iPhone 5 defaults to Edge

Having a similar issue here. I don't have LTE in my area but my phone seems to toggle between 4g and Edge. I was on 3g on my iPhone 4 with no issue all the time. I don't get it.

 

Chiming in to say, yes, I'm seeing this.

I have decent AT&T 3G coverage (but no LTE) at both home and work. At both localities, I've seen my iPhone 5 drop to Edge and proceed to get "stuck" there. With Wifi off (which exposes the cell network band indicator, e.g. "E" or "4G" or "LTE"), you'll see the phone trying to switch back to 3G from Edge: the signal bars will fluctuate, the "E" will disappear, but it'll fail to "latch onto" a 3G signal and the "E" will then reappear. My phone will repeatedly try to switch back to 3G any time it drops to Edge. (The "E" appears and disappears about once every 10 seconds or so.)

I'm fairly confident this is a software glitch because the workaround is to simply toggle Airplane mode on, wait a second or two, and toggle it off. No need to reboot the device.

We might not see this behavior on iPhone 4 or 4S because with iOS 6 because, although the OS is the same version number, they're different sets of hardware (which implies, potentially, different drivers, etc).

 

I've seen this kind of behavior too but a little different.

When ever I'm in low H+ coverage spot, the phone starts to skip between E, GPRS and no data.

It's seems to stop and connect to H+ once the phone connects to a full H+ signal or a reboot.

That only happens when I'm not in LTE coverage.

 

I tried two 5's and one of them had this problem. When it lost the 4g connection it switched to edge, but then would NOT switch back to 4g. My options were: toggle airplane mode on/off or reboot phone. Wiping/restoring the phone didn't work so I returned it. Don't waste your time. Take it in and get a replacement.