Details of iPhone 2.0.2 Firmware 3G Connectivity Improvements?

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

RoughlyDrafted reports (http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/08/28/the-inside-deets-on-iphone-202-and-dropped-calls/) on details of the iPhone 2.0.2 firmware 3G connectivity improvements. According to a "source close to AT&T," the connectivity issues have been caused by iPhones demanding that cell towers devote more power than necessary to their connections. When a "critical mass" of iPhones, all demanding excessive amounts of power, are connected to a cell tower, the transmitter runs out of power and begins dropping calls and degrading data delivery. The 2.0.2 firmware update is said to address this issue via modifications to the power control algorithm.

The source also clarifies that iPhones running 2.0 and 2.0.1 firmware are continuing to cause problems for all users, which explains why many users have reported that connection issues persisted (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/22/iphone-3g-issues-persist-despite-latest-firmware/) after they updated their iPhones. This also explains the advertising push for the 2.0.2 update seen with Apple adding a banner ad (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=548881) to the iPhone App Store and AT&T sending text messages (http://www.macrumors.com/iphone/2008/08/22/apple-sends-sms-to-customers-about-2-0-2-update/) to users encouraging them to update their iPhones.

“This is one of the reasons why AT&T has been sending text messages to users to persuade them to upgrade to the 2.0.2 software. In a mixed environment where users are running 2.0, 2.0.1, and 2.0.2, the power control problems of 2.0 and 2.0.1 will affect the 2.0.2 users.

“It is not the network that is fault but the interaction of the bad power control algorithm in 2.0 and 2.0.1 software and the network that is at fault. The sooner everybody is running 2.0.2 software the better things will be. Having seen the graphs the 2.0.2 software has already started to make difference.”

Apple is due to release a software update (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/28/apple-confirms-september-iphone-update/) for the iPhone in September, but it is not known whether it will include changes to further address the connectivity issues.

Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/28/details-of-iphone-2-0-2-firmware-3g-connectivity-improvements/)

[noodle654]

So this shouldnt change the speeds right?

[Sirobin]

Hear that everyone? UPDATE YOUR PHONES! *Sigh* Even with these problems, I wish there was 3G in my area. I finally got to use it the other day...and I hate EDGE even more now.

[mike1123]

What do you mean, change the speeds? If you're talking about 3G data, presumably the more people that download this update, the better off everyone will be. The reason why I think the few who downloaded 2.0.2 early on are having degrading/non existent services is because not only are the other iPhones w/o the update demanding a large amount of power, but the updated phones are probably moved down the priority list for service due to the lower power request. Just a thought. I'm probably buying one soon, so it would be nice if this got cleared up (not just for me, but for everyone ;))

Ninja edit: After more throughly reading the article, my idea has substance! Sweet. Everyone update those iPhones!

[moonzilla]

all i know is that my reception has been worse since the 2.0.2 update. in fact, ive had more dropped calls in the past 3 days than at any other point with the 3g

[happydude]

dropping calls all over the place, so doubtful anything improved . . .

[kobefan234]

They should lock the iPhone until people update their firmware!

[bacaramac]

Either this is true or some really good BS. It makes sense, but I don't think it will fix the issue at my work location with a "bad" tower. I thought I read somewhere that said different bands transmit better through buildings (850 vs. 2100, etc). I have two towers by my work (north and south). If I walk to the north building I can get perfect call quality with two bars, but if I walk from the north building to the south building I drop the call I am on and connect to the south tower and my phone is unusable with two bars and drops over and over.

Between the thread proving good signal quality of iPhone 3G, I think the signal issues are primarily the immature 3G network from AT&T here in the US at least.

[mike1123]

They should lock the iPhone until people update their firmware!

You know, they really should. Without doing something like that, Apple risks damaging their rep even more. The reason why people with 2.0.2 are getting crappy reception is because of all the users who haven't upgraded.

[kennycheng93]

I don't have any issues since day 1. I'm just lucky.

[ks-man]

This would imply that people would gradually start seeing improvements as more people update.

I don't know about others but I haven't been seeing anything get better from the first day I upgraded until now.

It also makes you wonder why in some areas there aren't any problems. I may just be cynical but it sounds like a spin job to me allowing all to say it isn't my fault, we need all users to participate in solving the problem.

[alphaod]

I'd like to see firmware that make stuff worse. :rolleyes:

[jmadlena]

My 3G reception has been alright, but just today my iPhone stopped ringing some of the time. I randomly had missed calls today, when it clearly never received a call. I don't know if this has to do with the issue at hand, but I hope 2.1 fixes it! I can't be missing half of my calls.

[sebastianlewis]

You know, they really should. Without doing something like that, Apple risks damaging their rep even more. The reason why people with 2.0.2 are getting crappy reception is because of all the users who haven't upgraded.

Instead of doing that, Apple would be far better off auto-updating iPhones with bug fix releases instead of actually damaging their reputation by locking people out because they're not running the latest software, you think that would seriously be better?

Sebastian

[gibbz]

IF this is true..... people, update your darn phones!!!

[mike1123]

Instead of doing that, Apple would be far better off auto-updating iPhones with bug fix releases instead of actually damaging their reputation by locking people out because they're not running the latest software, you think that would seriously be better?

Sebastian

Personally, I'd be happier with Apple knowing there was a fix and making me fix it than if I was having problems and had to rely on myself to fix it; it would be more responsible of them in lieu of all of the problems lately. Apple's reputation would suffer more from crappy service than being locked out in order to fix your problems, IMO. But if Apple could do an auto-update, I do agree that would be the better choice.

[Surely]

all i know is that my reception has been worse since the 2.0.2 update. in fact, ive had more dropped calls in the past 3 days than at any other point with the 3g

Same here, sans the dropped calls, with a 2.5G.

They should lock the iPhone until people update their firmware!

God forbid Apple should have that kind of power over MY iPhone.

[lazyrighteye]

I'm on an original iPhone, running 2.0.2 and my reception has never been worse. I can no longer send/receive calls at my house. Period. Which has never once been an issue until 2.0.2. And with no land line - this has proven very problematic.
And there is a huge AT&T tower at the end of my street.
I can see it form my house.
Seriously.

I don't get it.
But what I DO get is that since 2.0, my iPhone experience has been pretty blah (which is still better than any phone I ever used, but still... 1.1.4 was SO perfect. F the App Store if it means all of these issues).

Sorry. Just not been a happy iPhone user for the past few weeks - which is a new emotion for me. :p

[varscsak]

It's seems weird that they wouldn't be able to solve this problem on the cell tower end. A manufacture of a phone can bring down a cell network...that seems odd.

[daneoni]

Heh...went to carphonewarehouse yesterday and all their display phones were running 2.0. Apple store phones on the other hand had been updated to 2.0.2

[guet]

It is not the network that is fault

Funny how the iPhone is working fine on other networks, like O2, isn't it. I don't see floods of complaints on the O2 forums, yet AT&T users are having real problems in built up areas.

[macshill]

Funny how the iPhone is working fine on other networks, like O2, isn't it. I don't see floods of complaints on the O2 forums, yet AT&T users are having real problems in built up areas.

Exactly. I'm not sure about the Rogers network here. But, anyway... break the carrier monopoly!

http://www.notrogers.com/

[cenetti]

People on this site are already using 2.0.2.
I met a girl tonight at the bar, she was bragging about her iphone and I asked her if she upgraded her firmware, she gave me this dumb blonde look. Then I asked if she received a sms from ATT, then she said "oh I thought it was an Att advertisement or something like that, I deleted it."

there are way toooo many people out there who don't even know what firmware is.

Good luck getting everyone update....it'll take months

[julianps]

Funny how the iPhone is working fine on other networks, like O2, isn't it. I don't see floods of complaints on the O2 forums, yet AT&T users are having real problems in built up areas.

Could it be that O2, like Orange in France, are throttling iPhone bandwidth to provide a uniform and consistent experience across the network?

Orange have said that they'll remove the choke on September 15th. Maybe they're rolling out a "tower upgrade" or maybe they believe Apple's 202 fix will be ubiquitous by that time?

jiF

[henhowc]

Shouldn't this be affecting other non-iPhone users? I'm a little bit out of the loop as I just picked up my iPhone days ago.

Sounds like BS to me until Apple confirms that this is the issue.

[daneoni]

Could it be that O2, like Orange in France, are throttling iPhone bandwidth to provide a uniform and consistent experience across the network?

Orange have said that they'll remove the choke on September 15th. Maybe they're rolling out a "tower upgrade" or maybe they believe Apple's 202 fix will be ubiquitous by that time?

jiF

O2 aren't capping as far as i know

[MacTheSpoon]

This is a pretty interesting explanation. It would explain why it seems most complaints from iPhone users I've read are from those who live in the densest urban areas like NY, Chicago, and L.A. Also London, England, too, now that I think about it. More iPhone users in those areas, so more problems.

I wonder if it might also explain why I had some dropped calls/calls going straight to voicemail on my 2.5G iPhone after the 3Gs running 2.0 were rolled out. I never had anything like that happen before then.

One thing I don't get, though, is why the lower power output from the cell towers wouldn't also affect everyone else using different brands of phones besides iPhones. Do iPhones get their own discreet block of power allocation or something?

[guet]

Could it be that O2, like Orange in France, are throttling iPhone bandwidth to provide a uniform and consistent experience across the network?

