Comments on: Apple, AT&T mum on iPhone 3G issues

A month after the launch of the iPhone 3G, reception problems continue to plague owners with dropped calls, poor networking speeds, and frustrating customer service experiences.

[bobbert08]

I have the new iPhone 3G and haven't had any problems. I love it! If you have a defective one, have Apple get you a replacement. Their customer service is outstanding. I live in the Salt Lake City/Provo area of Utah and have always had 3-5 bars on 3G.

[dtarvoigd]

No problems in Houston I live on the south east side and 3g is strong over here and have had no problems downtown or by the galleria even drove down to galviston on 45 and didn't lose 3g till I got to less developed parts of the island.

And even now I am typing this on my iPhone at home in full 3g coverage.

[TheWiiKid]

Ive had a Cellone/Cingular/at&t for many years and everytime they tried anything new its had bugs. Its only been 18 months now ? No? I have two account now since at&t has no contract on me I went and got a Verizon account two years ago and the contract is done soon. So now I have a choice. I want the LG Dare right now though. Love the commercials too. The Dare Phone , Dare You To Touch It.
LOL

[svseller]

I am in SF bay area (San Francisco and Palo Alto). Getting spotty 3G on the 280 from SF to Palo Alto. Crappy 3G in my Palo alto office. VERY unhappy with 3G so far, I would say it currently sucks and would not recommend anyone upgrade. I am on 2.0.1 firmware, it hasn't helped.

Someone needs to build an app that tracks cell quality with gps and we should build a map of cell quality driven by actual users.

[wheezerdoc]

I have popped out the Sim and placed it into another 3G GSM world Phone and that too is an issue. I have contacted AT&T 3 times in the past week. Apparently, the "Sea of Blue" which you can see on the AT&T website as far as 3G coverage is not the full truth. The operator at AT&T told me that in fact there are varying degrees of coverage that other maps (only which she had access to). My home / neighborhood is supposed to have 3G. In reality I need to drive 5 miles away to find 3G. I have repeatedly asked to be charged the LOWER $20 fee since they can not provide a service that they are forcing me to take.

I think if enough people stress that there maps are not accurate, they need to charge us for what they can offer. I signed a contract with a reasonable expectation that 3g would be around my house. 5 miles away is beyond reasonable. This is a breach of contract. If AT&T doesn't compensate by lowering everyones Data rates or throwing in free text messages technically they are breaching the contract. (ETF?) This may come back to bite them!

Hey AT&T fess us about your 3G network woes and lower the fees...or face rebellion and lawsuits. (I hate lawyers...but it may be the only way for the little guy to fight the deathstar)

[gerbache]

My experience in the SF Bay Area has been generally pretty good. I don't get 3G coverage inside my first floor, partially underground apartment in Oakland, but that doesn't really surprise me (besides, that's what WiFi is for!). I get nearly perfect 3G coverage in my office in Berkeley, though, and my trip between gives me good coverage except through a couple of stretches that are known for lousy cell coverage in general. I also haven't had this problem of calls dropping between 3G and GSM, even though I've frequently been on the phone when I've crossed between them.

I've even been pretty impressed by the coverage going through the more sparsely populated stretches of the north bay. I was recently up in wine country at Healdsburg and got a solid 3G signal all around town, as well as on 101 driving up. I definitely don't think AT&T's 3G is as solid as their dark blue everywhere maps would have you believe here, but I also wouldn't describe it as terrible, either.

[jaybarrow]

My first day with my 3G iPhone was not the best. I live just a few blocks from the nearest AT&T store in Tucson, Arizona. I bought the phone a couple weeks after it was released, mostly because it was unavailable everywhere. I never had problems with my 2G and couldn't wait for the faster 3G. As soon as I left the AT&T store, drove home and synced the new phone. I noticed I had no 3G connection, just a few blocks away from where I purchased the phone! After about 4 hours on the phone with AT&T and Apple restoring software and trying all sorts of things, resyncing, restoring software, troubleshooting--- you name it!, AT&T ASSURED me I should have coverage in my area. Apple told me to book it back to AT&T and get a new SIM card. That didn't work.

I figure it's just spotty coverage, despite my home being in a covered area. I couldn't even get 3G coverage inside the AT&T store itself! I had to manually restart my iPhone to get the 3G icon, after about 2 minutes of "NO SERVICE". I left the AT&T store, got into my car, and immediately went back to EDGE! Literally 5 steps away I lost 3G coverage! I went back inside and the "representative" informed me that despite AT&T's promise of coverage in our area, it was "really meant for downtown" and to expect "more towers in our area of town" by next month for better 3G coverage. It's been 3 weeks now... still waiting for "those towers".

