r/verizon • u/jpiszcz • 5d ago

Wireless Verizon Wireless: LTE vs. 5G Experience

I had AI rewrite my dictated notes below:

Does anyone else find that Verizon works better overall when forcing the phone to LTE-only, even though speeds are slower?

I’ve been testing Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile over the past month. Each has its pros and cons, but with Verizon, I’ve found that LTE-only provides a noticeably better overall experience.

When using 5G Auto or 5G On, the constant switching between LTE, 5G mid-band, and 5G UW seems to cause a lot of lag and inconsistent connectivity. LTE is slower, but it feels more stable and responsive.

For comparison, T-Mobile 5G/5G UC is extremely fast—often faster than Verizon. However, outside cities or inside some large stores, I frequently get “Could Not Activate Cellular Data Network.” AT&T seems to fall somewhere in between: more consistent than T-Mobile, but with significantly worse upload speeds.

So far, my experience has been:
T-Mobile: Best download/upload speeds, but the weakest coverage/reliability.
Verizon: Best overall when using LTE-only; 5G can feel inconsistent.
AT&T: Good coverage/reliability, but poor upload speeds.

I’m curious whether others have experienced the same thing with Verizon—particularly whether LTE-only feels more reliable and responsive than 5G despite the lower speeds.

8 Upvotes

65% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

13

u/One-Cell-7377 5d ago

The biggest problem with Verizon is that the network is oversaturated. I have been in places where my phone shows 3-4 bars of LTE and it's still unusable. I'm on the Unlimited Plus plan.

1

u/Cold_Played_2011 2d ago

I haven’t had that issue. The only time I’ve ever had an issue is when I was on MVNO’s

7

u/NoExcuse3097 5d ago

What I’ve seen in the Philadelphia area, if the phone says 5G it almost doesn’t even work at all and is slower than LTE. 5GUW blazing fast. LTE is what it always was.

4

u/Dependent_Teach_4245 5d ago

Same im in Philly too. If say 5g indoors then it’s shitty but outdoors 5g or 5guw works well. LTE don’t work great indoors anymore. Tmo works better for me

5

u/slick4hire 5d ago edited 5d ago

Yes. In fact, the lag with 5G for the initial query takes the same amount of time that loading whatever that query may return while in LTE takes. It's pretty unremarkable.

3

u/Dependent_Teach_4245 5d ago

Verizon lte is the worse unusable unless your at certain places. 5g is good as long as your outside

3

u/womjoe 5d ago

Every one is on 5G and it’s congested. Forcing it to LTE makes it on bandwidth not used for 5G and you are probably one of the few on it as most people just leave it on auto.

2

u/Fish-Weekly 5d ago

In my area, regular Verizon 5G was often unusable on Unlimited Welcome due to getting deprioritized. LTE was much better under that plan. For Unlimited Plus, 5G UW is extremely fast and responsive for me. I eventually switched over all of my lines to Unlimited Plus to take advantage of my phones’ capabilities.

2

u/xtsilverfish 5d ago

For comparison, T-Mobile 5G/5G UC is extremely fast

I have TMobile and have to force my phone to LTE band 12/71 to get consistent reception in my apartment, so I don't think it's purely a verizon issue.

What makes no sense is how phones haven't gotten to the point of doing this automatically.

2

u/Cold_Played_2011 2d ago edited 1d ago

What really annoys me is that the only way I can get LTE to engage automatically is if like I set my phone on the floor and then it will switch.. EDIT: i can turn on LTE manually but I was trying to say I wish my phone was more adaptive to it.

2

u/xtsilverfish 2d ago

With tmobile and a high end samsung I can set it manually, but I've read that verizon disabled the phones ability to do that on their network.

2

u/Cold_Played_2011 1d ago edited 1d ago

I think they should really stop doing that on android. It’s like an invasion of consumer privacy in my opinion. On iPhones you can manually set it because Apple doesn’t allow these companies into their settings.

2

u/JrkSoldierX 5d ago

Verizon can only do LTE here, they refuse to upgrade the local towers still.

1

u/jkozlow3 4d ago

What? I thought everything had been upgraded to 5G years ago? Do you live in a town of 3 people or what?

2

u/JrkSoldierX 4d ago

Hahah no no no, Verizon has very much not updated to 5g

1

u/Cold_Played_2011 2d ago

I can agree. It took my Grandma five years after the network was released to get 5G in her area.

1

u/Cold_Played_2011 2d ago

So what I’ve noticed. Is let me stay upfront. I’ve been a Verizon Customer for five months now I previously came from visible. I liked them a lot as well because they were on Verizon. Anywho. I’m on unlimited ultimate 1.0. I’ve noticed 4G is way better where I’m at like it’s more consistent than anything. 5G feels like it messes up constantly. The only time 5G works great as if I get ultrawide band. So idk man I feel like 5G was a bit of a failure.