Possible I suppose though I haven't noticed slow speeds - getting 450 kbps here on 3G (inside a building), which I think is ok, perhaps they have limited it around there, which seems reasonable to me. Better than getting disconnects all the time certainly :) Probably just AT&T haven't got their network set up with enough coverage yet for the number of users - the influx of users who all want to use the data intensively must have been a bit of a shock.

[hotshotharry]

Throttling is BS dont let them do that to you!!!!!

[ChucklesOToole]

I don't buy this explanation. I have an iphone in Ireland, 02 got the contract to supply them here. However I got my iphone from Italy unlocked (one of the few countries that sell them like this) and am using the phone on vodafones 3g network. Now I would say there are very very few people using a 3g iphone on vodafones network, and yet I am still getting the problems everyone else is reporting. I had a N95 previously which had perfect reception in the same areas.

[bigandy]

O2 aren't capping as far as i know

O2: We didn't know we were capping 3G data speeds (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/15/o2_denies_caps/)
It was just a PRovisioning error.

The vast majority of our 3G customers are able to access the internet on their mobile device at speeds of up to 384 KBps or typically up to 1.3 MBps if they have an HSDPA-enabled device. The O2 network is fully HSDPA-enabled and we will be further increasing the maximum speeds available on HSDPA throughout the year, up to 7.2 MBps.
Because of a provisioning error, which came to our attention last week, a small proportion of our 3G customers have not been getting these higher speeds.

We apologise to those customers who were affected. The issue is simple to fix and we will be doing so this week. If customers still have problems after that, they should call O2 in the normal way.

Hmmmmmmmmm.


O2 says 128Kb/s is all its 3G customers need (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/09/o2_speed_limits/)

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.



:rolleyes:

[Saladinos]

Sending out text messages really isn't the best way to notify users of an update.

I expect the push notification service will be used to notify users of an update once it's released. Apple should also lock 2.0.2 users ability to access the App Store until they upgrade, to make sure everybody is running the latest software, even if the app they want does not require 2.1.

It's a bit of a Microsoft tactic, but this is a serious issue where some iPhones are limiting the service to all other phones.

[tjcampbell]

Heh...went to carphonewarehouse yesterday and all their display phones were running 2.0. Apple store phones on the other hand had been updated to 2.0.2

The employees at Carphone Warehouse don't know anything about the iPhones. Same with folks at o2.

[3GUser]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5C1 Safari/525.20)

This further proves that Apple needs to be more open and ensure that things are tested better before they ship. You would think AT&T and Apple would have worked out what settings to use before they released the iPhone 3G. I like Apple, but the quality of some products has been dropping with the rush to release. Look around and find similar problems with products like the MacBook Air which had core shutdown issues.

Apple needs to work better with it's partners. Especially if it is to enter corporate environments which have little tolerance for these types of issues.

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5C1 Safari/525.20)

dropping calls all over the place, so doubtful anything improved . . .

It was mentioned that the reason that thing are slow to improve is that other users are still using 2.0 and 2.0.1. Basically, we can expect this to happen until the bulk majority updates to 2.0.2. All we can do is sit and hope.

[WhySoSerious]

:apple:http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

RoughlyDrafted reports (http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/08/28/the-inside-deets-on-iphone-202-and-dropped-calls/) on details of the iPhone 2.0.2 firmware 3G connectivity improvements. According to a "source close to AT&T," the connectivity issues have been caused by iPhones demanding that cell towers devote more power than necessary to their connections. When a "critical mass" of iPhones, all demanding excessive amounts of power, are connected to a cell tower, the transmitter runs out of power and begins dropping calls and degrading data delivery. The 2.0.2 firmware update is said to address this issue via modifications to the power control algorithm.

The source also clarifies that iPhones running 2.0 and 2.0.1 firmware are continuing to cause problems for all users, which explains why many users have reported that connection issues persisted (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/22/iphone-3g-issues-persist-despite-latest-firmware/) after they updated their iPhones. This also explains the advertising push for the 2.0.2 update seen with Apple adding a banner ad (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=548881) to the iPhone App Store and AT&T sending text messages (http://www.macrumors.com/iphone/2008/08/22/apple-sends-sms-to-customers-about-2-0-2-update/) to users encouraging them to update their iPhones.



Apple is due to release a software update (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/28/apple-confirms-september-iphone-update/) for the iPhone in September, but it is not known whether it will include changes to further address the connectivity issues.

Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/28/details-of-iphone-2-0-2-firmware-3g-connectivity-improvements/)

Ohhhhhhh, i get it now. What a huge HUGE pile of S*#&

First Apple was blaming ATT for the 3G issues.....

Then ATT began saying "nope, it's not us...its APPLE!"....

Now, after the 2.0.2 "update" and the reception still isn't fixed, Apple and ATT decide to pin it on US THE USERS!

Apple/ATT: "see, it's not our fault, it's YOUR fault.....and even if you upgrade and your reception still sucks......it's because everyone around you didn't upgrade. shame on all of you users!"

nice, nice......well played apple/att.

:mad::apple::mad:

[DigiCatRedux]

Critical Mass of iPhones = kaboom?

[thecritix]

People on this site are already using 2.0.2.
I met a girl tonight at the bar, she was bragging about her iphone and I asked her if she upgraded her firmware, she gave me this dumb blonde look. Then I asked if she received a sms from ATT, then she said "oh I thought it was an Att advertisement or something like that, I deleted it."

there are way toooo many people out there who don't even know what firmware is.

Good luck getting everyone update....it'll take months

lololol
I can just imagine the scenario, pretty blonde girl playing on her iphone, tech geek from macrumors walks over and in a nasaly voice says:

'heh, heh excuse me miss.... have you updated your firmware yet *geeky nervous laugh* its just your making my phone lose calls because the cellular towers are overloaded, and if you don't upgrade.. they're going to reach critical massss'

:p

[joueboy]

This is not gonna happen, expecting everybody to update their firmware to 2.0.2? First and foremost unlockers/jailbreakers will brick their iphone if they will update it (AT&T is being tricky again). If only they open-up the iPhone AT&T is not the only one who's gonna carry all the network load problem solved. Besides this 3G on AT&T is not a matured technology yet. Their still a lot of things that need to be done on updating their facilities. I feel sorry for those 3G iPhone subscribers because they were being scammed for paying the premium data plan. AT&T should do what Apple Inc. did on mobileme service if we are not getting what they promised we should get a refund. Or open-up the iPhone so Apple can focus developing their firmware on FEATURES not on how to handle AT&T's unreliable technology.

[olliebraves20]

Well I mean this explanation makes sense if it's true. I agree though that it is going to take a while to get everyone to update. I like the idea of them not letting you do anything when you connect the iPhone until after you update. I think this is probably the most logical way to get everyone to update.

[lokiju]

I can confirm that it has not improved my dropped calls issue with myself, my wife or my brothers iPhones.

I think I actually have less "bars" now than I did before the update.

[PBG4 Dude]

My '07 iPhone is still on 2.0.1. After reading all these 'crappy 2.0.2 reception' reports, why in the world would I upgrade? The iPhone is a phone first and foremost. If a firmware update is going to reduce my ability to make phone calls, I will skip it and wait and see if the September update has this problem as well.

[cameronjpu]

It's seems weird that they wouldn't be able to solve this problem on the cell tower end. A manufacture of a phone can bring down a cell network...that seems odd.

And yet it's what Verizon has been saying all along ;)

[daneoni]

O2: We didn't know we were capping 3G data speeds (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/15/o2_denies_caps/)
It was just a PRovisioning error.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

O2 says 128Kb/s is all its 3G customers need (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/09/o2_speed_limits/)

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

:rolleyes:

Interesting but the reason i said i dont think they cap is because the speed tests i've conducted on iPhones at the Apple/CPW/O2 have all resulted in speeds ranging from 600kbps to 2mb/s but it could be argued that end users won't get those speeds and the iPhones i tested only got those because there are probably 3G repeaters in Apple/O2/CPW stores

The employees at Carphone Warehouse don't know anything about the iPhones. Same with folks at o2.

No arguments there

Sending out text messages really isn't the best way to notify users of an update.

I expect the push notification service will be used to notify users of an update once it's released. Apple should also lock 2.0.2 users ability to access the App Store until they upgrade, to make sure everybody is running the latest software, even if the app they want does not require 2.1.

It's a bit of a Microsoft tactic, but this is a serious issue where some iPhones are limiting the service to all other phones.

I somewhat agree/disagree. SMS messaging is a viable way to notify users. Users need to stop being ignorant and start taking responsibility for their devices. If your devices asks you to update then freaking update it!

I have a friend who switched to a mac a few months back, recently i asked how everything was going and she says fine i then check her macbook and there were like a dozen uninstalled updates. I asked her why she didnt update when it asked and she said "i couldnt be bothered, i just ignore it". I mean seriously?

But sadly this is the norm and most people just ignore alerts telling them to update their systems so even if you send push notifications it most likely wont change anything. People seem to have learnt to ignore anything that says update, thanks in part to the reputation of windows update i guess

Where i agree with you is the locking out thing. Sadly its probably the only effective way, deny people something they like/are used to and they'll suddenly pay attention and start asking questions

[dgcaste]

This doesn't explain why an iPhone 3G will drop calls and another AT&T 3G phone right next to it will work perfectly. The 2.0 and 2.0.1 firmware should affect those other users as well.

