3g Reception Greatly Improved with 2.01 update

It made no difference here in Australia (Melbourne. If you download from appstore - iNetworkTest & measure before & after the upgrade, no difference in speeds at all.

I think you are okay because it for sure will get rid of the dbm values and leave just the bars!
You don't need to update the firmware just do the rest like I explained.

My experience after the update has actually been kind of mixed. Things like the "Contacts" lag have definitely been fixed, and that's great. Overall, the entire interface seems, to use a technical term, snappier.

However, how my iPhone handles 3G and Edge signals has changed with very mixed results. As I mentioned in my other post, I actually now get 3G in my office. Only 1 bar, with -db of -99 to -105, but it's 3G. I never had 3G in my office before the update. As soon as I got to my office parking lot, my iPhone would hand off of to Edge which is usually in the -88 to -95 range. So, for the first time ever, I can make a call on 3G from my desk. But....

My iPhone has now become very poor at handing off between Edge & 3G. My office is up toward the mountains. As you drive down the hill toward the 210, reception goes higher and higher. Near the 210 it's around -60, -51 in spots even. Up at my office a mile away, -100. When I'd leave work before, as I started my drive down I'd be in Edge. When I got to a certain street, and you could almost set your watch by how regular this was, it would switch to 3G. There was no loss of service, it would just go from Edge to 3G, and my calls wouldn't be interrupted.

Now, as I drive the exact same route, my iPhone goes from Edge -> "no service" -> to 3G. The "no service" lasts anywhere from 1 or 2 seconds, to as long as 30 seconds. I never saw this behavior prior to the update. Not good.

KBeat,
I posted my dBm readings earlier this morning. Has your Edge reception stayed the same since updating to 2.0.1?

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1651097&tstart=50

Reception did NOT improve with firmware update.
We might have an extra bar but reception still stinks rotten.

I get 1010k to 1400k or 140K with 2.00, so, will I see a downgrade?

It's all about location in house, outside its fine, and the above speeds are in the bathroom near an open window.....
Livingroom it goes to EDGE but have wireless, so its moot.

I can finally understand, "TURN IT OFF" if you have wifi and only need it for on the road and fast, fast,

my question is though, will a FULL RESET go back to 2.0.0.

Anyway any GENIUS here can figure out how to back up to the old firmware in case the update makes the phone dumpy? In Windows, you can do all sorts of stuff like this, flashing backward, or down grading.

So, is this a SOFTWARE update or HARDWARE (ala FIRMWARE), still, in windows, you can revert back if you know what you are doing. Just wondering if there is a way to do it with the iPhone as in going back to old version if the 2.0.1 is not that good. Thinking the 2.1 will be great, add a boast to antenna but will lose time (I GET 10 HOURS on EDGE) full internet, pix, text, net, net, net and more net and am pretty impressed and WIFI for home 3G if I go out, but wherever I am, there is WI FI, so can keep it on EDGE.

Only time I went 3G was EARTHQUAKE in CALI as the EDGE lines were jammed.

CAN YOU REVERT back?

Thank you.

Please ask if you would like to see pix from testmyiphone.com (not sure I like when someone says try (fill in the blank from app store) and it costs .99 cents.

Thank you.

Maybe it was just an update to throw off jailbreaks. I notice the same amount of bars and dbm's but my downloads are slow now.

Apple you need to really take ownership and admit that there is a major issue with the iPhone 3G.

Underwhelmed in JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING, USA! Hoping the 2.01 update helps. Will let you know. Switched from Verizon last week. Signal strength is the weak link right now compared to former Verizon service. Other features seem enough on par with VZ Blackberry. If update does not improve the condition of signal reception, I'll seriously consider 30day return policy and VZ's 90day reinstatement program. As a proud Apple customer, this would be a reluctant choice. Hope its not necessary. I'll post again as soon as I've had time to try the update. Good luck all!

Not sure what to say.

I'm the one who had 5 bars of 3G for a few days, lost it for two days (not related to the 2.0.1 update), and now have 5 bars of 3G again. For those two days with either 1 bar of 3G, 5 bars of EDGE, or "No Service", I tried to fix my iPhone with a master restore. That didn't help, either.

I called AT&T twice and they could detect no problem in my area. The issue miraculously resolved itself.

Not sure what is going on here.

Upgrade to 2.01 absolutely did not help for me. I suspect it's a hardware problem. I got my iPhone on July 11, and reception wasn't too bad for about 3 weeks. Last Friday (Aug 1) it suddenly went to zero bars right after I had been talking, and I couldn't make a call for 5 minutes, when it suddenly went to 5 bars again in the exact same location. Since then, when I'm on 3G I usually have about a half-bar. It will go from strong to weak to strong as I'm sitting in the exact same location. The problem is intermittent and seems to be getting worse. This has the feel of a hardware issue. I'd take it back if I weren't swamped at work. I live in the Northern Virginia area, not far from DC.

sjmagy wrote:
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".

I initially had the same thing - where I had 5 bars 3G I would now have 5 bars Edge. Simple reboots didn't help until I tried a "hard" reboot (Home and Powre pressed together). After that all came back and seems even a little better than before the upgrade.

My conclusion based partially on our experiences is that our phones are fully capable of getting 5 bars of 3G coverage.

There is no systemic design flaw that prevents acquiring a strong 3G signal ALL the time.

I can't claim that "it's the network" or "it's the phone" but I know that our phones are technically capable of keeping this signal.

I live in Los Angeles... Never get a good 3g signal anywhere, i keep 3g turned off mostly now so I at least get good call quality... Tho edge is nothing to write home about either. Just thought a larger market like LA would have better coverage.

And really happy to be paying extra for the 3g every month!

Also in Los Angeles. Since the update, my 3G reception is considerably better -- full bars in most places where I had 0-1 before. The lag issue has also been resolved.