Comments on: iPhone 3G: What's the frequency?

Please help us determine whether there are any patterns connected to the reception issues experienced by some iPhone 3G owners on AT&T's network.

[madpixl]

Sry, in a nutshell:

Area in which you live. : Guilford, ct

Date on which you bought your iPhone 3G. : 8-1-08

Do you live inside an area labeled as 3G as shown on AT&T's coverage map? ; YES

It does not provide 3G

Dropped Calls

Battery last 24-36 hours

[gpclarke]

I just upgraded to the 3G this past weekend at the LA farmer market Grove apple store.

Area in which you live.
Los Angeles, CA 90043

Date on which you bought your iPhone 3G.
Aug. 9 -- just lucky enough to get there with no line, but the line came at around 11am.

Do you live inside an area labeled as 3G as shown on AT&T's coverage map?
Yes! I live in LA 90043 area and drive to work to Hollywood everyday, and the coverage is very spotty and drops calls all the time in 3G mode. The coverage is horrible as it goes back and forth between E & 3G for voice or data. It was much better with the E mode. The 2.01 upgrade made the E mode much faster anyway....the data speeds seem to be the same.

Have you experienced problems with dropped calls or flaky 3G connections?
Yes, I have had dropped calls like crazy, even with other AT&T users and the callers voice drop in and out. Plus, I notice the signal jumps between E & 3G consistently ... more E mode than anything.

I am very disappointed, as I was hoping for much better coverage and data speeds on 3G. Moreover, the battery life is no better, so I still have to plug it into my car and work laptop by noon to have enough juice to use it on the way home and then I have to plug it in at home right away.

I don't recommend anyone switching yet, until apple and AT&T (in that order...) make some definite changes and updates to their devices and systems. I am just afraid that the iPhone is not easily upgradable from a hardware standpoint, without being inconveniences or having to reach into my pocket again... AHHHHH!

[mikedneal1]

Bought my iphone on 7-30 I live in the bay area reception is horrible! 3gG or otherwise. I can be sitting at my desk at home and lose service and my wife is sitting at her desk right behind me on her AT&T phone with full bars. Went to the AT&T store replaced the sim after jumping through hoops with the service rep The new sim didn?t help asked for a new phone The manager of the store finally agreed to order a new phone for me JUST PAY FOR THE NEW PHONE and we will order it. Are you kidding I walked out and will be calling my business rep today

[Skip Dodson]

Interesting info regarding this issue summarized in Mac Daily News today. Here is the link: http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/apple_and_atampt_investigating_reports_of_iphone_3g_connection_issues/

[Berzerked]

I purchased my iPhone July 18th. I am in Oklahoma City on 3G with 2 bars, right now. I have lost many calls and switching back and forth from 3G to Edge. This is a constant problem I hope ATT and Apple address.

[larryennis18466]

My wife has a Motorola Razar V3 that is a 3G phone and both her and I notice that the phone drops in and out of 3G connectivity. We live in the Northeast Pennsylvania Area ( Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Mt. Pocono, Allentown ). Also my wife works in New York City and she even notice that even there the phone tends to drop in and out of 3G. I do not think it is the iPhone. I believe most of the problem is with AT&T's 3G Network.

[Chowim]

I live in the DC area and my 3G iPhone is going back to AT&T tonight! I have dropped at least 5 or 6 calls a day since "upgrading" to the 3G phone. I have loved Apple up to this point and find it amazing that they released this model and so many people are complaining.

[Chowim]

DC area
Phone purchased 7 Aug.
I have major issues in areas that are clearly labeled on the AT&T map as 3G.
No dropped calls on AT&T service until I purchased the 3G iPhone

[timl2k8]

Tom, ispoke with an AT&t tech with a lot of experience and the problem is not as simple as you describe. AT&T has dual band 3G towers which operate(3G) simultaneously at both frequencies, yes the low frequency penetrates buildings better, but does not have as much throughput, thus the high frequency as well.
The problem in my case seems to be that the tower I'm pulling from at my house is being reluctant to switch me over to the low frequency (~800 MHz). So we have a compicated engineering problem.

