Good signal/bars but no network connection many times daily

FWIW - Here is the response I received from T-Force when asking about the issue. The funny thing is, 5G coverage in my town is honestly pretty good with UC covering a good chunk of town. I don't think lack of coverage is to blame and I am interested to know about this special iphone 12/13 network she referenced :) Realistically, it's probably a N71/LTE blending issue.

"It's important to have all the details you need to know about our 5G service. I'm here to help! We have a new 5G service that we're prepping called stand alone 5G for the iphone 12-13 series. This will allow your phone to operate even if there is only 5G signal in the area. We currently don't have this service available in your area quite yet. We do have a 5g tower in your area and at the moment you should definitely be able to see 5g outdoors and in most homes (depending on your location) but the LTE signal in this area is quite a bit stronger at this time so it's likely your phone will opt for LTE for the best experience till we add additional 5G spectrum. To why I suggest on you turning off the 5g from your device till we launch this software. Our 5g network is still maturing and we look forward to providing more 5G coverage as our journey continues. You can always keep an eye on our network newsroom here: https://www.t-mobile.com/our-story/network-and-innovation to stay up to date with our integration plans. Meaning you will experience some issues with lagging, call drops, messages not sending nor receiving, data issues till we launch this new software to our iphone 12-13 series. I would suggest to turn off the auto 5g connect and connect to LTE/4g as the signal is much stronger. If you want to go ahead and give this a try after restart your device please"