This press release may be partly true, but as someone else already hinted at I think Apple is trying to shift blame on the community to buy them some more time to fix their issues. For the most part the Apple community will lap this up, since they love to blame others for OS misgivings: if someone's Mac isn't meeting their expectations, it's obviously the user's fault. Up until now there was no general sentiment for the iPhone OS similar to this but it could certainly happen soon.

On another note, 3G just went up in my neighborhood yesterday at noon eastern, and I'm really effing excited about it. Now, this morning, 3G calls sound great and don't get dropped but network speeds are slower than ever, it took like 2 minutes to download Customize from Cydia and that's only like 250kb.

[MrCrowbar]

lololol
I can just imagine the scenario, pretty blonde girl playing on her iphone, tech geek from macrumors walks over and in a nasaly voice says:

'heh, heh excuse me miss.... have you updated your firmware yet *geeky nervous laugh* its just your making my phone lose calls because the cellular towers are overloaded, and if you don't upgrade.. they're going to reach critical massss'

:p

Well, having an Apple device is a good conversation starter actually. People always smile at me when I pull out my Macbook or iPhone in a train. Even the linux people get friendly if they see you have a terminal window open.

I'd love to have an informed geek around everytime I go shop for something I don't really know much about. The sales people are usually the worst informed of all and they're not really trying to help you out, they just read the info on the display model and get more enthousiastic the higher the price is.

Quick, someone write an iPhone app that can identify and target "evil" iPhones. I'm thinking of a tricorder style app that you have to hold really close to the subject like a metal detector and that makes erratic beeping noises. :D

[soLoredd]

I whole-heartedly yell BS. Why is this affecting EDGE users (such as myself) then? I don't drop calls but damn is my connection a lot weaker than before. With 1.4, I could get 4-5 bars and now with 2.02 I'm getting 2-5. And it fluctuates like crazy. That tells me there are consistent and intermittent connectivity issues.

I'm getting more and more frustrated as "fixes" come out. At this point, all they are doing is using a band-aid instead of actually fixing the f%^&ing thing.

[supmango]

OK so let me get this straight. Apple wants to make sure that they have a reliable product, so they create it to demand a reliable connection. Then ATT comes back and says "WHOA, wait a minute, we can't handle all of this demand on our networks (be it power or anything)." And, still, it is Apple's fault?!? If I spend this kind of money on something the thing had better work, and work better than anything else out there. This is what Apple created and ATT cannot handle it? This is freaking hilarious. SO in order for Apple to maintain its reputation of reliability, it has to conceed to ATT's demands and reduce it's demand on the network. Maybe I am an idiot, but wont reducing the amount of power demanded by each iPhone on ATT's network REDUCE the reliability of each individual connection? Or, at the very least, make the service MORE sporadic in areas with sparse 3G coverage? I don't know, but to me the problem is still with ATT.

[soLoredd]

This is a pretty interesting explanation. It would explain why it seems most complaints from iPhone users I've read are from those who live in the densest urban areas like NY, Chicago, and L.A. Also London, England, too, now that I think about it. More iPhone users in those areas, so more problems.

I wonder if it might also explain why I had some dropped calls/calls going straight to voicemail on my 2.5G iPhone after the 3Gs running 2.0 were rolled out. I never had anything like that happen before then.

One thing I don't get, though, is why the lower power output from the cell towers wouldn't also affect everyone else using different brands of phones besides iPhones. Do iPhones get their own discreet block of power allocation or something?

Because it's crap. That's why we, people who can think things through, are not getting their "explanation". There is no seperate iPhone power block. Apple is blaming AT&T, AT&T is blaming Apple. Nobody has answers so they come up with junk like this.

[supmango]

This doesn't explain why an iPhone 3G will drop calls and another AT&T 3G phone right next to it will work perfectly. The 2.0 and 2.0.1 firmware should affect those other users as well.


What other 3G devices have you seen this with. My experience is exactly the opposite. ALL 3G devices have exactly the same problems on ATT's network.

[bytethese]

I dunno, I'm still going to wait for 2.1. I just upgraded to a 3G and had to restore a backup, I don't want to have to all that again unless the update is significant! :)

[plusbryan]

Apparently this problem is also seen in the BLackberry Bold on AT&T's network:
http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2008/08/28/blackberry-bold-suffers-same-issues-as-iphone-3g-with-att/

Isn't their response basically "yeah, we rolled out the iPhone too fast and now our network is overloaded, but we'll conveniently blame it on Apple"?

[dgcaste]

OK so let me get this straight. Apple wants to make sure that they have a reliable product, so they create it to demand a reliable connection. Then ATT comes back and says "WHOA, wait a minute, we can't handle all of this demand on our networks (be it power or anything)." And, still, it is Apple's fault?!? If I spend this kind of money on something the thing had better work, and work better than anything else out there. This is what Apple created and ATT cannot handle it? This is freaking hilarious. SO in order for Apple to maintain its reputation of reliability, it has to conceed to ATT's demands and reduce it's demand on the network. Maybe I am an idiot, but wont reducing the amount of power demanded by each iPhone on ATT's network REDUCE the reliability of each individual connection? Or, at the very least, make the service MORE sporadic in areas with sparse 3G coverage? I don't know, but to me the problem is still with ATT.

No, the phone was asking for more power than it needed.

Let's say power companies weren't on-demand power, but instead they would reserve power for each household. Power comapnies are also usually rated to a max power generation, usually in the megawatts for some smaller ones and gigawatts for the much larger ones. For the sake of simplicity, you only have a single 100W light bulb at your house. The old iPhone firmware = (supposedly!) telling the power company you reserve 1kW, but only use 100W. The new iPhone firmware = (supposedly!) correctly reporting 100W. Now you can see how many people allotting more power than necessary could leave some in the dark (no pun intended, since I'm talking about the phone at this point and not about the light bulb)

[dgcaste]

What other 3G devices have you seen this with. My experience is exactly the opposite. ALL 3G devices have exactly the same problems on ATT's network.

I'll admit I'm going off of pure word of mouth (or should I say forum post) here, since I've never been witness to these calamitous issues. If you can witness first-hand that 3G has been crappy and dropping calls for all AT&T devices since the iPhone came out then this lends a lot of credibility to Apple's announcement. Curiously, though, I haven't really read of 3G users having problems even though they don't tend to congregate and come up with conspiracy theories quite as much as our lot.

[bdkennedy1]

Gee I wonder why people aren't upgrading to 2.0.2. Maybe it should have been a major instead of a minor release.

And while I used to upgrade all my hardware and software with every new release, I've stopped because Apple doesn't tell the end user what has changed in the new software.

"Improves compatibility with certain XXXXXX". Not good enough.

[dgcaste]

the bottom line is: apple and at&t want this problem to go away. to do so, they have initiated action. the best we can do is follow their advice. we will never know enough about the problem to have an intelligent approach to the solution. therefore, if an update is recommended, it should be done.

NOW, on the other hand, apple HAS to make these updates palatable and attractive. otherwise they're sure to meet with lots of resistance (as evidenced by many of us). GPS, cut and paste, ****, the lag! I have to hard-reboot my device every morning so it feels like it's fresh from a firmware update (notice to many of you:

ITS NOT THE SAME TO POWER IT OFF THAN TO HARD REBOOT, TO HARD REBOOT YOU HOLD THE HOME AND POWER BUTTONS TOGETHER TILL IT SHUTS DOWN FORCIBLY. OR TYPE REBOOT IN THE CONSOLE, OR USE BOSSPREFS.

I don't think a lot of people know this last little bit. Sure, it's annoying to have to reboot the phone like if it were a Windows box, but it sure works around the lag bug.

[jayducharme]

My 3G reception has been alright, but just today my iPhone stopped ringing some of the time. I randomly had missed calls today, when it clearly never received a call.

I've just started having weird problems as well. I'll get a voicemail (after not hearing the phone ring). When checking the voicemail, the recording would simply halt mid-sentence. I'd get that little spinning circle where the pause button normally would be. Then all voicemails would become unretrievable. And then on top of that I'd lose system sounds -- key clicks, locking sound, etc.... I tried rebooting the phone and that brought the system sounds back but the voicemails still wouldn't play. After a few hours, I'd suddenly hear the voicemail sound and then could play them again. It doesn't seem to matter whether I'm on EDGE or 3G. This has happened three times in the past two days. It had never happened before that. :confused:

[orbital]

To happydude and all others with dropped calls.
1. Apple is addressing this and will replace your phone, they are stress fractures, go in to an apple store and say you are dissatisfied with the service and all and now you have stress fractures. They will give you a new one.
2. If you are dropping calls they can test for this, bring it in and they will replace it.

To everyone else
Please anyone with 2.0.0 and 2.0.1 please upgrade, you will help improve the network for everyone!

[hondasiguy]

all of these updates are fine and dandy but can I get some info on picture messaging or video ?

[pmzpocket]

None of this explains why:

1. Prior to 2.0.2 my iPhone 3G worked perfectly every day for the last month and half.

2. Since 2.0.2 I've been on EDGE 75% of the time in high 3G areas and have had my first, second, and all the way to 10th dropped calls.

The problems i heard rumored about were actually caused by the update which was a supposed fix. Very interesting and true story, something to think about.

[Sweetfeld28]

I'm surprised that Apple or AT&T hasn't developed a way to 'Push' a Firmware update to the devices, then give the user a window saying an update is ready for installation. Then, it would be a forced update. I mean who doesn't want their phone to work properly?

