Signal Strength / "No Service" Issues

Hold it by the glass rather than gripping the steel rim. Signal will improve dramatically

You can't be serious. A mobile phone should work when you -- dare I say it? -- hold it in your hand. Unless I'm calling an ambulance, I'm not going to hold the glass and avoid touching the metal just so I can simply make a call.

Hi I just got my phone today. It seems the phone has a WEAK SIGNAL! Basically the phone doesnt work. Its not realiable...

Any suggestions?

You can't be serious.

I didn't say I liked it. Just reporting my observations. I kinda wondered about that when I heard the description, but figured Apple figured out a way to compensate. Apparently not. The signal drop when holding the phone in your hand is terrible, I was stunned when I figured it out.

I did notice that the signal drop appears to require direct contact with ones skin. I stuck an old rubber case on it, and the effect was gone. Looks like use of the bumper is going to be mandatory. When I grab the phone, the signal drops from a -83 (sitting on my desk) down to a -107 when grabbed, nearly a 25 db drop! It did not do that in the rubber sleeve.

I'm having the same problem. Holding the phone with your hands touching the fancy new metal antenna edges drains the signal down to nothing. I wrapped a Ziploc bag around the phone and held it in the same position and the bars went all the way back up to 5. I take it this is why Apple decided on making the bumper guard for it...

Wow, thank G-d for this thread.

Just activated the new phone and "No Service." On the phone with a CLUELESS rep from AT&T who'd clearly never seen the phone and wanted me to pull the SIM card out, blah blah...

in the meantime, I pushed Airplane Mode "on" and then "off" again as suggested below and that solved the issue in, oh, about 10 seconds. Thanks!

My issue is similar: when I turn the phone on I see full bars and 3G
When I do some thing that connects to the network (safari, email) then the connection degrades to 1 bar and E

Called ATT: useless

Previous 3G phone did not have this issue.

I have been using the phone all day and nothing changes when I hold the metal. I seem to have the same signal strength on the old and new phone. Obviously there is a real issue, but I am getting all my bars. I am in Austin, TX so if others in my areaare having problems I would be interested in hearing about them. I am inclined to agree that the network is having issues and as per usual AT&T is not ready for the new phone.

my signal strength is great one minute and it drop drastically the next.

We have 2 new iPhone 4's both exhibiting this erratic service problem at our home - they are basically unusable. They go from 5 bars to No Service without moving them. I keep thinking "oh it's working now" and then I suddenly lose service. I have the phones sitting near each other with 3 bars and I call from one to the other and they both drop to 1 bar and the second phone doesn't get the call - straight to voice mail.

I called AT&T and they said there could be an issue with setting up iPhone 4 by restoring from the iPhone 3GS backup. They got Apple on the line to walk me through backing up, and setting up iPhone 4 as a new phone and manually putting everything back (MAJOR hassle). I don't have time to do this right now so I'll have to report back! Apple then said, "if that doesn't help it may be a service issue with AT&T". I asked why our iPhone 3GS's worked just fine and she said "that's a good question."

I think it depends on the way you hold it. Have you noticed that the metal frame is not continuous but there are small bars separating the frame in separate pieces? Even jobs talked about them. Well I think the pieces are supposed not to be in contact. That's why they are separated. But with your hands you can create a contact. So depends on where you put your fingers and on the conductivity of your skin (that changes from person to person... It depends even on how much you sweat)

Sorry for my English

Frank

I too am experiencing poor signal strength compared to my 3g. NEVER had a drop problem with old phone. 4.0 has signal bouncing all over, and does not work as well with my microcell. Can't tell if it is an ATT issue or phone issue. I am trying the reset thing and the airplane off on thing but I really don't think that is the answer. I'll stay tuned to see what everyone else experiences and see if ATT does anything to their network. Why do we have to spend all this money and have a crappier performing phone?

I can't believe this. Does anyone think there is there really a way to fix this except for issuing free rubber numbers to everyone?

Looks like I'll be returning or selling at this point...