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.

[rachelruiz1]

My husband runs our business from his phone & ever since switching from his palm to the 3G, he's been getting calls dropped right & left! We know of one case where we lost potential client because the "this user is not accepting calls at this time" message came on. I think we're going to lose the cash & switch back to Verizon.
Rachel
Queens, NY

[mkoy2881]

This is crap. All i do is drop calls with this phone, even with the new 2.1 release. I am so disappointed in Apple and honestly I expected this from AT&T. I am looking for a way out of this phone and I am going to auction it on EBAY. The fact that neither company is big enough to accept blame is terrible. DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE AT ALL.

[jill56]

After update 2.1, my 3 weeks old iPhone 3G is dropping even more calls throughout a big metro area with 5 bars consistently.
I took it to Apple store and they hooked it up to their system and the screen showed 27% dropped calls (12 out of 46). They told me to take it to AT&T store to get SIM card replaced which I will do soon. Others haven't had any luck with SIM replacement though. But my friend's iPhone 3G in the same area doesn't drop any calls. Probably a manufacturing quality control flaw where not all iPhones are behaving the same.

[callexiss999]

I just bought the 3G Iphone, 16GB, and the network connection SUCKS, I have calls dropping like every conversaction I had. I am returning this in the morning, and hope to find my old iphone back, I just recently drop my old iphone somewhere while working, and couldn't find it, that's why I go for the new iphone. :( SUCKS

[augie621]

I just purchased the Apple IPhone 3G on 10/10/2008, I have found the phone drops calls like crazy and the internet speed is slow at best even with the new software update version 2.1 it still drops call consistently. I have spent hours on the phone with AT@T and Apple tech support its seems the problem cannot be fixed by Apple or AT@T this phone should be recalled and customers should be given a full refund

[TuuTuuTango]

My iPhone 3G from HELL is on YouTube? I love this phone but I hate AT&T. (Go to YouTube and type in my moniker, "RoyFromTexas".) Look for NO BARS IN TEXAS.

My first Apple product was a $10,000 LISA computer back in 1983, so "YES," I'd say I'm a "branded" fanatic.

Look for my latest video. I have three about my iPhone from HELL.

[vonrueden]

I ported from Verizon to AT&T with 4 lines. I bought 2 Iphone 3g's and a blackberry and one other phone from Samsung on October 4, 2008. It now is October 22nd and we are returning the phones due to horrible cell performance. We have many dropped calls, bad connections, static etc. I love the Iphone but cannot survive in business with the service. I think my problem is that I was spoiled with verizon's service. I guess I will wait for the Blackberry Storm from Verizon. Technology is a funny thing once you get it and get used to it you somehow expect it to work.

[Heathera25]

On the 3g coverage map it shows I'm in a area with the best 3g coverage. But while on the Internet it goes from 3g to edge while sitting in one area. I just bought this Friday and if I had known I may have just stuck with the original iPhone. Has anyone heard of any fixes?

[lmkovacs]

I recently had an issue making and receiving calls on my iPhone 3G just last week. I was able to send/receive text message, but not send/receive phone calls. I had restarted my phone twice, but no change.

So I logged into AT&T's online chat and spoke to a customer service person. They had me shut off my phone while they checked some settings. Then had me turn it on again and make a call, which did not work again. When I told the guy that it still was not working he told me that there was nothing else he could do and that I should contact Apple's iPhone support at some 800 number (which I could not call since my cell phone is my only phone). When I asked if there was another way to contact Apple iPhone support, (i.e. online chat) they told me no and he apologized for any inconvenience.

Still frustrated, I Googled the issue and found lots of sites where people complained about this issue all across the U.S. (I'm in Boston, MA). When I saw the suggestion to simply turn off my 3G, I tried it and I was instantly able to make a phone call.

What frustrates me about this is that AT&T should have been able to suggest that I turn off my 3G network and try it again later. At least then I could have made a phone call to Apple.

[sweet2244]

dear i am also face this proublum plz tell me what can i do plz help me

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[al_dunbar]

I live in the city in Atlanta. My original iphone dropped calls frequently while in 3G mode. the majority of the time I would be talking and the phone would just drop out without the three beep tone of a dropped call. After figuring out that the person was no longer there, I would call the person I back, and after talking for 30 seconds or so, it would happen again. Very frustrating. After my iphone continued to drop calls, I jumped through all of AT&T and Apples hoops and swapped out my phone for a shiny new iphone. Guess what? Same problem. Only now I mostly get the 3 beep notification that the called dropped so I'm not still talking into a dead connection like an idiot. With both the old and new phones, this would happen when I'm sitting still in an area with full strength 3G signal. AT&T and Apple blamed each other, sometimes explicitly, yet no real answers. As a result, I just use Edge to make calls (when I remember). Not an ideal solution by any means. So, if you were thinking about using your phone to make any professional calls, by all means avoid the iphone.

[al_dunbar]

one more thing...
Very, very frequently, if I try to make a call in 3G, I'll select the number from my contacts, hit call, and get a tone and some message that the number I've tried to dial is not a working number (or something to that effect). I try again and it works, of course. This happened with both 3G iphones I've had here in Atlanta.

[TJSwoboda]

Nine months after the article, I'm having the same problem. Got my iPhone 3G less than two weeks ago, signed up with AT&T, and while it shows a constant five bars (in Las Vegas) it's dropped calls right and left.

[rixoraxo]

I had been having problems with my iphone dropping the 3G signal and simply reset my network settings on the iphone, and it appears to have worked. It has been two days and no more drops in coverage. I live in the Boston area.

[5windnsea]

I have little issues with phone reception in Miami but I do have a problem connecting to the internet and getting my emails. When I try to go online, even at home with a strong wi-fi connection, I get an error message saying that Safari quit because server not found. I then have to shut off my phone and restart but that does not always fix the issue. The phone is VERY slow, especially considering that my husband has the first generation iphone and he gets on the internet faster than me!

[gsp100677]

I just bought a 3GS here in the UK on O2's network (who I've been with for almost 10 years with flawless reception) and am having recption problems with the iPhone - not just 3G, but the GPRS phone signal never goes above 1 bar of reception and spends about 40-50% of the day showing 'No Signal' where my old Sony Ericsson showed a flawless 5 bars of GPRS reception AND strong & consistent 3G signal. I've missed numerous calls and text messages & I'm on y 4th iPhone having swapped the others as defective & every time I call Apple for tech support I get "oh, nobody here had ever heard of that problem", etc.

And now I read this article from a year ago, and see a 65 page (!!) thread on Apple's own discussion forums with users reporting the exact same problems. Not only that, but that 65 page thread has been closed due to getting too long and continued in another, which has also been closed and continued fro getting to long...and so on, until a 5th thread - running from July last year, right up until the present moment!

And Apple claim, they've never heard of anyone having reception problems every time I speak to their tech support team! How can this problem still not be fixed a year later, AND Apple still be trying to pretend it doesn't even exist?!

[gsp100677]

I forgot to add, that I've been through every single troubleshooting step suggested by both O2's and Apple's 2nd tier tech support teams, exhaustively with each of these 4 iPhones, including sending Apple about a 1/2GB of iPhone 'Baseband' crash logs for their engineering team to look at. Both Apple and O2 have also confirmed that I'm in a very strong, high coverage area for both GPRS and 3G - & I've also confirmed with Ofcom the independant regulatory body that there are 9 base stations within 1 mile of my area. 3G doesn't even appear on the phone at the best of times - but the real frustration is missed calls & frequently no GPRS signal (regardless of whether I've got 3G or wifi on or off, etc)!