Very Important Edge and Missed calls

Agreed. This is a big issue that needs addressing with an update. I should NOT miss calls, or at least, have the option to give phone calls priority over EDGE data transmissions.

This is correct. I don't pretend this to be scientific testing, but in three attempts this morning I called my iPhone while watching a YouTube video (WiFi turned off) and got through all three times. Even better, once I hung up the call the video seamlessly restarted. I can seem many reasons why this may not work all the time: it may depend on whether the phone is using GPRS or EDGE, how many data slots are being used, whether or not the phone is transmitting when the call arrives etc. etc..

Whether or not the phone can be interrupted during actual data transfer depends on the network setup. (And the phone software, of course, although this capability has been around in others for at least five years.)

In Network Operation Mode (NOM or NMO) 2, which is prevalent, a phone cannot see the paging message while it's in the middle of a Temporary Block Flow (TBF)... aka data transfer on the packet channels.

In NOM-1, the paging message is inserted on the packet channels so the phone can see it while downloading and decide what to do.

It's possible that ATT is experimenting, and has set up NOM-1 in some parts of the country and not in others. Hence some owners would see the interrupt and others not.

See Apple's last paragraph here:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305711

Read fairly simple explanation of NOMs and phone Classes, near bottom here:

http://www.symbian.com/symbianos/standards/symbianongprs.html

See news about use of NOM-1:

http://mobilesociety.typepad.com/mobilelife/2007/03/deep_insidethe.html

Techies see also TS 23.060 (in the 23 series):

http://www.3gpp.org/specs/numbering.htm



Touchscreen laptop Other OS

Awesome info RTpics.

You need to be careful when testing.

The Video streams ahead. If it's fully streamed ahead a call will "interupt" (the movie not the stream). If it's still streaming it goes to voicemail.

Good point. Just to be clear, the video had not fully streamed during my test. And yes, the video was interupted by an incoming call. I am in Houston.

One quick additional observation. When I bring up the field test settings on my iPhone (3001#12345#) and look under GPRS settings I see NOM 2. I would assume this means the ATT network is running in NOM 2 mode (at least in Houston). It would be interesting to know if users that are having problems with call reception during data sessions see a different setting.