For me Orange is very good in Cabarete. I get 25mbps on the LTE network right on the beach with my iPhone. Make sure you have the latest sim card to access LTE. Depending on your plan, any Orange shop will upgrade your chip for free.
For what it's worth I can have a WhatsApp voice conversation driving all the way from my house in Cabarete to the airport without interruption. You need a good data connection to be able to do that. (On handsfree of course)
Somehow your phone might tricking you because neither Orange nor Claro have rolled out 4G on the North Coast past a few sites in POP.
By the way Apple iPhones are the best & support almost every frequency, if you are wanting a phone to jump to any carrier worldwide. I just helped a friend port her US phone from Orange to Claro 2 months ago, because her phone only was compatible with Orange's 2G & 4G bands but not their 3G frequency and so she only had slow spotty 2G coverage, but it was compatible with Claro 3G.
Before she switched, shewas recently in Punta Cana and it worked great on Orange's 4G there.
I asked Orange in Sosua when they expected to roll out 4G LTE on the North Coast soon, and they had no idea.
They do have 3G UMTS GSM 900 mhz which can be pretty good with data. Their 4G will eventually be @ 1800-1900 mhz in the B3 band and I am certain it is not yet deployed, except in Santiago, Santo Domingo or spots along the South Coast and all of Punta Cana.
Here us a DR coverage map, which is pretty close to what I've encountered.
https://www.nperf.com/en/map/DO/-/1...9.10816150100615&lg=-70.16725341796871&zoom=8