[Laglorden]

To everyone else
Please anyone with 2.0.0 and 2.0.1 please upgrade, you will help improve the network for everyone!

Except yourself...

Apple f-up. They made a device that said "gimme more priority/power!!!" not counting on AT&Ts lousy cell-towers Powersupplys?

So, if this explanation holds any water (doubtful...) then you should stay on 2.0 and get the most power for yourself while everyone else goes to 2.0.2. *insert evil genius laugh*

[PNutts]

It's seems weird that they wouldn't be able to solve this problem on the cell tower end. A manufacture of a phone can bring down a cell network...that seems odd.

You are right and AT&T is working on it.

[80s Fan]

I'm so frustrated with my 3G's performance of late that I turned off 3G functionality the other day to see how that would be. I must say, both phone and internet has been working MUCH better.

This is frustrating though since it makes me realize I should have kept my original iPhone since I essentially have no additional functionality over the original and am socked with a $15 month increase for 3G service and texts. Pretty lame. I hope Apple's forthcoming fixes make it worth turning 3G back on for me.

[The Tall One]

I feel like what they are doing is capping your bandwidth in clever ways to make you think you're getting full "power" when you're probably getting bursts of 3G connectivity filled with regular-ass connectivity.

[manhattanboy]

It's seems weird that they wouldn't be able to solve this problem on the cell tower end. A manufacture of a phone can bring down a cell network...that seems odd.

I totally agree with that statement.

Anyhow...I am still having dropped call problems.
What AT&T really needs is to add MORE CAPACITY TO THEIR NETWORK or put a moratorium on iPhone sales until it is fixed!!!!

And why the ****ing silence from AT&T and APPLE on this issue. For God's sake why let rumors run wild on the internet instead of just coming out with the facts in the open.

[skiphunt]

What I don't get is that I'm running 2.02. I've had problems with email, connectivity, dropped calls, got a bad screen (on my second one.. on number 3 now), freeze ups, etc.... but now... everything seems to be getting better without me doing ANYTHING.

I got tired of standing in line at the Apple store to return my phone.... etc. I decided to just deal with it until the last day I could return and get a new phone (hoping Apple had fixed the chipset or something).

Well, I'm at the two week mark today... but honestly, for some unknown reason... my phone has been pretty stable for the last week. I haven't dropped a single call.. email works most of the time... only had a couple freeze-ups in the last 8 days... etc. I haven't reinstalled anything.

Can Apple actually tweak phones without you knowing it? Or, is the ATT network in my area getting better? How else could an iPhone 3g start getting more stable all on it's own without any other firmware update etc.? I hope I'm not jinxing it by saying I'm not really having any problems anymore (it's not perfect yet) but for the most part... a reboot every few days is all I've had to do... to maintain a reasonable level of stability and function.

[abnospam]

i just can't upgrade with fears of worse service and degraded battery life. You have to actually fix something for me to be inclined to update. I know I *may* be screwing the heard, but I simply can not afford worse service at this point.

[kevin512]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5C1 Safari/525.20)

I'm so glad I kept my 1st gen iPhone!! These 3g issues with AT&T won't be solved for quite awhile.

[dwsolberg]

I know that many people are having real problems, but I just wanted to say that in Minneapolis, I get good 3G speeds and haven't had a problem with dropped calls since the 2.02 update. In fact, I get better service (fewer dead areas) with 3G than I did with the older voice protocol.

I wonder how much of the problem is due to ATT's sometimes sparse buildout of 3G and how much is due to the iPhone. After those iPhone tests showed consistently good signal strength, I tend to think it may be ATT's network that's the issue. If so, then they better start building towers, because iPhones are only getting more popular.

[Glideslope]

all i know is that my reception has been worse since the 2.0.2 update. in fact, ive had more dropped calls in the past 3 days than at any other point with the 3g

That is due to everyone else NOT UPGRADING. My 16g White has not dropped a call since 2.0.2. I will admit I live in an area where people upgrade when they receive an email from Apple/at&t.

Kind of a no-brainer.

[CWallace]

What I don't get is that I'm running 2.02. I've had problems with email, connectivity, dropped calls, got a bad screen (on my second one.. on number 3 now), freeze ups, etc.... but now... everything seems to be getting better without me doing ANYTHING.

It's not you, it is your fellow iPhone 3G users. As they upgrade to the 2.0.2 firmware, the load their phones are putting on the 3G network lessens which improves service for everyone else.

[benspratling]

Since upgrading to 2.0.2, I've had more dropped calls, failed calls, and calls that just never come through between myself and other iPhone users than I had in two years with my razor. At first we thought it was just that classes started in this college town on Monday and the network was overtaxed, but I'm beginning to suspect the phone. Obviously, there's still a little bit left to do.

[Epix]

It's seems weird that they wouldn't be able to solve this problem on the cell tower end. A manufacture of a phone can bring down a cell network...that seems odd.

It's not the cell tower's fault. Coming from someone who's written power control algorithms for 3G communication networks, I can assure you that the problem lies in the handset. Imagine it like this:

You're the cell tower standing in the center of a room and it's your job to speak and listen to phones that come into your room. Ok, then imagine someone (representing a phone) comes into your room and starts shouting "CAN YOU HEAR ME!?" You respond, "Yes, I can hear you but you don't need to talk so loud. Do you understand?" The phone responds "I DIDN'T HEAR YOU VERY WELL, COULD YOU SAY THAT LOUDER?" So you repeat it louder, "I CAN HEAR YOU BUT YOU DON'T NEEd TO TALK SO LOUD. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" The phone repeats "I DIDN'T HEAR YOU VERY WELL, COULD YOU SAY THAT LOUDER?" Enter phone 2 who says "Hello, can you hear me?" You respond to phone 2 "I hear you phone 2, respond." Because you're still shouting at phone 1 phone 2 says, "Sry, I couldn't hear that. Could you say it louder?" and so on. Now imagine this "Can you hear me" stuff is happening 1500 times a second I you can see how this can quickly spiral out of control.

There's something most likely wrong with the UE's (phone) receiver that's not allowing it to properly pluck out and decode the tower's signal causing the phone to determine that it needs the tower to shout louder.

[PNutts]

People on this site are already using 2.0.2.
I met a girl tonight at the bar, she was bragging about her iphone and I asked her if she upgraded her firmware, she gave me this dumb blonde look. Then I asked if she received a sms from ATT, then she said "oh I thought it was an Att advertisement or something like that, I deleted it."

there are way toooo many people out there who don't even know what firmware is.

Good luck getting everyone update....it'll take months

Apparently 2.0.2 isn't the firmware she's looking for.

[mattster16]

I whole-heartedly yell BS. Why is this affecting EDGE users (such as myself) then? I don't drop calls but damn is my connection a lot weaker than before. With 1.4, I could get 4-5 bars and now with 2.02 I'm getting 2-5. And it fluctuates like crazy. That tells me there are consistent and intermittent connectivity issues.

I'm getting more and more frustrated as "fixes" come out. At this point, all they are doing is using a band-aid instead of actually fixing the f%^&ing thing.

I noticed my edge iphone doing this also. But it actually started BEFORE the 2.0 update and the 3G came out. I had less bars and they would fluctuate more often. I really don't care how many bars there are, however, as they aren't really an accurate measurement of how strong of service you have. A manufacturer can calibrate them to display however they want. I didn't miss any calls or have any connection issues.

I don't know what to attribute this to other than AT&T. Minneapolis didn't have 3G until a couple months before the 3G was released and it was coincidentally the same time they switched over that I noticed a change in 'bars' on my phone.

Other than there being less bars though I'm not having any actual problems.

[manhattanboy]

I noticed my edge iphone doing this also. But it actually started BEFORE the 2.0 update and the 3G came out. I had less bars and they would fluctuate more often. I really don't care how many bars there are, however, as they aren't really an accurate measurement of how strong of service you have. A manufacturer can calibrate them to display however they want. I didn't miss any calls or have any connection issues.

I don't know what to attribute this to other than AT&T. Minneapolis didn't have 3G until a couple months before the 3G was released and it was coincidentally the same time they switched over that I noticed a change in 'bars' on my phone.

Other than there being less bars though I'm not having any actual problems.

Actually I wen to the AT&T store today and ran a side-by-side comparison using the Field test...which I think everyone should use since it quantitates everything.
Anyway, at the AT&T store the signal dB's fluctuated widely from 60 to 90
which is quite a HUGE range for a static location. I think AT&T is seriously f*cked by the iPhone load.

[rav227]

Take this for what its worth, but I live in NYC and own a Blackjack. For the past month I have had serious issues with getting 3G connections (this coincides with the Iphone launch). It has gotten to the point where even Edge barely work. I think there maybe some truth to the theory that AT&T cell towers are being overwhelmed. We all may not be hearing about this issue from non-Iphone owners because this is a Mac Forum and Iphone owners apperntly surf the web more frequently. I would be interested to know if other non-Iphone users are having similar probles. For the record I exchanged phones and the problem is the same.

[manhattanboy]

Take this for what its worth, but I live in NYC and own a Blackjack. For the past month I have had serious issues with getting 3G connections (this coincides with the Iphone launch). It has gotten to the point where even Edge barely work. I think there maybe some truth to the theory that AT&T cell towers are being overwhelmed. We all may not be hearing about this issue from non-Iphone owners because this is a Mac Forum and Iphone owners apperntly surf the web more frequently. I would be interested to know if other non-Iphone users are having similar probles. For the record I exchanged phones and the problem is the same.

