After 13 great years with Verizon cell service and 2 years with Verizon Wifi, something has changed, and not for the better. A few weeks ago (August 2025), I discovered I can no longer make calls using my iPhone 16 in my own house (37209). The audio drops out on my end on every call. I work from home and am a publicist, so I have to be available to reporters and my colleagues 24-7. I am now only getting 2 bars on my phone in my tiny little house and have never had a problem until everything went 5G. When I try to make a call or someone calls me, the audio on my end drops out and the caller says "are you there?" and "you're breaking up." I've gone on Verizon chats a dozen times (probably more), for upwards of 20-30 hours over the past 3 weeks. Each person claims to have the answer, but they just keep walking me through the same steps. No no could ever give me a reason for the dropped audio and weak signal, nor could they give me a solution – except to send me a free network extender (thanks, would have been great if it worked). Sadly, the network extender would never connect to the SeGW Server. No one could tell me why that was. After multiple more hours on chat, they sent me ANOTHER extender. Then they had me do a factory re-set on the extender, as if the device was the problem. Verizon, this is a YOU problem, not a ME problem. I have spent thousands and thousands on my cell bills over the years, which I didn't mind because it was reliable service, and stayed. Now I've lost faith. I shouldn't have to spend hours and hours on Verizon chats and calling Customer Service (which I have to drive down the street to do) in order to use the cell service I already pay for. In fact, I should get a refund considering I haven't been able to make a call from my home all month. It's ridiculous. I'm just outside the city, no big skyscrapers blocking the signal. Heck, I can see cell towers from my window. Everyone acts like it's just a little problem on my end, but I don't believe I'm the only one experiencing it. I'd like Verizon to say, yeah, 5G is causing issues for a lot of people, and here's what were doing to fix it. Or here's a discount or refund since you're not getting the service you are paying for. But all I get is the same story over and over. Last night the rep said move the router and extender right in front of the window, so I had wires going everywhere across the room to try to make that work, and hung that GPS thing in the window and waited. I even took the GPS outside to see if it would pick up a signal. NOPE. The network extender window says, "Trying to connect to SeGW server," spinning and spinning for hours. If you were me, what would you do? I'm ready to throw in the towel, but I have always loved verizon and I really don't want to. It's too bad that after more than a decade of good service I have soured completely on Verizon. Verizon, if you are listening, please respond. And please train your reps to do more than walk people through steps that aren't going to resolve the problem.
