I've noticed recently that when you place a call, the phone immediately goes from LTE to 4G. The data connection is barely usable while on a call, which defeats the sales marketing that AT&T uses against its competitors. I've validated the issue on multiple iPhone5's on AT&T network. I've also validated this on version 6.0.1 & 6.1.2 with the same results. Not sure if this is an AT&T issue or Apple, however should be addressed.
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LTE issues with iPhone5 on AT&T
- Thread starter hornickj
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It seems that AT&T throttles data speeds during calls. I've tested this on an iPhone 4S with Tmobile and the speeds were still fast so I'm sure it's an AT&T specific thing.
It isn't throttled. It is just it will not connect to LTE during the call and drop down to HSPA. And since AT&T HSPA speeds are horrible vs T-mobiles, you might notice a difference between the two.
So as an AT&T customer, we are supposed to just live with it? Why advertise talk and surf if they throttle it down?
Yes, its normal behavior.
It switches from LTE to 3G/4G to make a call.
And yes they have been throttling speeds during a call for a while now. Not sure what's the point behind it either but you can still do stuff. I get about 1mb down and half up while on a call so shouldnt be a problem doing most things you need to do. On Sprint or Verizon you cant do anything requiring data at all.
As I mentioned earlier, "Download speeds during a call are about .80 Mbps and usable, but uploads only go to about .01 Mbps."
I wouldn't be complaining if I at least got .50 Mbps upload, but .01 is unacceptable, especially when not being able to send a picture via MMS or iMessage.
They probably do it simply to lighten the load on the network. They probably figured most people won't notice the throttling while on a call. It's definitely not unique to the iPhone, and the network could certainly handle full speeds while on a call, they just don't want to allow it. That being said, something is better than nothing (here's looking at you, Verizon and Sprint).