iPhone 3G Reception Problems? You're Not Alone - Continued

I follow this thread with huge interest. In fact I followed it (actually the original thread) before I even bought iPhone 3G despite everything said here. I thought whatta heck if it doesn't work I'll return it and will stay with my old at&t Blackjack 3G. So I was preped for the worst.

What's very strange is that in 3 weeks I have iPhone my 3G coverage and reception are rock solid. I have yet to have a single dropped call. I had few "no service" instances but they were exactly in the same places as Blackjack had - elevators, subway stations, backs of big shops, etc. Same as with Blackjack I have 5 bars of 3G both in my 15th floor apartment in Jersey City on 25th floor of my Park Avenue office and steady 3G or Edge signal almost everywhere I go in between. Everything related to reception and coverage including relatively smooth transitions between 3G and Edge is comparable to Blackjack 3G (my wife now uses it). But iPhone has much better voice quality not speaking of Internet experience and overall interface.

And I roll in exactly same places (Manhattan, Jersey City, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Northern Jersey, Sandy Hook on Jersey shore) that many on this thread complained about. Go figure! I know quite a few people spread geographically over US with iPhone 3G's all of whom have no problems. I root for you guys but there must be variation in iPhone batches, SIM cards and who knows what else. How else my experience can be explained?

While in Washington DC, all calls were dropped after a second or two. When I turned 3G off, no problems.

We have no 3G in my town or the town where I live. And the battety is almost completely drained within 12 hours even with light use.

Message was edited by: bilbo_baggins

Let me just go on record as another unsatisfied customer. I live in downtown Los Angeles, where 3G coverage is a given, and not only is the 3G wonky and unreliable, but oftentimes I'm struggling to even get decent edge support! Edge is absolutely worse on my new 3G than it ever was on my first generation iPhone. Adding insult to injury, I drop multiple calls every day, something that rarely happened before my "upgrade."

I'm going to call into apple care, not that I think that they can fix it, but rather just to have a record of my complaint. I
< Edited by Host >

Hello All,

This morning, while driving around checking my 3G coverage, (I drove approx. a 10-15 mile radius) here are my 3G signal strength results. Someone ask me to post these:

*-53 to -81*

I am actually so glad that my name is off the post! I was getting a lot of nasty comments being said about me for starting the thread. Which was to be expected. But for all of those people, please read this:

While in college earning my Bachelor Degree in Computer Science... I was busy writing a label software program (that was eventually sold through Computerland - nationwide) that was written on the _original Apple II_. Since then... I have owned an Apple II+, IIe, the original Macintosh, a IIGS, Macintosh SE30, Mac Classic, (3) Macintosh Quadra 900's, Newton Message Pad 2000, (2) Power Macintosh G3's, (5) original iMacs, the original iPod, PowerBook G4, more iPods (lost count), (7) iMac's (intel), (4) original iPhone's and now (3) iPhone 3G's. While working for a world-wide printer manufacturer, I cemented the relationship between my employer and Apple. For those who remember the original launch of the iMac's... they were sold in different colors... well one printer manufacturer had printers to match!

The only "Windows" running in our home are on our iMac's. Its important that my kids are versed on both platforms. So, I am very loyal to Apple, and have been for 31 years! This should clear up any ideas that I am not an Apple (loyal Apple) user, supporter, etc.

Last, until everyone gets a 3G signal (in 3G coverage areas of course)... keep posting... hints, tips, suggestions, experiences, etc. I am really believing that this is more of an AT&T issue, than an Apple issue. Again, I know many will disagree. But as I mentioned on my original thread, I believe that AT&T and other carriers (World-Wide) over exaggerated the extent of 3G coverage area(s) at least in the U.S.

Thanks,
Doug

Good luck with that Local. When the judge asks you why you kept a product that wasn't working for you when you were welcome to return it to either Apple or AT&T after a 14 day trial, I hope you've got a good answer. Hanging on to a phone just so you can be part of a possible future class action law suit makes great sense.

i live in syracuse, ny. my iPhone 3g suffers poorly in reception. I has a horrible time switching from edge to 3g. pretty much it will never auto connect to 3g unless i manually turn off 3g then turn it back on.

if it loses 3g signal after that it will never reconnect unless i manually turn it on/off again.

I have noticed overall with 3g on and off reception is horrible compared to my last iPhone.