That fact that the 3G network speeds slow to a crawl during peak hours likely supports this fact 100%.
I wish AT&T would release their issues on network capacity but they probably never will.

[WhySoSerious]

It's not you, it is your fellow iPhone 3G users. As they upgrade to the 2.0.2 firmware, the load their phones are putting on the 3G network lessens which improves service for everyone else.

i see you drank the apple/att kool-aid and are now brainwashed.

[rav227]

That fact that the 3G network speeds slow to a crawl during peak hours likely supports this fact 100%.
I wish AT&T would release their issues on network capacity but they probably never will.

To be honest, I am at the point where I will be cancelling my data package so I can save $30 a month. I would like to buy an Iphone but if these 3G issues are not resolved I will just keep my Blackjack as a "dumb" cell phone. On a side note, I think both Apple and AT&T need to be more open about these issues. As a non-tech savy consumer I can accept that technology does not always work properly. What I can not accept, is being kept in the dark while being charged for inferior service. Now stepping off my soap box.

[skiphunt]

Dang it! I knew I'd jinx it by saying I wasn't having probs anymore. Since I bought the fact that things were getting better because more users were upgrading their phones as Apple/ATT suggests... I went ahead and put a handful of apps back on my iphone 3g. Now it's all screwed up again. Frozen at the Apple logo and nothing bringing it back for a half hour. Finally came back up and everything is all haywire again. Taking the apps back off now to see if stability returns. Dang it to hell!!!! I had no idea getting a freakin' iPhone 3g was not only going to cost me $300 and an extra $30 a month... but also cost me MANY freakin' hours of wasted time.

I have no idea who's fault this is... but it's a freakin' mess for sure. I really want my money and time back at this point.

[Riemann Zeta]

Actually, doesn't this mean that it is lack of network capacity? Since 3G is in its early infancy in the US and millions of new iPhone users are vying for the same sparse array of towers, there's just not enough bandwidth to go around. This power argument sounds like a band-aid. Dramatic improvements probably won't happen until the network bandwidth is increased and more towers are added. I'm sure this is happening now, but it is a big process and will probably take time.

I have a 1st gen iPhone on 2.02. While I haven't had any issues with calls dropping out, I will say that the data rate in shot to hell during peak hours, but great at like 2 in the morning. This alone is a clear indication that the network wasn't ready for all the data throughput that high-speed mobile connections require. At least with ATT, I bet the number of high-speed 3G customers jumped five-six fold in less than a month with the iPhone 3G.

[Rybold]

I'm on an original iPhone, running 2.0.2 and my reception has never been worse. I can no longer send/receive calls at my house. Period. Which has never once been an issue until 2.0.2. And with no land line - this has proven very problematic. And there is a huge AT&T tower at the end of my street. I can see it form my house. Seriously.

It's almost sounding like this update will REDUCE the power, signal strength, and speed of all iPhones. AT&T figures if the phones aren't as demanding, then there will be fewer complaints of dropped calls and busy networks. If your iPhoneSpeedTest used to read 1.2Mbps, it now only reads 0.8Mbps. This is AT&T's fix ... am I right or wrong?

Also, as someone else pointed out ... this is an opportunity for AT&T and Apple to turn the blame around from them to their customers! "Stop pointing fingers at us. The problems are because of all of your friends who haven't updated." And since the public does not have access to the statistics, techinically AT&T and Apple can continue to use this argument FOREVER! :eek::eek::eek:

[Mindflux]

I whole-heartedly yell BS. Why is this affecting EDGE users (such as myself) then? I don't drop calls but damn is my connection a lot weaker than before. With 1.4, I could get 4-5 bars and now with 2.02 I'm getting 2-5. And it fluctuates like crazy. That tells me there are consistent and intermittent connectivity issues.

I'm getting more and more frustrated as "fixes" come out. At this point, all they are doing is using a band-aid instead of actually fixing the f%^&ing thing.


Uh. Genius. We're on the SAME towers as the 3G users. The transmission power drops and guess who gets dropped? Everyone using that tower! AT&T doesn't have O-M-G 3G towers separate from W-T-F-B-B-Q EDGE towers.

Furthermore, the 3G network in general just HAS to be over saturated. They went from a relatively small userbase to a much bigger audience, literally over a 3 day weekend when Apple sold 1M iPhones nation wide.

[Rybold]

I met a girl tonight at the bar, she was bragging about her iphone and I asked her if she upgraded her firmware, she gave me this dumb blonde look. Then I asked if she received a sms from ATT, then she said "oh I thought it was an Att advertisement or something like that, I deleted it."

"An important software update for iPhone 3G..." This message is pretty clear. Many people may have chosen not to update, but I think the message was pretty clear. Apparently that girl didn't know how to read. See kids! This is why you stay in school ! :)
( btw, Apple has excellent back to school promotions for students! :D :D :D :D :D )

[t0mat0]

Uh. Genius. We're on the SAME towers as the 3G users. The transmission power drops and guess who gets dropped? Everyone using that tower! AT&T doesn't have O-M-G 3G towers separate from W-T-F-B-B-Q EDGE towers.

Furthermore, the 3G network in general just HAS to be over saturated. They went from a relatively small userbase to a much bigger audience, literally over a 3 day weekend when Apple sold 1M iPhones nation wide.

A secondary point, is that TTFF time to first fix, using the Map service has got slower and slower. Around the 12th-19th - the first week or so, when there were only a few in the UK on O2, it was a very quick fix. Much slower now.

[jbernie]

I dunno, I'm still going to wait for 2.1. I just upgraded to a 3G and had to restore a backup, I don't want to have to all that again unless the update is significant! :)

This where Apple's detailed description of the update that just says "bnug fixes" hurts them, provide details when the upgrade is released so people know what is being fixed, they might actually consider doing the updates sooner.


I'm surprised that Apple or AT&T hasn't developed a way to 'Push' a Firmware update to the devices, then give the user a window saying an update is ready for installation. Then, it would be a forced update. I mean who doesn't want their phone to work properly?

Basically do it the Xbox360 way (assuming internet connectivity), power on Xbox, you must accept update before you can play your games. That should get phones updated faster, obviously you can't rely on the power on method but push the update, give them 24 hours to accept it, then install it without choice.

[Mindflux]

This where Apple's detailed description of the update that just says "bnug fixes" hurts them, provide details when the upgrade is released so people know what is being fixed, they might actually consider doing the updates sooner.



Darn those bnug fixes! They're always so vague. :D


Basically do it the Xbox360 way (assuming internet connectivity), power on Xbox, you must accept update before you can play your games. That should get phones updated faster, obviously you can't rely on the power on method but push the update, give them 24 hours to accept it, then install it without choice.

Meh.

[8CoreWhore]

I'm on an original iPhone, running 2.0.2 and my reception has never been worse. I can no longer send/receive calls at my house. Period. Which has never once been an issue until 2.0.2. And with no land line - this has proven very problematic.
And there is a huge AT&T tower at the end of my street.
I can see it form my house.
Seriously.

I don't get it.
But what I DO get is that since 2.0, my iPhone experience has been pretty blah (which is still better than any phone I ever used, but still... 1.1.4 was SO perfect. F the App Store if it means all of these issues).

Sorry. Just not been a happy iPhone user for the past few weeks - which is a new emotion for me. :p
It''l probably improve again when all the conventioners leave Denver. :D Why not just revert back to 2.0.1?

[natasha69]

My family has a Motorola exec in its group. He/she works in Europe. They said that the most frustrating thing for their company is that ATT never runs their towers at full power. They try to save $$. My iphone drops calls. But guess what, it drops calls exactly where it dropped calls from my edge phone (phone 2g, and a samsung d900).

ATT, time to step up and deliver. I'm surprised the class action suit isn't aimed at you yet.

[soLoredd]

Uh. Genius. We're on the SAME towers as the 3G users. The transmission power drops and guess who gets dropped? Everyone using that tower! AT&T doesn't have O-M-G 3G towers separate from W-T-F-B-B-Q EDGE towers.

Furthermore, the 3G network in general just HAS to be over saturated. They went from a relatively small userbase to a much bigger audience, literally over a 3 day weekend when Apple sold 1M iPhones nation wide.

You can be snide all you want but I don't believe this article is the almighty answer. For some reason, a lot of you are fine with saying "Hey, idiot, it's the power from the tower. There isn't enough." Yet, nobody else came up with that reasoning before this article was posted. Yeah, right. When Apple has now released 2 updates to 2.0 and NOTHING is fixed (SMS lag, bad reception, dropped calls, system crashes, etc.) you all keep giving them a pass.

Give me a GOOD reason why people without iPhones are not having the same complaints? And don't use the BlackJack II, please. I had one of those before the original iPhone came out and it was piss-poor from the start.

[Mindflux]

Give me a GOOD reason why people without iPhones are not having the same complaints? And don't use the BlackJack II, please. I had one of those before the original iPhone came out and it was piss-poor from the start.

Did you bother to read the rest of the thread? One of the new AT&T Blackberry models is experiencing the same issues. Surely Apple doesn't help RIM with their software, unless you want to continue along the whole conspiracy theorist route.

