iPhone 5 bad call voice quality

I have the iPhone 5 since several months and the same problems with bad voice quality (robotic voice) and dropped phonecalls. There is a statistic from an austrian provider, that the amount of dropped phonecalls of the iPhone 5 is twice as big as for the Samsuns S3 for instance.

Link: http://futurezone.at/produkte/13541-iphone-schlechtester-empfang-aller-smartphon es.php

Why the **** is Apple acting so ignorant? The iPhone 4 was such a good smartphone, the iPhone 5 is definitely the last Apple Smartphone!

Greetings from Germany

Lukas

As you're from Germany you're able to read the whole text and understand what's written their. The identified two major problems:

a) iPhone is not optimized to the network of the provider

b) Design of the the iPhone ist not the best for perfect reception of mobile signal

ad a) T-Mobile is the worst carrier in Austria. Some say Orange but Orange has not the best coverage but a stable network. T-Mobile offers in wide areas of Austria only mobile speeds up to 1MB Down und if you're lucky 1MB Up. On the same place with Hutchsion 3 or A1 you'll get most likely 20MB Down and 4-5MB Up. T-Mobile invested in upgrading their network to SingleRAN and this project finished in Oct/Nov 2012 to be able to offer LTE if new frequencies are available after an auction. Befor the whole network was not updated since years! There have been a few LTE field tests but limited to small areas (Vienna/Graz ... and don't know from more ...).

Also 3 has issues with the iPhone as therei AMR-WB implementation is screwed up and does not work with the iPhone5. I told this multiple times in this thread.

To be fair, this test says that T-Mobile has the best voice quality (in terms of MOS-LQO/MOS-LQO) and success connections. BUT the test was critized because only main spot areas were tested. So let's make a reality check. Austria is a land rich of mountains and valleys. So primary the test is just for marketing as it HUGELY depends on where you are in Austria. The best carrier sometimes doesn't have coverage or only GSM where 3 Hutchison has HDSPA+ Coverage. Overall the test states that every single carrier in Austria is still better in terms of quality than any other carrier in Germany.

ad b) iPhone5 had one of the best receptions i've ever sawn. The made great improvements and learned from Antenna-Gate. Personally i had EDGE coverage in elevators with my iPhone5 ...

There's one thing the article didn't mentioned. Did the measured just iPhone 5 from their own network? T-Mobile is a fallback network for 3 Hutchison. Where no 3G coverage is available you automatically roam (not multiple operator, single network technology) into the network of T-Mobile. So maybe the whole article is distorted because of issues while roaming back to the 3G network OR not roaming back as it never was possible for me during a call ...). But this is one major source of issues!

And as an additional information -> there's an ongoing discussion on a quite huge website in Austria about this article and most people aren't able to comprehend this article because personal experience states the oponnent.

Dear xpla,

the link I posted was only an example. The problem with the bad antenna was a reference to the iPhone 4 (1st generation). I also mentioned the problems in the Deutsche Telekom Service-Forum:

http://forum.telekom.de/foren/read/service/handys-mobile-datengeraete/iphone/iph one-5-empfangsprobleme-sprachqualitaet,870,11090138.html

There are hundreds (probably thousands) of people with the same problems. The network of the Deutsche Telekom is by far the best network with highly down- and uprates in mobile connections. I never had any problems with my iPhone 4, even at places with bad connection-quality. I also changed the hardware and the SIM-Card several times! Nothing changed... so you want to tell me its not a fault of Apple?

Since September 2012 the iPhone 5 is released and people around the world have problems with the iPhone 5.

I don't really get what you're trying to say with your response.

Regards

Lukas

Could you please read my post?

You linked an article about Austria. So, Connect (a german magazine for mobile communication) stated that any carrier in Austria has a far better network than any carrier in Germany.

Next thing, i talk about T-Mobile in Austria and so does your cited article (from futurezone.at). So please don't talk about T-Mobile or Vodafone or whatever network in Germany will be the best. Networks in Austria are better by coverage. In a year we'll have quite anywhere LTE coverage. Germany not and no other country. That's because Austria was and is a test market for mobile communication. At the moment there are issues about the frequencies and a merger between Orange and 3 Hutchsion who delayed the auction for using existing frequencies with LTE technology but every carrier is ready for full LTE coverage.

What surprises me with the iPhone5 is just how many people have had problems with it, yet there's been virtually no publicity for this fundamental problem.

If all else fails, we expect to be able to do the basics on our phones - making calls & sending texts. I don't care how good the other features on a phone are if they can't perform the 2 basic functions.

I am going for my Apple Genius appointment first thing tomorrow morning but I don't hold out much hope as the muffled mic problem sounds like it's a design fault and not something those in store can help with.

Here in Denmark, switching 3G off (Settings – General – Cellular) solve the problem with dropped connections and "tinny sound quality".

I am not sure what this means, relating to a hardward/software problem in the iPhone 5, but the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s work fine with 3G enabled, in this same location.

I have tested three iPhone 5 in this exact location. All three units had the same sound quality problem. All three units responded favorably to switching 3G off.

MB

Turning 3G off means that you use another Voice-Codec and your iPhone doesn't try to establish AMR-WB (HD-Voice) connection. This issue has nothing to do with the original issue discuss here (bumping volume because of noise gate threshold). But this is also an issue and i have it on 3 Hutchsion (just "Three" in UK) here in Austria.

Xpla calm down 😁 I never said that any german network coverage is better than austrian. You certainly know the saying "Wer lesen kann ist klar im Vorteil." As I said before, the link was only an example. Don't get me wrong, but I don't care about austria's network coverage.

I will use my iPhone for approx. 99% in germany.

Regards

Lukas

Interesting Morten.

I too have found switching 3G off helpful - not with the muffled sound problem, but with call quality - I'm in a strong 3G area but I just cannot use 3G where I live - the signal breaks up and calls are constantly dropped. I switch to EDGE and the calls are more stable. (Vodafone UK)

It's pretty outrageous really isn't it - that the phone Apple have sold me for £700 can't actually do the basics!

Klar verstehe ich das Sprichwort. The issue is you cited an article from an austrian website where an austrian carrier document was leaked stating that the iPhone 5 has more dropped calls than other phones.

So we need to talk about networks in Austria and in detail about T-Mobile network. Someone questioned the reported stastic because far more iPhone5 where in the report than S3 so normalisation had to bee done to make percentages comparable. Higher drop rate by twice as much S3 doesn't mean less quality 🙂

@heskethbang

That's an issue with AMR-WB and Apple not giving test samples to carrier. So they can't tweek settings like the do on Android with the CSC file.

So you're telling me that higher drop-rates mean better quality? Maybe this was not the best example for the problems I have, but you get what I tried to say, do you?

I highly doubt you are able to read.

If you have a statistic for example and test 1 million iPhone5 but only 500.000 Galaxy S3 your data will be distorted. A higher failure rate on the iPhone5 must not be an overall higher failure rate because the sample is 1 million to 500.000. I hope i made this clear to you.

I highly doubt you understood the article. The DCR is the average value. This means, that the dropped calls from 100 iPhones is doubled in comparison to 100 Samsung Galaxy S3.

"I highly doubt you understand basic politeness......"

Why don´t you drop the condescending tone, and stick to the topic.

I you feel entitled to chew people out, the internet provide plenty of opportunity!

MB

Hello all European friends, it's not your network providers that are causing this voice call problem, it's the iPhone 5 noise cancelling system (with the extra micro phone) that causes this.

If you can, please test your iPhone 5 against iPhone 4S side by side and you would see it for yourself.