When you purchase a brand new phone — say the iPhone 7 — you would expect to get the same or better service on your wireless network, right? Apparently not, at least for some Verizon Wireless customers who say their new iPhones are randomly losing their cellular connection in areas where service has not previously been a problem.

The loss of service seems to be completely unpredictable, with some customers telling Gizmodo that their iPhone 7 devices drop the LTE signal and GPS in both strong and low service areas.

Threads on Apple’s community forum and Verizon’s forums are littered with comments from customers who say the outages come and go on their own, with “No Service” messages popping up often when they are running apps that use GPS such as Waze or Google Maps.

“I keep having issues with my network dropping for a few minutes at a time with a Verizon iPhone 7,” customer Mike said. “This is particularly troublesome when driving in an unknown area and using Waze or Google maps for directions. The signal will just drop entirely for two to three minutes. This may happen three or four times on a 60-minute drive.”

The issue also seems to be occurring in areas where customers say they previously had strong service with older iPhones.

“I just completed a 200-mile trip, all interstate with 95% LTE coverage,” one person wrote on a Verizon forum. “iPhone 7+ would drop service every few minutes/miles. Other devices on iOS 9. (6s, 6+) as well as MiFi were able to maintain continuous service. Comparing coverage when service would drop showed iOS 9 maintained 3 bars, so not spotty coverage area.”

“I’m just having poor signal even in areas where signal should be strong. Mostly on two bars very seldom do I get three bars, even at work where signal should be four to five,” another poster said.

Another Verizon customer, John, tells Gizmodo that he began experiencing the drop in service the day he got his phone. Since then he’s jumped through several hoops to get the issue resolved, including having Apple replace the phone and Verizon replace the SIM card, neither of which helped.

“I’ve disabled WiFi and Bluetooth, but it doesn’t seem to change anything,” he says. “It definitely feels like it happens when handing off between weak cell sites. Very frustrating.”

While John received some help from both Apple and Verizon, others tell Gizmodo that contacted either of the companies has resulted in a game of “pass the blame:” Apple blames Verizon, and Verizon blames Apple.

Gizmodo reporter Christina Warren notes that her own iPhone 7 Plus has experienced the service drop in areas where her iPhone 6 had no issues.

In order to get the phone reconnected, she had to toggle Airplane Mode. While this method has worked for some users, other say they have to power off the phone to get a proper cellular connection.

Another option, users tell Gizmodo, is to change the voice-over-LTE settings. A temporary fix would be to go to Settings > Cellular > Cellular Data Options > Enable LTE > Data Only. However, this option means you can’t talk and use data on your phone at the same time.

The iPhone 7 is Causing Connection Hell For Verizon Customers [Gizmodo]

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