iPhone 13 Pro Max Never did get those promised 5G speeds in Atlanta

[kappaknight]

I'm not sure if this is a specific problem for me, but living in Atlanta, Georgia, using T-Mobile and upgraded to iPhone 13 Pro Max, I never did get those advertised 5G speeds. I guess luckily, I WFH and I'm on wifi all the time so I don't notice it much, but whenever I'm out, 1-2mbps was about all the network could muster up.

Was there ever a fix? I tried getting a new phone from Apple but they blocked that attempt - I guess they knew it didn't work. I even went into a T-Mo store and checked out the employee's phone - they too suffered in speed.

I'm wondering if the new phone will fix this... or if there will be a class action lawsuit to do a free upgrade.

Did anyone else experience this?

 

[ian87w]

Can't comment on your specific case, but imo 5G is about capacity. The speed is just marketing, but the main reason of 5G is so that each tower can support more connected devices. Plus, actual speed may depend on your specific plan provisioning. Carriers can limit the speed regardless of the tech.

 

[eyoungren]

I'm not sure if this is a specific problem for me, but living in Atlanta, Georgia, using T-Mobile and upgraded to iPhone 13 Pro Max, I never did get those advertised 5G speeds. I guess luckily, I WFH and I'm on wifi all the time so I don't notice it much, but whenever I'm out, 1-2mbps was about all the network could muster up.

Was there ever a fix? I tried getting a new phone from Apple but they blocked that attempt - I guess they knew it didn't work. I even went into a T-Mo store and checked out the employee's phone - they too suffered in speed.

I'm wondering if the new phone will fix this... or if there will be a class action lawsuit to do a free upgrade.

Did anyone else experience this?

I am owed a free upgrade from the Sprint iPhone 5 to whatever new iPhone model before you're owed a free upgrade concerning 5G.

LTE iPhone in 2012. Didn't get LTE until 2014.

Take a look at your Terms of Service. You'll discover that T-Mobile has covered itself completely by not guaranteeing you any speed or connectivity whatsoever. If you want to challenge it - you've agreed to arbitration, not a class action lawsuit.

So, I was a Sprint LTE guinea pig until we finally had it and came to T-Mobile. One of the major reasons I did NOT get the iPhone 12 in 2020 was because I didn't want to be a 5G guinea pig.

I'm just fine using an LTE only iPhone 11 Pro Max on a mature LTE network. Someday when T-Mobile and the other carriers manage to make 5G a mature network I'll upgrade my iPhone.

Until then, everyone else can be the 5G guinea pigs.

 

[kappaknight]

So, I was a Sprint LTE guinea pig until we finally had it and came to T-Mobile. One of the major reasons I did NOT get the iPhone 12 in 2020 was because I didn't want to be a 5G guinea pig.

Same reason I also didn't upgrade that year. The weird thing is, even at LTE, the 13 Pro Max is slower than my 11 Pro. *sigh*

 

[andyx3x]

5G is a huge disappointment so far. If you’re standing right by a tower with no obstructions it’s great. Otherwise meh.

 

[velocityg4]

Not sure what your issue is. I'm in Atlanta and get 100 mbps on T-Mobile on my iPhone XS. That's indoors on two bars too. Unless I'm in an area where I get virtually no signal and am on 1/0 bars. I usually get at least 50-60 mbps.

 

[ian87w]

5G is a huge disappointment so far. If you’re standing right by a tower with no obstructions it’s great. Otherwise meh.

That's probably for mmWave, which is not as useful for regular consumer application. And it seems to be a US only thing, once again. Most of the world will use low-mid-band 5G.

I would really love for 5G to be available. 4G is getting ultra congested, and with carriers turning off 3G, it's getting worse.

 

[Sil3nt1]

Just turn that garbage off it's only good if you like killing your battery faster

 

[M.Rizk]

5G is a huge disappointment so far. If you’re standing right by a tower with no obstructions it’s great. Otherwise meh.

Definitely isn't a disappointment for me. Living in a country with so many modern phones meant I get to enjoy good speeds when out in busy areas. I have 5G everywhere I go both indoors and outdoors. Sub 6 GHz is amazing. mmWave is only good for stadiums, parks and very busy venues if they do micro cells like shopping malls.

Also when I traveled this summer to Germany and had access to 5G I was pulling 300 Mbps to 1 Gbps in busy areas when my family with LTE only iPhones were sometimes barely doing 2 Mbps due to LTE congestion. The connection was fast and latency was low that I was able to do some gaming on Nvidia GeForce Now streaming service while in my hotel room on my MacBook Pro as the hotel WiFi was very expensive in comparison with my unlimited 5G plan.

I remember a family member wanting to send an iPhone to Apple for a battery swap so they wanted to back up their WhatsApp chats first and it was a really big backup I ended up starting a hotspot for them on my 5G iPhone 13 PM to get it done fast and it was way faster than their own cellular connection on the very sam plan and same carrier.