I haven't had a dropped call in a while. Today when I woke up I updated the firmware to 2.1 and had 3 dropped calls just on the way to work. Has anybody else encountered this? Also my EDGE icon looks different. It is just an E instead of the E in the box.
I read all of the posts before writing a response - I haven't had a dropped call or call failure since the update in the Portland OR area.
I had 47 dropped calls and 27 "call failed" messages in August alone, but some of them were with my Moto Z9 (my backup phone). I haven't used my Z9 since Friday. I have had a few data drops since Friday with my wireless broadband card; the data D/L speeds for my card have tanked since the iPhone came out, and I'm getting a little ticked off about that - my new iPhone gets better data D/L speeds than my card more often then not, and the latency? Grrrrrrrr. I was getting 1.5-1.6 Mbps D/L speeds with 110-150 ms latency regularly with my Z9 while tethered - lately with the card the D/L speeds are 1/3 that with .5-1.0 second latencies as late as three days ago - I'm not a happy camper. In the newer 850 areas along the Oregon Coast, only one dropped call out of dozens and great data speeds, but with a lot less competition for bandwidth out there. Like parts of the East Coast, parts of the PDX ATTWS went totally down and it made the news a couple of times.
In PDX, it's the network that's causing problems. My Z9 was dropping calls and had call failures weeks before the iPhone came out. Our network's getting upgraded to 850. Everybody I know had had problems, even the couple of guys I know that are still using their Nokia 6230i fossils. 80 miles from here in a rural GSM/EDGE area, my mom's had call drops and failures for weeks until about a week ago. I just received a credit for over $100 a couple of days ago, but I also had trouble tickets pulled. I'm hoping the network issues get resolved soon. The bugs in the iPhone OS were compounding the network problems in our area. Three different SIMs didn't help. An iPhone swap didn't help.
Do yourself a favor, if you haven't already. I updated to the 2.1 FW, then thought better of it and wanted to start with a clean slate. I restored the iPhone as a new phone and rebooted the phone after the restore - I haven't had any issues since the restore. Too many more issues, however, and I'm trading it in for a Moto Q9h.
Every PDA I've owned over the years has had some issues, including my VZ Treo 755p - that device's recent ROM update fixed a multitude of problems (BT, freezes, crashes, call failures, poor battery life - sound familiar?) so that the Treo is almost usable after that OS was out for more than 4 years, but it still looks like Apple's System 6....
I experienced 3 dropped calls during the first 6 weeks after I bought the 3G iPhone.
After installing 2.1 I dropped 6 calls in 3 days... and in a location where the phone is displaying 3 bars signal strength.
I cannot tell you how frustrating the dropped calls have been. The dreaded 3 beeps and the call is over. The update has done nothing to fix this in my opinion. Most of the time a call will not last longer than 15 minutes without dropping. Sometimes I have 5 bars and 3G and make a call, within a second it fails the call and every time I try afterward. I simply give up the call and use SMS. Then later it seems to be able to make a call. Has anyone gone back to Apple and requested a new phone? Is this problem model specific as I have the 8Gig?
The phone does everything else very well but make calls. 2.1 did seem to make the battery life last longer but PLEASE FIX THE DROPPED CALLS, PLEASE!!!
I drop at least 3-4 calls per day plus, if that werent bad enough, i am in the middle of a conversation and all of a sudden they cant hear me. I can hear them fine..this *****...
I'm in Portland, too. Before the 2.1 upgrade I never had dropped calls - because I kept 3G off. Except for right around the I-5 corridor, it was just too flakey to trust.
When I upgraded, I restored the phone as new.
Since the upgrade, I've turned 3G on to try it out. Battery life is good. But calls are still dropping. Today it dropped in the middle of a call from my vet telling my my cat had died. The phone showed 4 bars of 3G. At home, I'm as likely to get "no service" as not. Switching to Edge brings service back and keeps my calls from dropping.
I am another who cannot tell you how frustrated I am about dropped calls. I have been back and forth with AT&T for over 10 hours in the last couple weeks, about 75% of my calls get dropped, it all started after the first update and after the 2.1 update nothing has changed. it seems to me that if these two corporations decided to do a sole source contract together they should either determine which one is falling short on what they promised customers, or take some collective responsibility by teaming up to provide us with a call center dedicated to this problem. I am so tired of talking with reps who just blame the other corporation and placate me without ever being honest about what is going on or actually trying to diagnose the problem. I have exchanged my phone twice and my simcard once and at this point this is simply ridiculous.
that last post is supposed to say that I have been back and forth with both Apple and AT&T customer service. I typed it too quick and now when I edit it will not change the text.
I am in the exact same boat as you. I have dropped calls 75 % of the time on 3G even though I am clearly in a 3G coverage area. I'm on my second iPhone (first one's acceleratometer didnt work). Tomorrow, I get the privilege of driving 1.5 hours to the nearest Apple Store for my 3rd iPhone. I will be selling it on ebay or craigslist and buying a Blackberry with the money. Both Apple and ATT have been very nice in terms of trying to help, but my experience with this gadget has been a disaster. Because I hoped the software updates would fix my problems I missed my window to return the iPhone. I have been on the phone with Apple and ATT for many hours the past week. And yes they both point fingers at the other.
thanks for your post. seems to me that if anyone from Apple is reading this thread they should notice that there is a serious problem in the fact that folks trusting their company in waiting for the updates to come out are getting burned by going past the return date.
sure would be nice if apple would do the right thing, somehow.
Like many of you, the 2.1 update has increased the frequency of my dropped calls. The 3G signal is strong in all situations where this occurs. I enjoy the functionality of the phone for all things except its primary purpose: use as a phone. I'm incredibly disappointed and frustrated and given the posts I don't feel as though there are many options. I will try the network reset and turn off 3G, as interrupting calls with clients is unprofessional, tedious, and frustrating.
For any readers with additional advice from communication with Apple or AT&T, I would appreciate feedback. Meanwhile, Apple, please fix this problem.
opera2008 wrote:
The 3G signal is strong in all situations where this occurs.
I agree with all you said.
However, I would rather say "The 3G signal APPEARS to be strong ..." - as with 2.1, only the display of the bars has been pushed up (not reception itself).