Thankfully the tech was able to tell me that the tower I was most likely to pull a signal from was NE of me. I usually make calls from the SW corner of my house. I go to the NE corner and low and behold I go from 1 bar to 5.

As a side note although my 3g reception has been poor in a particular area, I have had fewer problems with dropped calls in the last month or so. Everytime a call is dropped it is logged. Fortunately for us AT&T's engineers hold regular meetings to look at these logs and glean info from them to make the network better.

My own guess is that AT&T is having some 3G growing pains. With the launch of the iPhone 3g I am willing to bet they are seeing a rather signifigant bump in 3G bandwidth demand that they did that was more than anticipated, esp since iPhone users tend to also be heavy Internet (data) users, much more so than any other phone. .

[eleavell]

Area in which you live.
Las Vegas, NV

Date on which you bought your iPhone 3G.
July 11th

Do you live inside an area labeled as 3G as shown on AT&T's coverage map?
Yes

Have you experienced problems with dropped calls or flaky 3G connections? Please elaborate.
Yes, almost every call has a dropped call and barely have service anywhere. I had a blackjack 2 and I always had service and that phone is 3G as well.

[habdelra]

I live in Denver and bought my iphone on july 11th. I'm inside the 3G coverage map.

I haven't had any issues with 3G. My 3G connection at work (I work in Boulder), is rock solid (usually 3 or 4 bars). At home, I get a much weaker 3G signal (usually 1 or 2 bars), but I don't experience dropped calls--and interestingly, even though the signal is weaker, the bandwidth appears to be the same as when the signal is strong (usually 700-900Kbits). Every now and then my connection switches to edge, but as far as I can tell it is seemless to me.

I normally commute on the bus between home and work, and along highway 36 and I-25, I get a pretty solid 3G connection most of the way. There are a couple spots that I only get an edge connection--but those are in a particular geographic location--it's quite predictable, it's not a flaky-random type thing. When switching from edge to 3G and vice versa on my commute i do not experience dropped calls.

So far in the month i've owned my phone I think I have only had 2 or 3 dropped calls--which doesn't seem too out of the ordinary...

Overall I'm pretty satisfied with AT&T's coverage and my iPhone's 3G capabilities

[tcoughlin]

Area in which you live. : Chicago, IL

Date on which you bought your iPhone 3G. : 7-18-08

Do you live inside an area labeled as 3G as shown on AT&T's coverage map? ; YES

Have you experienced problems with dropped calls or flaky 3G connections? Please elaborate.
Yes, all the time. I never dropped calls or had coverage issues with Sprint but have lots of issues of many dropped calls and multiple drops within the same call and connection issues, where I can talk on the phone but not get email.

[twisterfl45]

I live in Jacksonville, Florida. I have a Blackjack II. I always have three to four bars and have had very few dropped calls, less than one a month. Have also had great reception in Atlanta, Charlotte, Orlando, Tampa and Cleveland-Akron-Canton. Zero reception Probs. I want an iPhone 3G badly, but not until this mess is resolved. Thanks for undertaking a science based study, Apple and Att don't seem to want to.

[RJL674]

Area in which you live.

Date on which you bought your iPhone 3G. - 7/31/08

Do you live inside an area labeled as 3G as shown on AT&T's coverage map? Yes, philadelhia western suburbs

Have you experienced problems with dropped calls or flaky 3G connections?yes many dropped calls in the few weeks ive had it - 3 in one night inside my house. Getting frustrated as I prob had no more than 5 missed calls in 3 yrs with Verizon.

[computergeek1971]

Area in which you live. Bellingham, WA

Date on which you bought your iPhone 3G. 7/12/08

Do you live inside an area labeled as 3G as shown on AT&T's coverage map? YES

Have you experienced problems with dropped calls or flaky 3G connections? Please elaborate.
Zero dropped calls, however when I first place a call, the call sometimes "fails" immediately. This would happen every now and again with my 2G phone, but it is more frequent with the 3G. It isn't too big of a deal though...all you have to do is hit "retry" on the screen and it works the second time. Other than that the 3G call quality is much improved over the 2G. The battery life is almost half of the 2G phone, but that's nothing a car charger wont fix.

