This could be completely unrelated and coincidental, but wanted to post some findings on the data/sms issue.
I am running OTA-17 on my pixel 3a. WingAlpha is my carrier (MVNO), who operates on AT&T (gsm) towers in the US.
My first go at using UT as my daily driver was short lived because of the data and sms issues. At that time I was running RC for OTA-17.
Typically, both 3G data and SMS would work for an hour or so before dropping.
Rebooting seemed to resolve it sometimes, but not always. I updated my APN with my carrier settings, and set data to 3G on first boot to no avail...so I ended up reverting back to Android for a few weeks because it just wasn't stable.
Fast forward to yesterday...I really wanted to use UT as a daily driver and move away from android...so I figured I would install UT again and poke around. I am a mobile app developer by trade, but am a complete novice when it comes to halium, and linux development for that matter.
Unlike my first attempt, this time I did not touch the apn settings. I also did not force it to 3G, as recommended.
I have been now running UT with consistent 4G data. I would like to point out though, that every time I enable anbox (anbox-tools enable), I do experience drops in connection (morph browser not resolving DNS). Disabling anbox and doing a hard reboot via terminal brings my connection back solid. Like I said above...it may be coincidence....but it happens to me every time I enable anbox.
As for SMS...there are still issues. Yesterday I was able to receive and send SMS. Today I was able to confirm that someone sent me an SMS, which I did not receive even 3 hours later.
I then used this site to send myself an SMS...and I did not get it.
https://www.bulksms.com/test/
I did a hard reboot...and used the same site to test again...and I did receive the SMS the second time. So its a bit spotty.
I know this isnt much to go on, but figured reporting any findings may help! If I can help debug in any way, let me know.