I don't have any dropped calls, but I have half the bars when 3G is turned on and is actually working "downtown" where I was told coverage was at it's peak, so the AT&T store rep said. Hmph! Even downtown 3G is spotty. Everytime I try to enable 3G, I get "NO SERVICE" for a couple minutes, and then the 3G icon. Same when I turn 3G off. I get more bars with 3G off! What's up with that?

I have the most current update 2.0.1. And from all I've heard about the speedier interface, scrolling, coverage, keyboard response, etc. my phone hasn't seen any of those alleged results. Typing on the keyboard lags quite a bit. It can't keep up with even my slow typing.

I'm paying more for spotty 3G coverage, plus MORE for text messaging (which the AT&T sales rep FAILED to inform me it was going to cost extra for text messaging, only AFTER I purchased & synced the iPhone).

Needless to say after I received an automated phone call to my landline from AT&T to rate my recent experience it was NOT a glowing review.

[wizardElite]

Born and raised in Tucson, Arizona I visited my family last year during the holiday season. As an original iPhone version 1 owner I have to say I wasn't impressed with AT&T's coverage at all.

My family lives on the East Side of Tucson & I was lucky to get 3 bars on my iPhone. In fact I was eating breakfast at Village Inn where there is an AT&T store right across the street and I didn't even have 1 bar on my original iPhone.

Outside the other issues that the iPhone 3G has the reception is clearly and AT&T problem. Their reception is just plain awful in Tucson.

[~Neo~]

I don't believe the issue AT&T is having is related to just the iphone 3G issue as many believe but is related to AT&T's network, and issues are cropping up with other 3G capable phones. AT&T's network is underpowered for the explosive success of the iphone 3G, and other 3G enabled phones. I would expect AT&T to not acknowledge this as they are pretty silent on pretty much anything related to bad publicity.

[limefan913]

I have a question for Apple. Why on earth would you put your phone on the most inept network in the nation. Sure they're a GSM network, and as such you don't have to make 2 models, but for ****'s sake. Both AT&T and GSM are crap. That's not a good combination.

No thanks. I'll stick to my HTC Touch on Verizon Wireless where I know I have 3G wherever I go.

(Really, even with my old Razr I was never out of 3G unless cell reception itself was bad.)

Thank you Verizon for 3G across the network and not screwing me on pricing.

[mrmimis06]

Im sorry people but as much as I would love to have the iphone. (Great UI, apps, etc..) Reliability and reception just does not compare to Verizon. I know some of you are gonna come down on me for that but its the truth. Whether we want to admit it or not. Ultimately a cell phone is only as good as its reception. Now I obviously dont have an iphone and never have so I can't comment on its functionality, but I have had cingular not long ago. Atleast in the Los Angeles area, it's reception cuts on and off. Verizon may be last in getting some of the top phones but they have improved lately. Ultimately this industry is based off reception and whether some of you want to accept it or not, Verizon is the best in this department.

[honestbleeps]

I've got an iPhone 3G in Chicago, and 3g coverage is atrociously bad in a few neighborhoods. Unfortunately, even turning off 3G, the coverage is still quite bad in some neighborhoods. The worst part is how bad it gets indoors.

AT&T support said they'd drive my area and check it out -- they did (or so they say) and said signal was perfectly fine and dandy in my neighborhood. If that's the case, it's the iPhone 3G that sucks. Quite unfortunate.

[itsaspork]

A friend and I each bought an iPhone 3G 8GB, same day, same queue, same Apple Store. My phone works great, no drop-offs. His phone is cranky, with dropoffs and lots of switching between 3G and Edge in the middle of calls.

[davidjet]

I also have persistent reception problems with my iPhone 3G around Washington DC, a "solid" 3G area on their map. I resent paying more for less, regarding the 3G. I basically use the Edge 2G to increase call reliability. When surfing the net I may try 3G but I get the no signal message too often; I switch back to 2G when done. Apple's silence on this major issue is appalling. Also: I find the Safari browser crashes regularly. This is getting almost as irritating as the 3G reception issue. While the Apple phone interface is slick, their device is far from perfection. My iPhone has never sync'ed right with my Outlook contacts and calendar; I still don't have them in the phone. I'd think twice before ever purchasing another Apple product.

[MrRetardo]

This is all LIES!!! Everyone one knows Apple does NOT make a bad product!!! They're all Flawless!!!! ;)

[Vegaman_Dan]

How do you want to spin this today?

