I bought an iPhone 5 in November 2012. Starting about 2 months…

Hi there, sorry to hear you're having problems with wifi,

from what you've described, this is most likely an internal hardware failure,

specifically it could be a bad antenna, but is more likely to be a faulty wifi (and cellular) radio transciever,

Really the only thing you can check here is that you don't have any kind of a case on the phone with metal or foil type components that could be deflecting or obstructing the signal.

Beyond that, it would indeed require repairs, typically though they'll just swap out the phone for you.

However, to get that done under the apple 1 year warranty, you'll need to take it in to an actual apple store.

Though they often won't be much help, it wouldn't hurt to try taking it in to a local verizon store as well, and see if they will swap it out for you.

They should be allowed to do this for you, but it really depends on the attitude of the store manager whether they will help or not.

There are some other possible options for getting apple service without making the trip, but it usually involves shipping your phone to them for inspection before they would replace it, which would of course leave you without a phone for days or weeks, so that isn't practical for most people.

Another option you could try, if you were interested in upgrading, would be to go to verizion and see about getting the new iphone model from them on your existing contract, then sell of the current iphone (gazelle.com or similar service) to recoup some of the cost.

Yes, if you took it to verizon, they would likely change it out for you. You may even have some kind of monthly protection plan (usually around $5/month) on your existing verizon plan, that would cover such problems, in which case they would support it for you.

There is a hardware troubleshooting support wizard you can do online through apple, to get warranty options authorized, at https://selfsolve.apple.com/agreementWarrantyDynamic.do

You enter all of your phone info, symptoms, etc and then assuming you have warranty coverage, the site will link you in to a new page with your support options (closest store, number you can call, shipping address to exchange, etc)

Apple may offer an advance exchange as well, where they'd ship you a new phone first (you'd have to pay for it up front),

then you'd ship in the current one, and they'd refund what you had paid for the new one once the old is confirmed to be faulty.

Yes, they do, gazelle.com is a huge reseller of smartphones,

There are other similar services through amazon, ebay, usell

It is kind of hidden,

and if you get to the point that you want to try calling, they'll likely charge you, as they only offer phone support for the first 90 days of a product.

I have seen similar issues, and as long as you're within the 1 year, you should have no problems getting it replaced.

They'll still make you wait around while they try to take it apart, poke around, and do some troubleshooting, but from there as long as they see the same symptoms they'll come to the realization of a hardware failure and change it out.

Since you'd be making a drive, if you go in to the apple store, be sure to call the store and set an appointment though, so you don't have to wait in line for hours when you get there.

If you can get the wifi connection to cooperate, I would do an icloud sync just as a backup, in case everything isn't backed up fully to the computer.

That also gives you flexibility to restore the new phone either way.

I think we've covered all of the bases here, and you have a pretty good plan of attack in how you've prioritized your options.

Just be sure to have everything backed up before going in, and you should be all set.

You're very welcome, I hope they'll be expedient in helping you as well.

I don't believe you get an email transcript,

but after you "rate" me, our live chat will convert over to a standard web page, which you can then view/save/print, etc

Note that the antenna is still a possible culprit too, but I suspect the radio because if the antenna was bad, I'd expect it to be loose/disconnected internally, and not work at all.

The radio has likely overheated, causing the radio power to be reduced, and thus reduced its range.

More likely it's an issue with the battery overheating, the case shouldn't cause it. There aren't vents or anything on the back that would be obstructed, and nearly everyone uses a case of some type without trouble.

You're very welcome.

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Thank you, XXXXX XXXXX a good day,