[jbernie]

My family has a Motorola exec in its group. He/she works in Europe. They said that the most frustrating thing for their company is that ATT never runs their towers at full power. They try to save $$. My iphone drops calls. But guess what, it drops calls exactly where it dropped calls from my edge phone (phone 2g, and a samsung d900).

ATT, time to step up and deliver. I'm surprised the class action suit isn't aimed at you yet.

Problem is you don't have a majority of the <insert 3g phone> owners crying up a storm like you do the iPhone 3G users. 3G reception etc doesn't bother me, have a Samsung A737 3G phone and don't have any issues with it, don't miss calls, don't drop calls etc and 3G where I live isn't that strong, I am always switching between 3G & edge without any issues. As for data related traffic, ooo 3G sends my text messages to my wife soo much faster. Speaking of the wife, she has a Motorola Razr 3xx which is 3G and she doesn't have any issues either.

We have both been with AT&T/Cingular for around 7 years. I also have a Blackberry 8700 with AT&T, edge only, but still no issues since the iPhone 3Gs arrived.

Denver metro area for the location.

[bluenoise]

You can be snide all you want but I don't believe this article is the almighty answer. For some reason, a lot of you are fine with saying "Hey, idiot, it's the power from the tower. There isn't enough." Yet, nobody else came up with that reasoning before this article was posted. Yeah, right. When Apple has now released 2 updates to 2.0 and NOTHING is fixed (SMS lag, bad reception, dropped calls, system crashes, etc.) you all keep giving them a pass.

Give me a GOOD reason why people without iPhones are not having the same complaints? And don't use the BlackJack II, please. I had one of those before the original iPhone came out and it was piss-poor from the start.

My Moto Q9h had great AT&T 3G service until about July 13 or so, if that tells you anything.

[natasha69]

Problem is you don't have a majority of the <insert 3g phone> owners crying up a storm like you do the iPhone 3G users. 3G reception etc doesn't bother me, have a Samsung A737 3G phone and don't have any issues with it, don't miss calls, don't drop calls etc and 3G where I live isn't that strong, I am always switching between 3G & edge without any issues. As for data related traffic, ooo 3G sends my text messages to my wife soo much faster. Speaking of the wife, she has a Motorola Razr 3xx which is 3G and she doesn't have any issues either.

We have both been with AT&T/Cingular for around 7 years. I also have a Blackberry 8700 with AT&T, edge only, but still no issues since the iPhone 3Gs arrived.

Denver metro area for the location.

If we could have a map of ATT's 3G coverage area, and a map we could overlay of density of complaints, I think that might be a very good map to review.

I personally have no complaints. I just can show you exactly on the map where my coverage has dropped consistently for the past 7 years. Out in the San Francisco East Bay in California. Drops right after Stone Valley Road, just before El Pintado Exit.

And yes, have called it in a few times. Nothing has changed.

A better comparison for your post would be if you had a friend who had an iPhone 3G who traveled the same route as you - does he see a difference in reception?

[bluenoise]

Out in the San Francisco East Bay in California. Drops right after Stone Valley Road, just before El Pintado Exit.

And yes, have called it in a few times. Nothing has changed.


:)

Interesting...That's right near where I live and I was always dropping calls along that stretch (right after getting onto 680 SB at Stone Valley) with my Blackjack II and Moto Q9h. My iPhone isn't dropping there, though, but I have 3G turned off unless I need it.

[twoodcc]

well i'm glad to see that they know the problem, and are getting it taken care of. now if just everyone would update

[skiphunt]

What are the chances that all of this is simply software/app related? I posted earlier today that after tons of problems... and being on my 3rd iphone 3G... everything seemed to be pretty stable, etc. I had previously taken off any app that I didn't absolutely want on the phone, but left about 30 apps that I liked and was still very stable. THEN, figuring that everything was getting better because many were now upgrading their firmware, etc. I went ahead and put those deleted 15 apps back on my phone. Everything seemed to be fine during the sync... and a few had updates ready to be installed as well..... after everything was reinstalled and updated... and I'd rebooted, etc. Everything got screwed up again, ie. I couldn't move app icons to where I wanted... it appeared that some void was taking over some slots so that no app icon could reside where there was nothing... it froze up... restarted (but it took about a half hour..) got it working, but the GPS seemed to be all messed up and showing me to be in Nigeria instead of Austin, Texas... it dropped a call... and email stopped working.

I just finished taking all those apps back off. I still have about 30 3rd party apps on the phone, but got rid of about 15 that I wasn't that excited about anyway. NOW.. the phone appears to be back to working perfectly again. No freeze ups... the GPS is correct.... and I just got several emails.

What are the chances that most of these problems have more to do with poorly written 3rd party apps? AND perhaps some bug in iTunes during install?

[spectravp]

I had no issues except the slow contacts app until I updated to 2.0.2. Now I get dropped calls all the time, errors sending SMS message. My mail sounds stopped working. Ugh. I say there official statement is just PR BS.

[macnews]

I got my iPhone 3G late July. Loved the phone and never really had any problems. Updated to 2.01, still no problems. Not the best reception in terms of bars but did have 3g and that worked just fine.

Over the past week I have been dropping more calls, have more call failures and "missed" calls than ever before. I waited to update to 2.0.2 because of all the complaints but just now bit the bullet. I have compiled some data and will see what I get after two weeks of using the phone with the new update.

It will be interesting to compare to some other users because I'm traveling to New York so will be able to compare reception and 3G coverage/dropage to my area which has far fewer iPhone users.

Update just completed and at least initially, I have 2 more bars phone sitting in the exact same spot.

[Keysersozeh]

:)

Interesting...That's right near where I live and I was always dropping calls along that stretch (right after getting onto 680 SB at Stone Valley) with my Blackjack II and Moto Q9h. My iPhone isn't dropping there, though, but I have 3G turned off unless I need it.

I was up visiting family in that area. The coverage is just painful there. I was in Austin for a couple of days before-hand and the coverage there is AMAZING! No less than 4 bars of 3g the entire time.

[radiotowers]

I'll update when they fix the issue of my battery going from 100% to dead in a few hours while the phone sits idle. It happened just after upgrading to 2.0.2, so I downgraded back to 2.0.1. No more problems with the battery. I just reinstalled 2.0.2 to try it again, thinking maybe the first time was a fluke. Did complete restore. Same problem. So it's back to 2.0.1 again.

Even under 2.0.2, I drop calls left and right.

I loved my original iPhone, despite AT&T crappy netowrk, but this is worse and isn't worth it.

[InkMaster]

Same here, sans the dropped calls, with a 2.5G.



God forbid Apple should have that kind of power over MY iPhone.

Then stop whining and upgrade the firmware on your phone yourself ;)

[timbertiger]

So if it's a possible load issue on the 3G network coupled with an algorithm problem in the earlier versions of firmware, are users with issues of connectivity/dropped calls seeing different call success throughout the day and night? In other words, more problems during business hours versus 4:00AM (when load might be expected to be less)?

[magiccrystals]

Sorry, Apple. Ain't gonna do it.

I have 2.0.1 and I've had very few problems with the iPhone 3G. 3G with less than two bars is iffy and it will drop down to EDGE more than half the time with a weak 3G signal, but I can live with that. A few times the bars drop to zero and AT&T is replaced by NO CARRIER, only for it to come back again in about 20 seconds. I'm a little more troubled by that, but again, I'll cut it some slack. Overall, I haven't had any dropped calls and voice quality is solid. Data transfer with 3G seems about as peppy as I expected it to be, especially when compared to EDGE.

That being said, if Apple thinks that I'm going to upgrade to 2.0.2 after reading scads of reports on how it takes the good iPhone experience and completely ruins it, they are sorely mistaken. I'm supposed to do this because AT&T's base stations can't provide enough power for everyone, so I give up some of mine so that other users' experiences are enhanced? Hell no. NOT MY PROBLEM, APPLE. Get with AT&T. Upgrade the firmware on your base stations. Don't destroy what for me has been good service from my iPhone and AT&T's network (which, I'll admit to say, I'm pleasantly surprised with) by forcing this crap on me so that others might benefit.

Lest somebody flame me for looking after my own needs and not thinking of 'the common good', this is purely a problem of engineering and physics, not politics or hunger or thirst. There are many ways they could solve this problem and I know they're working on it. I am an RF software engineer, though not in the cell phone business, and base stations' firmware, software and FPGAs and modern-day mobile device/radio chipsets can almost be completely reconfigured in the field through software these days. I am not paying over $80 a month after taxes and fees to suffer a frustrating, substandard mobile device experience. I'll be sticking with 2.0.1, thank you very much.

[gri]

What are the chances that all of this is simply software/app related? ... What are the chances that most of these problems have more to do with poorly written 3rd party apps? AND perhaps some bug in iTunes during install?

Interesting. Do we have some correlation between the amount of apps installed and the problems occuring? I read somewhere that once an app is started there is no "quit" function other than phone restart. What if all those applications use too much processor power and if they are internet related too much bandwidth (I am not a tech person as you might have noticed). Do people with less or no apps have less problems. I have 4 or 5 on my 1st gen iPhone and no problems. :confused:

[skiphunt]

Interesting. Do we have some correlation between the amount of apps installed and the problems occuring? I read somewhere that once an app is started there is no "quit" function other than phone restart. What if all those applications use too much processor power and if they are internet related too much bandwidth (I am not a tech person as you might have noticed). Do people with less or no apps have less problems. I have 4 or 5 on my 1st gen iPhone and no problems. :confused:


thanks for noticing! ;-)

Seriously, I think there's something wrong with the software in general. Some apps are causing problems system wide.... and there's an issue with itunes updating/downloading/restoring/etc. There is likely an ATT problem as well, but I'm betting the crux of the problem lay squarely with Apple's itunes app.... some of the App Store's Apps... AND ATT's lack of solid data network implementation.

