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Does the 3G get better reception.

S

ShooMoe

macrumors newbie
Original poster
To all the 3G owners out there. I have the first iPhone and at my home I usually have a teeny tiny bar and if the phone rings and I answer and move around the house the call is usually droped. My wifey who have verizon on the other hand gets perfect reception.. so my question is this.. Is there anyone out there who had the same/similar problem and upgraded to the 3G and screemed "Eureka" problem solved? Catch my drift... if so... i am so upgrading ASAP.. if not i am still going to upgrade but meanwhile I will have to consider Truphone or any other wireless solutions?

Any comments or suggestions are helpful and much obliged..

Thanks

ShooMoe
 
I would say it would depend on if you have 3g coverage at your house. check atnt site for a 3g coverage map of your area. I have noticed I used to get close to full coverage on edge and now on 3g I get about 1-2 bars. but even at 1-2 bars on 3g I get much better call quality because 3g is so fast. you could always try 3g iPhone for 30 days they offer a test drive to test the 3g network I believe.
 
My 3G iphone doesn't get any better reception than the first. I still have to go outside my house to make and receive calls just like my 1st gen iphone. was hoping it would be better, but not for me.
 
drsmitty said:
My 3G iphone doesn't get any better reception than the first. I still have to go outside my house to make and receive calls just like my 1st gen iphone. was hoping it would be better, but not for me.
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Cellphone coverage is more a matter of your carrier's placement of cell towers than the quality of the phone ... the OP's wife gets better reception from Verizon because Verizon has a tower closer to your house than AT&T (or more towers in the area.) A phone will not solve a localized reception problem and the 3G coverage is only data, it has absolutely nothing to do with voice coverage.

FWIW, my 3G gets exceptional cell reception, but I live in Chicago, where AT&T/Cingular/AT&T Wireless has always had strong citywide coverage. 3G is a bit spotty, but voice coverage is great.

(I'm retracting this comment -- I've been corrected below, but I'll keep it posted for the sake of conversational clarity.)
 
chicagdan said:
Cellphone coverage is more a matter of your carrier's placement of cell towers than the quality of the phone ... the OP's wife gets better reception from Verizon because Verizon has a tower closer to your house than AT&T (or more towers in the area.) A phone will not solve a localized reception problem and the 3G coverage is only data, it has absolutely nothing to do with voice coverage.

FWIW, my 3G gets exceptional cell reception, but I live in Chicago, where AT&T/Cingular/AT&T Wireless has always had strong citywide coverage. 3G is a bit spotty, but voice coverage is great.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the swift replies..

I have read somewhere that the plastic as a better receptor (if that makes any sense) for phone signals... I do not know if that amount is significant enough to boost a signal bar up a notch or not.. 😕

ShooMoe
 
ShooMoe said:
To all the 3G owners out there. I have the first iPhone and at my home I usually have a teeny tiny bar and if the phone rings and I answer and move around the house the call is usually droped.
Click to expand...
My original iPhone got 1 bar at home, would def. drop if I moved around the house, and often dropped even when I wasn't moving around the house. Conversations were often garbled a lot.

My new iPhone 3G only gets 1 bar of 3G at home (argh), sometimes drops when I move around the house, and hasn't dropped yet when I sit in one place. Conversations are rarely garbled ... overall they sound about 10x better.

I'm extremely disappointed in AT&T's coverage (both 2G and 3G), but all in all, the iPhone 3G is more usable to me than the original iPhone (even though both only get 1 bar of signal).
 
Badandy said:
Please don't spread misinformation.

3G is used for both voice and data.
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It's not misinformation. 3G is no improvement for voice over the EDGE network, it's exactly the same, the only improvement is on the data side. Just because your phone can pick up 3G does not mean that your voice call quality will be better.

As for the OP's question about whether plastic = better coverage ... I haven't noticed any difference from my original iPhone.

(Comment retracted ... corrected below ... post kept for the sake of conversational clarity.)
 
My boss has a 3G and I have the EDGE model. At my desk I have 5 bars and he has 3. If he turns 3G off his goes up to 5. But if he places a call he still gets very very good call quality because I believe it can dumb down to the EDGE for the better signal. It just doesn't show the 2 signals independently on the top row. But he is actually getting 3 3G and 5 EDGE at the same time. He said he has made calls on 1 tick of 3G strength and had no call issues with clarity or cutting out.
 
chicagdan said:
It's not misinformation. 3G is no improvement for voice over the EDGE network, it's exactly the same, the only improvement is on the data side. Just because your phone can pick up 3G does not mean that your voice call quality will be better.
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I don't think you're right. Are you maybe thinking of how Sprint and Verizon do their 3G network?

IIRC, AT&T uses UMTS for voice on their 3G network and HSPA for data on their 3G network (vs GSM/EDGE for 2G).
 

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chicagdan said:
It's not misinformation. 3G is no improvement for voice over the EDGE network, it's exactly the same, the only improvement is on the data side. Just because your phone can pick up 3G does not mean that your voice call quality will be better.
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Look, the voice quality over 3G networks is better than over EDGE. Some have described it as less warm or a little more hollow, which I'll agree with, but it is a fact that if you are in a 3G area, the phone will use 3G for voice. The call quality is clearer. This really isn't debatable. The iPhone (and all ATT's 3G phones) will use the 3G network for VOICE unless you tell them not to. I don't know where you got your info, but it is wrong.
 
Badandy said:
Look, the voice quality over 3G networks is better than over EDGE. Some have described it as less warm or a little more hollow, which I'll agree with, but it is a fact that if you are in a 3G area, the phone will use 3G for voice. The call quality is clearer. This really isn't debatable. The iPhone (and all ATT's 3G phones) will use the 3G network for VOICE unless you tell them not to. I don't know where you got your info, but it is wrong.
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Okay, I haven't noticed the difference, but I did a quick search around the net after reading your post and you're correct.
 
chicagdan said:
Okay, I haven't noticed the difference, but I did a quick search around the net after reading your post and you're correct.
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yes

i just want to add that for me i have noticed that 3g sounds probably 3x better than the old 2g did. its like listening to a 56kbs MP3 file(edge) and an 320kbs MP3 file!(3G)

Its amazing to me the difference in sound quality. I would suggest everybody use 3g for voice if you can it really does make a difference if you have 3g coverage at the time.
 
chicagdan said:
Okay, I haven't noticed the difference, but I did a quick search around the net after reading your post and you're correct.
Click to expand...

Excuse me for my grain of contempt 😉



I'm very happy with the reception. Not only are calls clearer, but the plastic back definitely helps me when I'm even in an EDGE area where I used to get sub standard reception. It's not a giant increase on EDGE, but I do find it better.
 
As others have said, depends on where you are at

Friends with the 3G phone have all told me that their reception is MUCH better and they are getting calls from spots they didn't have bars previously

Whether that is the new back of the iPhone or the 3G network, not sure but it is improved
 
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