With 3g on the phone many times will just get stuck at no service.

battery life is also so bad i can almost literally sit there and watch the battery level go down it goes down so fast. this is with bluetooth, location services and 3g turned off.


also the phone is terribly slow compared to last iPhone. say i load something as simple as contacts... i have to wait a few seconds for it to show up. everything i run on the phone seems this way.

very slow phone.

another issue, my apps half the time won't run unless i shut off the phone and restart. now they won't load period. time for a restore.

*In reply to Taltal,*

+hello doug,+

+the placebo effect: when you strongly believe something will help you, it will help you (even though the actual remedy has no effect).+

+I'm looking forward to your figures.+

+I did some testing today, outside, well covered area, and got up to -73 dBm with full bars. in buildings in immediately drops to minimum -91, but mostly -97 to -105, sometimes -113 dbm.+

*Thanks for explaining what Placebo is! I can happily report that myself, son or daughter do not suffer from this. Seeing is believing!*

Have a great day! 🙂

Doug

I have the 3G, had it for about 3 weeks now. I have to say that when i get 3G service its great, I get it about 80% of the time. Whats annoying is I work in Times Square on the 33rd Floor of a building and the best I can get is edge. Come on ATT its Times Square! Besides that I do find that the service inconsistently switches to Edge. One day I will be at my apartment and Ill get 3g, then the next only edge. Are the cell towers are cars or something? Also the OS lags a bit, its better over all but not as responsive as 1.1.4. I am looking forward to improvements in 2.1.

I would like to know when Apple or AT&T will address the issue formally and suggest what we consumers should do for the meantime until the issue is resolved and when we can expect a fix to the problem so many are suffering. I think for so many people to have spent so much time in line to buy a product that is not performing as everyone has been led to believe, we deserve some answers. I will not return my iphone, I love it, with or without 3g. I love it more when 3g is working, and that is one of the reasons I bought it, but even without 3g it is still a superior phone imho. What bother's me the most is the extra $10 AT&T is charging for something that is not functioning properly. If the fee were the same as the originally iphone, $20, I would not be so concerned for the time being, believing there must be a fix on the way. Is there? Hello, Apple, AT&T, are you listening? I know you are and I know you can hear us!

I am on my second Iphone 3g and I am still having huge reception problems. The first and second phone are dropping 40-50% of my calls.

I spent 2 hours on the phone last night with both ATT and Apple support. We tried hard resets, turning the phone on and off, and a full restore with no improvement on the reception end. Both ATT and Apple denied that this was a widespread problem saying that my call was one of the first they heard of.

I took the phone back to the ATT store today and they replaced the sim card. That didn't really seem to have much of an effect. The guy also sent and update to my phone, he said that he was suprised that the ATT Tech Team didn't catch the fact that my phone hadn't been updated. I asked what the update was for and he told me that my phone wasn't made available to all the towers in the area. My home is in a Cleveland suburb and according to ATT should be getting great coverage. Right now my phone is showing 1 bar on the edge network.

Last thing - ATT tech support called back a few minutes ago and told me that they are having reports from all around the country about this issue. This is the first time that someone from either company has admitted to me that there is a problem.

+I am on my second Iphone 3g and I am still having huge reception problems_. _The first and second phone are dropping 40-50% of my calls .+

+Last thing - ATT tech support called back a few minutes ago and told me that _they are having reports from all around the country about this issue_. This is the first time that someone from either company has admitted to me that there is a problem.+

Wow.

I think the success of the iphone 3G is killing AT&T network. I noticed a change in service on 07/14 while using my blackberry curve. The service got terrible. By the way, I believe AT&T is suffering on edge and 3g

Thanks, Doug.

Those are really good values. What a pity your reset didn't work for me.

I've checked again, and even outside I get values in the range of 80-95 db. And dropped calls, not only within buildings.

Enjoy the phone.

My experience at the AT&T wireless store echo fogel's statement. I can't speak for our friends overseas, but the AT&T employees at the store complained of bad 3g reception there, as well. one guy showed me his blackberry, and the phone was hopping back and forth between 3g and edge while I was standing there looking at it. I had better 3g reception, and I was going in there to replace my sim card due to my crappy 3g reception. In the US, at least, I think it's the network.

EDIT: oh, and lest I forget, the 3g network, even in its crippled state, is infinitely faster than edge. I had my first iphone since January, and checking the usage stats, I downloaded 1.9 Gigs of information between Jan 18 and July 23(when I got the 3g iPhone). Since July 23, I have downloaded 2.1 gigs of information on the 3g iPhone.

Message was edited by: mrprice33