This is just a wild guess.... but I'd bet money that Apple's next combo... firmware update and likely itunes update.... will take care of 90% of the problems. Anyone want any of that action? ;-) Why Apple hasn't just come clean and admitted it... is beyond me. NOT the "Apple" I've been loyal to since my first Apple machine 18 years ago. Very disappointed with how my beloved Apple has handled this whole debacle.

[WindowsGuy]

If you don't need Flash then if you aren't either a sports fan (AKA FanBoy) or you don't advertise to the masses.

Flash is as popular for Advertisers as PhotoShop is to Apple Boys.

Apple is pulling a Microsoft and holding out on Adobe and we are the fallout.

Steve, Get off your high horsre and show the rest of the open programming world you can play.

If I can't play anything but Apple MP3's or QuickTime Video then it's not the Interent.

How much video is out now that with WM Or RealMedia that we can't access.
Along with countless other video formats.

YouTube kissed Steve's Ass and we see a portion of YouTube that has been converted for the iPhone.

Safari is a way better browser than we get on the iPhone and the competition is Verizon (which by the way has better 3G than AT&T).

Steve, get off your ass and do something or hire someone that can.

[soLoredd]

Did you bother to read the rest of the thread? One of the new AT&T Blackberry models is experiencing the same issues. Surely Apple doesn't help RIM with their software, unless you want to continue along the whole conspiracy theorist route.

My angle has nothing to do with conspiracy theories. Rather, it has to do with the fact that neither Apple nor AT&T have the *real* fix to what is going on and instead are blaming each other and blaming the customer. That's all I'm saying and I am not meaning to turn this into an argument one way or the other.

And I highly doubt Blackberry phones are experiencing the same issues. SMS lag? Apps crashing? Battery depletion? Or are you talking explicably about the 3G drops? Because Apple hasn't fixed any of the just mentioned problems after 2 updates (and after 2 claims of doing so). Like I said, Apple has no idea what is going on so I guess using the "tower power" excuse is better than saying "We don't know how to fix it."

[DiamondMac]

If we could have a map of ATT's 3G coverage area, and a map we could overlay of density of complaints, I think that might be a very good map to review.


Just on here, I would say a good number are people in large 3G cities like Chicago, New York, DC, etc....

[cobalts]

I agree with those who are calling BS on Apple and ATT. For those who get tired of reading the fully detailed rant, just skip to the bottom to the paragraph in italics.

---------------------------------

The problem stems from calling a critical firmware update "bug fixes." They were in fact trying to correct a problem with the network. A bug fix doesn't (1.) fail to fix any bugs on an individual phone; (2.) reduce network performance and cause new problems on phones that are perfectly fine; and (3.) require a certain proportion of people to install it to stabilize performance for the entire group of people who have those phones. What they needed to do was (1.) admit some type of serious error in the basic construction of the firmware, the stability of the 3G network, or both; and (2.) required people to update or, if Apple couldn't do that, to bring their phone back to the store for a mandatory service recall.

Apple and ATT over-sold ATT's network, not in fringe areas of their network, but right in the places where the density of users is the highest. Neither of them will admit to any kind of error, and that's a mistake. The reason Windows XP users, for instance, willingly perform "critical security fixes" and updates is because (1.) MS announces it widely throughout the media; and (2.) because it shows up on our computer screens when we turn on the computer. That's it. MS doesn't force those updates, but because they accept responsibility and provide basic information (i.e., not release a "bug fixes" patch that fixes no actual bugs), people believe them and act accordingly. And occasionally, MS does inform you of a critical update that requires installation and reboot ASAP. People may bash MS all the while, and it leads to Apple folks acting all superior, but in those cases, MS is at least acting responsibly and trying to get real information and solutions to users ASAP.

Here, on the other hand, we have Apple: no actual information, no official acknowledgment of the problem; and ATT: no direct response to the problem, excuses and promises with no definite time frame and no reimbursement plan over lost services. They did not act intelligently, effectively, or responsibly. Their attempt to "update" the phone, which seems a lot like throttling the network, in fact DID NOT WORK. By the time ATT and Apple released that BS text message, there were HUNDREDS OF TESTIMONIES about how that very update BREAKS YOUR PHONE.


Those users who haven't updated their phones either don't know what the hell is going on BECAUSE THEY HAVE A WORKING, UNUPDATED PHONE, or BECAUSE THEY READ THE FORUMS including APPLE'S OWN SUPPORT FORUM. Those who tried to seek information about update 2.0.2 have every reason not to update, have more than enough evidence that updating breaks their working phone, and will remain completely suspicious of every other firmware update from now on, with perfectly good reason.

I, for one, lost functional 3G network connectivity after 2.0.2 for almost a week, and I still notice network drop outs and crashed apps that are trying to access the network -- the other apps seem to be strangely immune to crashes -- I have to frequently hard reset my phone to regain network access, and my music streaming apps which worked perfectly now crash frequently.

It wouldn't surprise me that the increasing number of iPhone 3Gs on the crap ATT network plus the popularity of the Pandora Radio app and other music streaming apps (Simplify Media, Tuner, LastFM, AOL Radio) caused Apple and ATT to freak out on each other. Apple probably blamed ATT for not having promised network resources or not having the ability to monitor their own network resources; ATT probably blamed Apple for making a 3G device that actually makes full use of the "unlimited" "$30 per month" "3G" data plan that we were all forced to get. It's even plausible that Apple has legal grounds for terminating the exclusivity agreement with ATT -- or, vice versa: the iPhone 3G is "too powerful"? "powerful"? come on -- but they both know that that would result in tons of lost revenue. It took someone from Newsweek to get them to cooperate to the extent that they could release one text message -- how bizarre is that?

Since neither of them will address the matter directly or openly, instead we get this BS insider report as our explanation to the problem, and we're all over it. This "close to the source" explanation is a load of BS, not because it's definitely not true, but because (1.) it indirectly SHIFTS BLAME to the users who haven't updated; and (2.) we debate its accuracy or plausibility PRECISELY BECAUSE WE STILL NEED AN EXPLANATION BUT DON'T HAVE AN OFFICIAL ONE.


This is all a lot of crap management and as a result, users are turning on each other FOR NO GOOD REASON. I for one will avoid buying apps, tunes or videos from the iTunes store, watch the Android release and T-Mobile 3G roll-out, and as soon as I can switch, I'll evaluate the situation and possibly pay my ETF and ditch ATT and the iPhone. There is a lot of money at stake here, and one has to be careful how one gets invested in these newly available mobile services.

-----------------------------

Listen, all I'm saying is, Mommy and Daddy are having a fight. Mommy wants us to have everything she never had, but Daddy doesn't have the resources to keep it up. Just because Mommy and Daddy are fighting but don't want to look bad in front of us or the neighbors, don't let's start picking on each other and stuff. Let's go out and make some noise and have fun instead. That's the benefit of being a kid in a dysfunctional family. As soon as I'm old enough and have the dough, I'm out of here anyway.

Just my two cents.

[Glideslope]

thanks for noticing! ;-)

Seriously, I think there's something wrong with the software in general. Some apps are causing problems system wide.... and there's an issue with itunes updating/downloading/restoring/etc. There is likely an ATT problem as well, but I'm betting the crux of the problem lay squarely with Apple's itunes app.... some of the App Store's Apps... AND ATT's lack of solid data network implementation.

This is just a wild guess.... but I'd bet money that Apple's next combo... firmware update and likely itunes update.... will take care of 90% of the problems. Anyone want any of that action? ;-) Why Apple hasn't just come clean and admitted it... is beyond me. NOT the "Apple" I've been loyal to since my first Apple machine 18 years ago. Very disappointed with how my beloved Apple has handled this whole debacle.

I'll second your hunch that an itunes update will be with 2.1. However, until at&t grows their 3G out, placing it on new towers, not just bolting it to Edge towers there will be issues. The growth aint slowing down despite all people with issues.

Apple has learned from this. People who get bent out of shape over the "secrecy" stuff should use other products. It's never going to change.

No question Apple is having some problems with it's explosive growth. They will have it together on their end by the end of Sept. Can't speak for at&t.
However people should have known prior to their purchases that at&t's 3g is pale in comparison to Verizon.

I've been a Mac Evangelist since 94. I joined here in 07 for one response. I'm giving them a break not because I'm a "fan-man" (too old to be a fan-boy.)

A person in my office has a brother who is a VP at Apple. This person has been working 13 hr days 6 days a week since July 12th, and canceled a vacation to Paris last week to see this through with the rest of their "team."

No one at Apple is sitting on their ass. Even if they don't tell you everything that you perceive you have a "right" to know.

Just make sure you actually understand Apple prior to making the move. Many in here with Aug 08 registrations obviously don't.

Rant finished.

[WindowsGuy]

I'll second your hunch that an itunes update will be with 2.1. However, until at&t grows their 3G out, placing it on new towers, not just bolting it to Edge towers there will be issues. The growth aint slowing down despite all people with issues.

