3g Reception Greatly Improved with 2.01 update

I work and live in the southern part of the Denver Metro area. Minimal bars here at work (southeast metro). If I switch off 3G, bars jump up to full. At home,(southwest metro) bars jump back and forth between full and no service. Both my wife and I got phones about 10days ago. Both of us have had dropped call problems. So much for more bars more places!

Before the 2.0.1 update, I consistently had 5 full bars of 3G coverage sitting at my desk on the 12th floor of an office building in downtown San Francisco. After 2.0.1, I have to beg, plead, and cajole the iPhone (by turning 3G off then on again) to get it to use 3G. Trouble is, it only stays on 3G for like, 30 seconds, and then switches back to Edge, if even that. More often than not I get "Safari cannot access the page blah because there isn't an internet connection available".

3G worked 100% fine for me the past 3 weeks, and now the 2.0.1 update basically disabled it entirely on my phone. /sigh Way to go, Apple....

What makes people think that this latest update fixes reception issues? Since Apple doesn't let us know other than saying... Bug Fixes.

I did the update and I don't see any improvement in the "phone" issues that I have. I've noticed that certain apps run faster. Contacts works great now. As a phone, it still has an issue going from 3G to EDGE. I still have to disable 3G at the office since the phone can't figure out that EDGE is better. Sorry I don't have db numbers for you to look at... not sure how you guys get those.

Preston Landers wrote:
Lower numbers (or larger numbers if you discard the minus sign) are worse. -99 to -107 is worse than -93 to -103.

Yes, I understand that. My point is that 15 minutes after the upgrade, I don't have enough data to know if a difference of a few dB is more than random fluctuation. (In fact, after 12 hours or so I think that the numbers are bouncing around the same range, so I'd say the update made no difference.)

ProfGHDorr wrote:
Once you get the number or bars how do you make it go away? (Bars only?) I tried restarting the phone and that didn't work.

I have no idea. I think someone in another thread claimed that if you run the test app, tap to turn the display into bars, and then quit it by holding (not pressing) the home button, the bars return--but I don't know if they can still be switched back and forth.

Appleinsider said this, "Apple may have changed the calibration of the iPhone's reception "bars" while connected to a 3G network to reflect a stronger signal than before". So maybe it's the same in dbm but the bars were reset to show what appears to be a stronger signal.

Same deal here. I had 5 bars of 3G before at home and now I don't even get 1. I will tell you all this: It was not the 2.0.1 update that caused me to lose my 3G coverage. I got home from work and noticed it. Then I installed the update to no avail.

So frustrating.

Where we live in South Marin County (SF Bay Area), 3G coverage is generally good. I don't notice much difference in the number of bars after the 2.01 update. Edge in our house is 5 bars, and 3G will be from 1 to 3. What I've noticed is that as long as the AT&T and the 3G rectangle are showing, calls go through nice and clear, independent of the number of bars. Browsing on 3G is much better than Edge, much faster and more reliable. One big improvement was with the App Store. Before the update there was a number on the App store icon saying I had some programs to update, but it wouldn't let me do it. Trying to sync the updated Apps through iTunes didn't change anything. After the update they downloaded and installed one by one, and then a message on the phone let me know that they were up to date in iTunes on my computer, too. It took about half an hour, but the result was great.

Reception on 3G is also generally good around San Francisco for me with 2.0.1. I definitely notice the updates at the Apps store going though after the update. They had been "stuck" like a bad case of constipation before the update!

Steve, where in SF are you located? I'm in DuBoce Triangle (near Castro & Market) with no 3G in site... and almost no voice.

Trying to figure out if it's network or hardware... I get great service in other places (and no service in plenty of others).

I'm in Noe Valley (near Duncan and Dolores). Strong 3G signal here and most places I go in SF.

Just measured by 3G reception at my house on www.inetworktest.com/iphone. Three measurements ranged from 368.7 kbps to 500 kbps. (About half as fast as I connect to my wireless router.)

That's exactly what it means : )

I'm actually getting a consistent signal and I can also see that it switches between 3G and edge without dropping the call.

Test this Kbeat and let me know if this is true for you.

I also don't see a difference on how the bars relate to signal but I know for a fact that my numbers are not jumping like before or dropping my calls.

I'm going to make some more test with different iPhones!
I will update you kbeat and Doug

Tapping only toggles the bars and dbm values and it won't get rid of them until you do a system reset.

A network reset won't do it like I originally explained to kbeat. My fault I just remembered doing it like that in 2.0 so maybe they changed that with 2.0.1

Anyways

General->Reset-> Reset All Settings

That depends on how you have you're email and Contacts syncing!
I have MobileMe and I never worry about loosing a contact or an email.

I think it restores you're iPhone without deleting you're media and I don't think it saves emails and contacts at all.