SERVICE DEGRADING

TLB_Bft

We've been Verizon Cellular customers for over 15 years. In 2020 we noticed some service degraded at our home, but it wasn't to a point of being un-usable. This year, it once again decreased, and now it does impact phone calls and data. Last month we were in the downtown area of the city we live in, and for 20 minutes neither of us could connect to pay for parking via app, that's never happened before. Our service inside and outside our house is notably slower for us and others. We're investigating other providers, and using OpenSignal and Ookla Speedtest Apps, Verizon can't touch the other provider's speed around our house. I'm on a 5G Do More plan and be wife is on an older 5G Start plan. Today we were told at a Verizon Authorized Retailer that we'd get better coverage if we upgraded our plans to one of the Unlimited plans. I'm questioning the accuracy of that statement. Thoughts?

SynthpopAddict

The plans you're describing were the ones which came just before the current service plans, and 5G Start is sort of like Unlimited Welcome, if it's the base unlimited plan without a bunch of extra bells/whistles? On the lowest level unlimited plan, you are subject to some level of deprioritization on the network to the customers who are on the more expensive plans. This is an industry practice, as Verizon's large competitors do the same thing. Otherwise, I don't know for certain whether older plan customers are being deprioritized to customers on current plans.

If your SIM/eSIM is old, have you tried getting a new one, and seeing if your account needs to be reprovisioned so your phones know to use all the current available spectrum? I do know that on the current Unlimited Welcome plan, you are not eligible for 5G UW service (mid- and high-band 5G), but don't know what applies for the older 5G Do More. 5G Start may only be able to get regular 5G (low-band). The regular 5G won't run as fast as 5G UW.