Dropped Calls on the iPhone 3G

During my morning and evening commute, I am usually on the phone. I travel the same route every day. With the original iPhone I rarely experienced dropped calls during my commute. Now with the 3G iPhone, I cannot travel my morning/evening commute route without dropping my calls, sometimes more than once during the 15 minute commute. Checking the ATT coverage map shows that the location that I drop my calls is an area that has no 3G coverage, which is surrounded by an area of full 3G coverage. In other words, I drop calls when I travel from a 3G coverage area into an area of no 3G coverage. The problem is that the iPhone refuses to hand off the call from 3G to GSM. When the phone does switch to GSM the signal is very good, but the call has already been dropped.

I understand that there are many people complaining about 3G reception. When I bought the iPhone 3G, I knew that 3G coverage would not be perfect, and I can accept that. The coverage will only get better with time. What I cannot accept is the iPhone 3g's inability to hand off a call to GSM when the 3G signal gets too weak to hold the call. After all folks, this thing is supposed to be a phone first, right?

Anyone else have a similar experience with dropped calls?

PowerBook G4 (15-inch FW800), Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Jul 23, 2008 6:25 PM

28 replies

Aug 4, 2008 9:13 PM in response to Randy Metzger

Randy,

That rocks that your issues were cleared up. Very cool. Would you mind sharing which factory built your new phone? It's the first two digits of the serial number. Thanks!

Aug 5, 2008 7:48 AM in response to Randy Metzger

I see that Apple did release an update today 2.0.1. Does anyone have had a chance to check if this update would make any difference when it comes to dropped calls? I'm still doing my upgrade, so I haven't had a chance yet to test things.

dcdttu

Level 1

0 points

Aug 5, 2008 12:43 PM in response to Randy Metzger

Did you notice that your new iPhone has better reception than your last one? (as in more bars)

Aug 5, 2008 12:45 PM in response to Petra Hall

No difference here. If anything it's worse now. But I suspect a bad phone. I'm taking mine back to the apple store later today for an exchange and will report back.

ibosie

Level 4

1,122 points

Aug 5, 2008 2:00 PM in response to Preston Landers

I had full 3G signal and downloads of 1.6Mbps before the update. I now have very poor signal and very slow downloads. Something happened to font anti-aliasing as well; text is nolonger crisp and looks very light and patchy particularly in Safari. So far this has been a downgrade and I have lag worse than before - very disappointing. Also accelerometer - it's unusable now for gaming but worked fine before.

Aug 6, 2008 8:40 AM in response to JMF

Does this make any sense? If I use my bluetooth earpiece(plantronix) I keep my call,even if my bars are nubs)BUT if I try to just talk on the iphone like a reg cell phone, my caller says I start to sound like "darth vader" even tho I hear fine. My caller also has att. If I unpair the earpiece it doesnt matter. I just keep dropping calls!!

Aug 6, 2008 8:47 AM in response to JMF

C'mon fellows. Nobodys crying, but Ive heard that 3g fix also, and it realy doesnt seem to make a dif. Ive tried it. If I could see a change in my "bars" that would be one thing. But my problem is this, 99% of my calls are to my wife, who also has ATT. I can hear her fine. She hears me fine for about 2 minutes, then she says.."youre sounding like darth vader?"Whats that?I hear no change, ** if I use my earpiece, I get untrammeled call. Go figger? I guess walk around with this bluetooth sticking outa my ear. D'ya think its the upgrade? How do you "downgrade"?

Aug 6, 2008 8:54 AM in response to MilanAppleFan

Nokias are strong! When I had nTelos, i went thru about 5 high dollar phones before IFINALLY went back to my old nokia,(nonflip). It was a beast. I miss it now, but i m such an applenut I wanna make this thing work.

FLUIDNYC

Level 1

50 points

Aug 6, 2008 10:20 AM in response to 123walter

iPhone 3G still dropping calls with new firmware.
Reception still crap here in NYC.

Aug 7, 2008 9:13 PM in response to Randy Metzger

i'm glad you got your problem solved. but it's also scary that there are already different versions of iphone 3Gs out there. i was about to return mine today.

i am in Toronto and suddenly this morning my iphone was dropping ALL my calls. it would say "failed call" on the screen either shortly after hearing the other person's phone ringing (when i'm calling) or immediately after the call is established (ie. the other person answers my call).

what fixed the problem for me was simply to turn off the power of the iphone, and then turning it back on (something i've done only once prior to buying this phone a couple of weeks ago). i'm guessing maybe it needed a 'reboot'... since i've had it on standby for a long time and downloading apps on it, etc. etc... (during this time i noticed erratic behavior such as screen powering off when i'm doing something, moments of 'freezes' or non-responsiveness, unexplained sudden bad reception)

anyway i'm glad i can place calls again. lots of bugs and glitches still need to be fixed that's for sure. (not going to update firmware to 2.0.1 since ppl are reporting that it made things worse than before...)

chiu2

Level 1

0 points

Aug 14, 2008 8:45 PM in response to Randy Metzger

I'm experiencing the same thing when driving through the city of Hong Kong. Hong Kong has been setup for 3G ages ago. I have full signal strength and still have the problem with dropped calls. It's like going back in time with 3G first came out in HK 6 years ago, when a lot of users had dropped calls!

Bricktop

Level 1

0 points

Aug 23, 2008 8:41 AM in response to Randy Metzger

I started having the same problems with dropped calls and poor or no signal. I thought I'd try doing a reset just like you reboot the computer when it's acting weird. I went to Settings>General>Reset.

It has worked perfectly ever since! I don't know if that's a coincidence but it seems unlikely. No one else on the message boards seems to have tried this, so maybe it's the solution. (BTW, the reset didn't affect any of my settings.)

Jan 12, 2009 4:28 PM in response to Randy Metzger

Randy,
I agree i too had a bad device. We run a PEST CONTROL business here in So. Cal and work a 6 - day work week, i'm primarily in sales and am on the phone A LOT! We purchased 3 iPhones within a 9 month time frame beginning in June 2008. My phone dropped at least 3 times a day but as many as 10 a day ... no joke! I contacted ATT and ran through their level 1 support and did all they requested to no avail. Spoke to a "GENIUS" at an Apple store and they recommended a "restore"...which i did and same problem. Finally made an appointment and they ran a diagnoses on my 3G...evidently they replace phones with 9% or more dropped calls. My phone had 7% in the last 2 weeks! Apple replaced my phone with a "white box" phone and *NO MORE DROPPED CALLS!* SO.......listen up kids...if you have constant dropped calls take the 3g in and have it diagnosed...odds are you're getting a replacement. (within a 1 yr period...unless you purchased their extended guar.)

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Dropped Calls on the iPhone 3G