to see what the spectrum is in your area? Have you tried another iphone at your location?
 
Regardless of whether or not what the rep said is actually true, you're the one refusing to follow a step that could potentially fix your problem. You're going to have to eventually get over it or move on to Android or Windows Phone, might as well just suck it up and do it now.

In the meantime though, try plugging your phone into your computer and opening iTunes. I don't know if this will do anything for you, but sometimes when you plug your phone into iTunes, a carrier update will be offered. Carrier updates update the modem but not iOS itself- this could help your situation.
 
I7guy said:
Have you always had less than stellar speed? Have you researched to see what the spectrum is in your area? Have you tried another iphone at your location?
Click to expand...

Of course. Friends iphone 5s running 8.1 has just as crappy speeds. My wife's iPhone 6 is slightly faster, but still abysmal.
 
Lol she has a point though. The revised operating systems contain but fixes, security updates and carrier network settings that greatly improve how well your device, it's operating system and is antennas all communicate with the network. You should take her advice and update. You're not going to see correct LTE configurations without doing it. And you're right, you can run whatever OS you want, but you can't have your cake and eat it too.
 
Tubamajuba said:
Regardless of whether or not what the rep said is actually true, you're the one refusing to follow a step that could potentially fix your problem. You're going to have to eventually get over it or move on to Android or Windows Phone, might as well just suck it up and do it now.

In the meantime though, try plugging your phone into your computer and opening iTunes. I don't know if this will do anything for you, but sometimes when you plug your phone into iTunes, a carrier update will be offered. Carrier updates update the modem but not iOS itself- this could help your situation.
Click to expand...

If I update it, my device will drastically slow down and be all white with bright colors. I absolutely hate it.

I plug it into iTunes all the time and no carrier update pops up.
 
AT&T told me to get off iOS 6.

The carrier update probably coicide with ios 8. Your loss, not ours. We gave you the answer, even if it's not the one you wanted.

And you're just making up unsubstantiated excuses as to why you shouldn't update because you don't want to.
 
BlueMoonForever said:
If I update it, my device will drastically slow down and be all white with bright colors. I absolutely hate it.

I plug it into iTunes all the time and no carrier update pops up.
Click to expand...

You'll get the same speeds. You're better off staying on iOS 6 since that's what you prefer.

If you do update, there's no way to go back, so you might as well stay on 6.
 
BlueMoonForever said:
If I update it, my device will drastically slow down and be all white with bright colors. I absolutely hate it.

I plug it into iTunes all the time and no carrier update pops up.
Click to expand...

Have you actually used iOS 7+ for any extended length of time? Just curious. My current iOS devices aren't any "whiter" or "brighter" than my older ones running iOS 6 and below.

And your device won't "drastically" slow down. Yes, it will be a bit slower, but you'll gain a whole lot more functionality in the process. Before I sold my old iPhone 5, it ran just fine on 8.0. 8.2 is likely even better.

Still, if you insist on keeping iOS 6, try resetting all settings. Not just network settings, all settings. You'll have to put your settings back the way you like them, but many problems like yours are solved using that method. No promises, but it can't hurt to try.
 
dictoresno said:
The carrier update probably coicide with ios 8. Your loss, not ours. We gave you the answer, even if it's not the one you wanted.

And you're just making up unsubstantiated excuses as to why you shouldn't update because you don't want to.
Click to expand...

Unsubstantiated excuses? iOS 6 runs a lot better on an iPhone 5 than iOS 8 does. That, my friend, is a FACT.
 
BlueMoonForever said:
Of course. Friends iphone 5s running 8.1 has just as crappy speeds. My wife's iPhone 6 is slightly faster, but still abysmal.
Click to expand...

Since newer hardware doesn't yield any improvement in speed, I would stay on IOS 6, since that is what you want and forget about it. If an iphone 6 doesn't yield good speeds at the location, nothing you are going to do to your iphone 5 will increase the speed.
 
What carrier version are you on? Current is 18.1. You will not have the best carrier support or speeds without being up to date. Maybe try a new SIM card. But I doubt it will help.
 
My recommendation is to get off AT&T :D

The rep has a valid point, they can't properly troubleshoot without having the latest versions. But if your speeds just suddenly started slowing down, the OS should have nothing to do with that.
 
BlueMoonForever said:
I'm on carrier version 13.0.
Click to expand...