[dillon11494]

Potomac/Rockville, Maryland

July 12

There Is Solid 3G coverage in my area but yet when sitting at home on the phone calls are dropped and every once in a while when using apps the phone will just reset on itself.

[urmel21]

Area in which you live.
Tigard, OR

Date on which you bought your iPhone3G.
July 13th

Do you live inside an area labeled as 3G as shown on AT&T's coverage map?
Yes, anywhere in Tigard even downtown Portland.

Have you experienced problems with dropped calls or flaky 3G connections?
My wife and I used to have hardly any 3G connection nor bars. We had to disable 3G network to finally get full bars. Never had any dropped calls. After software update on Monday, August 4th we have better 3G coverage with full bars anywhere in Tigard as well as downtown Portland.

[urmel21]

3G tower frequency in Portland, OR 97224 is 1900, 850, 900 and 1800 mhz.
I just got off the phone with AT&T.
So all in all i must say that both of us are very happy with the iPhone 3G and i personally like it a bit more as the first generation iPhone.
I have my 3G disabled all times unless I am out of WIFI then I enable 3G and have coverage after a few seconds.

[opescorin]

I live in Los Angelese, California and I bought my iphone 3g on the day it came out. Y es, I waiting in line to be one of first people to have the iphone 3g.
So far, I have have the iphone 3g with over a month and I haven't experience more than 3 dropped calles. My 3g works perfectly fine and is a good as wifi. I am completely safisty.
When ever, i trouble to a different city or the valley where 3g is not abalable my phone reception works perfectly fine and it automatically droppes the 3g to edge. I works like a charm. It also work like a charm going from Edge to 3g.
When it comes down, programs not opening, or the phone freezing, or programs not closing, it has happened a couple of times. but, 85% of the time the phone works fine.
I would say that I am 90percent citisfy with my products.
Again, my only problem with the phone is the fact that is missing copy and paste, and video recording.
************************************
*******************************
*********
The iphone 3g has no MMS;hoever, I found a way around it.
An MMS is sent throgh internet, so when u sent a picture from one phone to other; you are really emailing a picture. So what u need to do sent a picture is figure out mailing address for a mobile phone. For instance, on ATT the mailing adress for any phone is (phone #)@mms.att.net
If you email a picture from an iphone to a regular phone. You have to include the full phone number and it will work. For instance [e-mail].
*******************
*************
****************
Please credit me for this iphone is you guys post or write and article about this. My name is Jorge Villacis.

[fdunn3]

Geez, are we proud of ourselves or what? Make sure you get the spelling correct it's Jorge **********************

[sb12345]

good thinking! i remember i used to see that address somewhere on those old nokia phones from back in the day.

[Delorean2006]

Area in which you live.
Peekskill, NY (45 minutes north of NYC)

Date on which you bought your iPhone 3G.
July 11

Do you live inside an area labeled as 3G as shown on AT&T's coverage map?
No-But the 3G service is now available in my area.

Have you experienced problems with dropped calls or flaky 3G connections? Please elaborate.
3G works perfect where I live, have never lost any connection during a phone call. The only time when the 3G service had gone in and out was when i went to the Bronx and the phone switched to the edge connection where my sister was getting perfect 3G service on her RAZR V3xx. other than that the service on my phone has been steller

[fdunn3]

For all you iPhone 3G owners why don't you take a look at this and see whether this makes any sense to you. Jobs chose second rate component suppliers over the normal Tier 1 quality suppliers so he could have more control and shave a few dollars off the cost of the phones.

From: Electronic Engineering Times
Apple shuns leading chip makers in 3G iPhone:
http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=RDLLI3VDBYGFOQSNDLRSKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=209100058

Are your problems starting to make sense now? Top 3G component market leaders are used in most other phones and they work on 3G.