36% of calls dropped,.

64% of calls successfully made.

Either way, it doesn't look good. I'm not sure how Apple and AT&T can make this look good for them. I expect them to blame Microsoft, personally. It is the only answer that people will accept since neither Apple nor AT&T will accept responsibility for their own products.

[Vegaman_Dan]

How do you want to spin this today?

36% of calls dropped,.

64% of calls successfully made.

Either way, it doesn't look good. I'm not sure how Apple and AT&T can make this look good for them. I expect them to blame Microsoft, personally. It is the only answer that people will accept since neither Apple nor AT&T will accept responsibility for their own products.

[Vegaman_Dan]

I had an opportunity this last weekend to test out the Touch and iPhone side by side. In a downtown area that was heavily promoted by AT&T as having full 3G coverage, my friend had his iPhone and Touch and I had just my Touch and CDMA cell phone. The iPhone showed full bars for 3G. I tried calling his phone from my cell and got the 'the person you're calling is not available / offline ' message. Their phone never rang. They tried calling my phone and it went through quickly, but then dropped.... while we were standing still on the sidewalk. Okay...

For silliness, we tried the Touch units. His saw the local WAP and was able to use it. Mine also saw it, but couldn't get a connection. We power cycled both units and now I could get a connection without an issue, but his Touch didn't see the WAP existing at all, but could see another one down the street. The iPhone was blind to it all, seeing no wireless points at all.

The results of this is that nothing is consistent. My Touch crashes frequently while his does not. There's a lot of variety in the production run from my experience. There is no reliability factor here- it simply isn't yet. I trust it will get better.

Currently this means that my friend has a Crackberry for business, the iPhone for personal phone use and the Touch for wifi. That's three devices he's carrying now instead of just one because he can't get the Apple products to 'simply work'. It doesn't matter what Apple or AT&T advertises or claims if the products themselves cannot deliver the results.

The phrase "Your results may vary" is a very true one indeed.

[pecos-bill]

The iPhone 3G is a phenomenal device at everything except being a phone. Clearly, it should be changing from 3G to EDGE and not dropping calls. I've had many dropped with 2.0.0 but things look better with 2.0.1. Still far from perfect. Here in South metro Denver, the towers are in the most insane locations. According to a spreadsheet obtained from a link on the Clements' monster sized discussion at Apple, their towers are sitting inside valleys, at the bottom of depressions and hidden from our major N/S highway behind long standing tall buildings. I should have had a clue as the Apple Store down here at Park Meadows Mall can't even get 3G signal at all and the signal upstairs at the AT&T store is rather weak (betw. -90 and -100). Cingluar/AT&T got really cheap when it came to locating their towers.

AT&T advertises 3G coverage throughout and isn't providing it (not even saying the signal is weak in places). Seems like false advertising to me.

If the iPhone wasn't so excellent at everything but being a phone, I'd have returned it.

[gjl229]

The interaction of the AT&T network elements, the local RF (Radio Frequency) environment, and the HW/SW of the terminal (iPhone) is complicated and means that almost anything can happen. That's why successful systems are over-engineered big time. When they (whoever "they" may be) try to shave costs by getting close the the margins, the service will inevitably fall apart. And it will do so in different ways for different devices even 100' apart. At the margin, even a small change in sub-components, assembly precision (or lack thereof), how the antenna (phone) is oriented as you hold it, or movement to the other side of the building will change things.

RF can suffer from reflection from objects (buildings in an urban area are troublesome), absorption (more building influence ? see above comments about indoor performance), and interference from other "stuff", even though the frequencies are allegedly reserved for this use.

Apple and AT&T have built on the margin. The reported "issues" compose exactly what one would expect: different problems for different people ? even in the same place.

The simple answer is to extend the 30-day return to 60 or 90 days to allow the two companies to come up with a fix and/or come clean on the performance that we should expect. I don't quite understand how I would be expected to do a 2-year deal and buy an expensive terminal in the hope that the next release will fix things. Unless "cool" conquers all.

Me? I want to make phone calls and I don't want to carry and pay for a second phone so I can use the iPhone to tell me which song I'm listening to.

I like my iTunes but the ability to reach 9-1-1 on a stable call is far more important.

[cowgillbones_dotmac]

Not to discount people having problems, but my reception experience with the 3G iPhone has been great. I have used it since the week of the release and I travel back and forth between Pittsburgh and Dayton without any problems. There a few AT&T dead zones on 70 in the mountains but those were there for all AT&T phones, everywhere else it works.

Just one users experience.