Wow. Yea I don't know what to tell you. At first I didn't like iOS 7 because of how different it was, then it grew on me. If you're worried about the speed of the phone, I'm sure some people out there don't have any issues. My suggestion is updating to get the best out of your cellular network speeds. Nothing you do can really avoid it. Other than a new SIM card, there's no other option.

http://m.imore.com/whats-carrier-update-iphone-ipad-why-get-them
 
If the consensus in this thread is that updating will improve speeds, then please explain to me why there are many Sprint users with iOS 8.x on their phones that do not enjoy fast to very fast speeds on the Sprint network.

Because it's Sprint's crappy network right? And all of Sprint's problems.

So…the same cannot apply here? AT&T can't have network issues or coverage problems?

The reasoning has just enough truth to it to make it viable as a solution to the "problem" when the real problem is that AT&T has network issues. Carrier updates and other "improvements" won't solve coverage or congestion problems.

OP, my wife has an iPhone 5 on iOS 6.0.1 and I have an iPhone 5 on iOS 8.1.3. We have the exact same speeds in the exact same areas.

As another user who detests the PlaySkool/Fisher Price inspired primary colored unicorn puke that is iOS 7 and 8 I totally understand your objections to updating. When I was jailbroken on iOS 7 there were steps I was able to take to kill all the color and the glaring white backgrounds. Unfortunately, I'm stock again for the moment, but hopefully a jailbreak will present itself soon.

As a few others have suggested, stay on iOS 6.
 
BlueMoonForever said:
Of course. Friends iphone 5s running 8.1 has just as crappy speeds. My wife's iPhone 6 is slightly faster, but still abysmal.
Click to expand...

Not sure what answers you are looking for. You can run what you want and with that "it is what it is"

If 3 phones are slow then your area is bad or has gotten worse for some reason. I doubt if upgrading will help. Could be something between you and tower that wasn't there, more users effecting bandwidth, or ATT just readjusting signal strength in your area for whatever reason.

How's your signal in other areas, outside. Like, where did you get your best signal and how is it now.
 
I pesonally don't think carrier version 13.0 or iOS 6 has anything to do with it. I'll stand on one side of the tower and pull 1mbps, and on the other pull 45mbps down. Something isn't right with their freaking network.

And I'd update in a second if I could retain the look of the OS. The newer version is horribly designed.
 
AT&T will blame everyone instead of taking responsibility for their slow network speeds. I recently called them about my hotspot not working for months and they suggested that it might have something to do with the fact that I'm on iOS 8.1.2, and that I should upgrade. Like you, I am experiencing slow network speeds but I am not calling them because they'll just blame it on a cell tower that's located in my area and do nothing about it.
 
I had AT&T and no matter what phone I used, Android or Apple everything about their service was poor. Poor signal on local tower..they are working on that tower 2 years later still working on that tower. I finally dropped them and got service with a local area provider that when I go out of the area uses Verizon's towers. Better coverage, signal. I have issues but not as many as I had with AT&T. AT&T just isn't all that great anymore. 10 years ago it was great...now it's not.
 
eyoungren said:
OP, my wife has an iPhone 5 on iOS 6.0.1 and I have an iPhone 5 on iOS 8.1.3. We have the exact same speeds in the exact same areas.
Click to expand...

This. The OP and his wife both have crappy speeds on iOS 6 and ios 8. Most likely it's not his carrier settings and there is something going on with their local tower, but AT&T isn't exactly going to go out of their way to research when the OP scoffs at their troubleshooting steps.

Having said that, as someone already said, he should either upgrade now or bite the bullet and switch to android/windows phone because he's only going to be more annoyed in the future by the lack of support from AT&T, Apple and third party app devs. Apple didn't design their ecosystem for people to who never want to upgrade unfortunately.
 
Whether this is the actual reason or not, you should upgrade to iOS 8 already.

Get with it.
 
Tubamajuba said:
If you hate it that much, what are you going to do when it's time to get a new phone?
Click to expand...
Either deal with it (as I do now, especially with a jailbreak when I was on a version that was jailbreakable), or find another similar phone with a version of iOS I want. Or, I move on. I like Apple products, but I'm not such a fanatic that I'm forever married to the company.

So far, I've done 2.5 years on my iPhone 5 and I like it better than the later models. I do not need to upgrade every year, especially when my stuff still works.

Buying new is not the only option. I'm typing this response on a PowerMac G4 Quicksilver which is my main computer and was made in late 2001. It's still a viable machine. If and when it breaks I buy a new logicboard.

I upgrade and I update according to my needs and my own schedule.

This is one of the things I do not like about Apple.
 
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