iPhone 7 and 7 Plus owners who are also Verizon customers have taken to message boards and social media. They’re complaining loudly because Apple and Verizon have yet to come up with a solution to the iPhone 7 LTE issue which is causing some handsets to switch from LTE to 3G or lower quality. When this happens, many cannot reconnect to Verizon’s LTE network.
Solutions, solutions..
What makes the situation even worse is that there are reports from iPhone 7 and 7 Plus users that not only do they lose their LTE signal, but, once this iPhone 7 LTE issue begins, often the loss of a GPS signal follows.
One early band-aid solution for this problem was to switch Airplane Mode off to restore the LTE network connection, and another was to reboot the affected device. However, neither is a long-term solution; often the issue creeps back after an hour or two.
On user called Patrick M10 has been battling this iPhone 7 LTE issue for some time. He recently wrote on the Apple message board: “While I’m driving my iPhone 7 drops from the Verizon LTE network to 3G and there’s no service at all. Sometimes the connection issue restores itself, but it’s not always the case. Typically, I have to reboot my phone and the service is back with LTE.”
So if you’re being affected by this iPhone 7 LTE issue, here is a solution. However, it should be considered to be a stop-gap fix while you wait for Apple fix it permanently.
There is one rather important caveat with the tutorial below. Once you have resolved the iPhone 7 LTE issue by following the instructions below, you will have the ability to either use LTE data or make a voice call, but not both at the same time.
How to fix the iPhone 7 LTE issue
1: Go to the Settings App on your iPhone 7 or 7 Plus.
2: Look in the options for Cellular, and tap it.
3: Now that you are in Cellular, look for Celluar Data Options and select it by tapping.
4: Next, find LTE and enable it, and then tap Data Only.
Now that you have turned off Voice over LTE, you should notice that the iPhone 7 LTE issue is gone. You will now be able to connect your iPhone 7 or 7 Plus to the Verizon Wireless network and stay connected. But once again, you won’t be able to make phone calls with LTE. This feature will now be used for the sole purpose of data. However, if you want to use LTE for voice calls again, just follow the instructions above again but Deselect Data Only in the LTE settings.
Obviously, while this does solve your iPhone 7 LTE issue, it’s not the desired fix everyone wants. After all, why should you have to forgo functionality because Apple can’t produce something that works out of the box?
Of course, Apple is aware of this problem and has Verizon in to try to solve it. In the meantime, you can either use the fix above or continue to put up with the iPhone 7 LTE issue; the choice is yours.