Apple has learned from this. People who get bent out of shape over the "secrecy" stuff should use other products. It's never going to change.

No question Apple is having some problems with it's explosive growth. They will have it together on their end by the end of Sept. Can't speak for at&t.
However people should have known prior to their purchases that at&t's 3g is pale in comparison to Verizon.

I've been a Mac Evangelist since 94. I joined here in 07 for one response. I'm giving them a break not because I'm a "fan-man" (too old to be a fan-boy.)

A person in my office has a brother who is a VP at Apple. This person has been working 13 hr days 6 days a week since July 12th, and canceled a vacation to Paris last week to see this through with the rest of their "team."

No one at Apple is sitting on their ass. Even if they don't tell you everything that you perceive you have a "right" to know.

Just make sure you actually understand Apple prior to making the move. Many in here with Aug 08 registrations obviously don't.

Rant finished.

What a line of Bull Crap.

Give Apple a break because we don't know the company. If Apple pulled programming resources off other projects (like they did for the iPhone) and had them work on the problem and not put out more products I'd give them a break.

This is poor management at it's best and I'm glad I'm still in my 30 day trial period.

Apple Fans are all over Microsoft because of Vista. Apple has become Microsoft. I'm hoping Android or better yet a proven phone manufacturer RIM will have a winner with Thunder.

As far as Apple not putting out public announcements is BS and poor management as well. If they did then the message boards wouldn't be full of rumors and hopes.

Apple is obviously more suited to it's original FanBoy base that expects this. I'm not a FanBoy and thinks it's Poor Management and Poor use of it's own Employee's programming time so they can push out the next great product and Rape your pockets again.

Steve you are a paranoid ego maniac that better get your **** together.

Wait... You'll just pull a Steve Rant and Rave and Fire the Board if they speak out against you or Apple.

[cobalts]

Serious new question.

Has anyone noticed similar problems with wifi? It seems like the signal strength and data throughput go only in one direction: down.

I think something is getting pwned and tethered pretty soon.

There's one way I can think of for users to contribute to our own needs. To constantly stress the network. It's already affecting other ATT phones. It will either drive the problem out into the open, or force ATT to speed it up.

If I had to choose between Mom (Apple) and Dad (ATT) in a custody dispute, I for one would side with Mom. Dad is kind of a prick anyway.

Again, my two cents.

[manhattanboy]

I totally agree with the quote below. I don't care if they are working 24/7. They need to fix this sh$t ASAP
It is totally poor management on both ends and they should come out apologize for putting out a crappy network product and offer to buy it back if there is no solution or give us a free solution. Instead all we get is Steve emails claiming BS fixes are on the way. Jesus how long do we have to wait? Why has AT&T not switched the majority if there 3 G towers to the lower spectrum? That should have been done before the release not after. What a line of Bull Crap.

Give Apple a break because we don't know the company. If Apple pulled programming resources off other projects (like they did for the iPhone) and had them work on the problem and not put out more products I'd give them a break.

This is poor management at it's best and I'm glad I'm still in my 30 day trial period.

Apple Fans are all over Microsoft because of Vista. Apple has become Microsoft. I'm hoping Android or better yet a proven phone manufacturer RIM will have a winner with Thunder.

As far as Apple not putting out public announcements is BS and poor management as well. If they did then the message boards wouldn't be full of rumors and hopes.

Apple is obviously more suited to it's original FanBoy base that expects this. I'm not a FanBoy and thinks it's Poor Management and Poor use of it's own Employee's programming time so they can push out the next great product and Rape your pockets again.

Steve you are a paranoid ego maniac that better get your **** together.

Wait... You'll just pull a Steve Rant and Rave and Fire the Board if they speak out against you or Apple.

[DaveClarkOne]

Dropped calls are WORSE under 2.0.2, not better. Never been worse, and I've had AT&T since June 2007. This is a bit ridiculous.

[tim916]

I live in a town where in the summer months the population jumps 4-5x on the weekends. I can tell you that during the week I usually have 3G, but as soon as Friday afternoon comes my phone is on edge at least 50% of the time throughout the weekend. I've suspected that this is is related to a substantial increase in the # of iPhones in the area on the weekends.

[Gamoe]

If this is true, then Apple should be handing out this update for free.

[badmac78]

So I was a geek and looked up "power control algorithm" and this is what popped up

http://www2.ing.unipi.it/ew2002/proceedings/177.pdf

Although I'm not an electrical engineer, I did take a controls class in undergrad. From what I could glean from the paper, it seems to be that apple would be adjusting to compensate for AT&Ts bad 3G towers.

[cobalts]

If this is true, then Apple should be handing out this update for free.

Free updates won't be a problem. The real problem will be getting all these networking apps to function the way they're supposed to. Just keep in mind, we didn't sign a contract with Apple.

From what I could glean from the paper, it seems to be that apple would be adjusting to compensate for AT&Ts bad 3G towers.

Nice find.

I'm sure both Apple and ATT are somehow mututally at fault. But, Apple wants to offer us features, while ATT wants to limit our ability to use them. Apple wants to sell apps. ATT wants to build a new 3G network that actually doesn't suck. ATT is just a cellular provider, there's never any reason to express loyalty to a cellular provider that lies about its ability to provide promised services we are paying for.

Any cellular company that
1. engages in a massive roll out to facilitate millions of new subscribers;
2. tacks on an SMS fee to functionally increase the cost of the upgraded 3G unlimited data plan;
3. states that it has 'no means of' monitoring their network;
4. appeals to your sympathy by explaining how hard it is to
A. have one of the largest networks in the country; and
B. place new 3G cell towers close enough to facilitate millions of new subscribers (it turns out);
5. explains that it will spend 35 gazillion dollars on extending the network even further;
6. reportedly does not give service credits for 3G data problems on the iPhone as a management policy; and
7. leaks information to USA Today that shifts blame to Apple and USERS OF THE IPHONE 3G.....

has clearly oversold their network and probably views the iPhone 3G and its users primarily as a way of funding the expansion of their 3G network. These are decisions by one corporation against and in relation to others. By leaking a story to USA Today, they are informing other entities in the marketplace and their own corporate partners -- they aren't trying to inform us of anything. ATT treats the users of the iPhone 3G with the same attitude that it treats Apple, Inc.

More than that, they
1. didn't properly predict their ability to offer network resources prior to the iPhone's release;
2. approved of firmware 2.0 in some way to facilitate its release;
3. benefited tremendously by signing up millions of new subscribers;
4. couldn't properly monitor their own network in relation to said millions of new subscribers;
5. weren't able to provide 3G network resources for millions of music streaming, data streaming iPhones;
6. are trying to cover it up now, naturally.

The best thing that could happen to the iPhone 3G is to release Apple from its exclusivity arrangement with ATT. They signed that thing way in advance of the 3G network being functional. Apps will travel with the hardware -- actually, with the iTunes user ID. The sooner the iPhone has multiple competitors for calling and data plans, the better for the platform and for users invested in the platform.

[faxpilot]

I upgraded when 2.0.2 came out and STILL have problems with dropped calls here in Baltimore, despite having strong signals, often. That explanation sounds like a lot of hooie.

[ryan200]

like the other guy mentioned the only way most people will update is if they are forced to do so.

i think it should be automatic let it happen in the background if it can or only happen while its charging and display a message phone is being updated do not turn off or something like that to keep people from corrupting the data.

but automatic updates is the way to be if your waiting on people to update it isn't very likely to happen. you now how many people are driving around cars with recalls that are affecting them and still dont know any better to take them in and get them fixed for free.

the plain and simple is the majority of the people are not gona update their phones unless forced to do so or if it happens without intervention from them.

[cobalts]

If this leak is meant for one thing, it's just to differentiate the iPhone 3G from the Blackberry Bold. That's all. "The iPhone 3G may be having problems, but it's just the iPhone. The Blackberry Bold will be great," said ATT.

I wonder if iTunes 8.0 will have something to do with emergency firmware updates. The way iTunes is set up now, there's no way you would know that there is a firmware update available at all without doing something.

[manhattanboy]

has clearly oversold their network and probably views the iPhone 3G and its users primarily as a way of funding the expansion of their 3G network.

I agree with this but it is clearly not just AT&T engaged in this poor practice.

Is there a class action against AT&T or Apple??
How do we sign up?

[cobalts]

I agree with this but it is clearly not just AT&T engaged in this poor practice.

Is there a class action against AT&T or Apple??
How do we sign up?

There was a report a while back saying that someone was filing a class action lawsuit against Apple over 3G. I kind of don't see the point though -- the 2-year ATT plan costs about 10x the cost of the phone to the consumer.

This came out just this morning:
http://news.slashdot.org/news/08/08/31/1225252.shtml
It's only Washington state, but it is their Supreme Court.

I still think what would be best is if Apple were to decide that it is no longer bound to its exclusivity agreement with ATT and to issue iPhone 3Gs for other carriers like T-Mobile. It's true that no carrier is going to be 100% the best choice for each and every person. But at least then there will be competition by carriers for iPhone 3G users, and people won't be required to choose ATT to get the benefit of the iPhone OS. Better for Apple too, if they can pull it off.

[gri]

There was a report a while back saying that someone was filing a class action lawsuit against Apple over 3G. I kind of don't see the point though -- the 2-year ATT plan costs about 10x the cost of the phone to the consumer.

This came out just this morning:
http://news.slashdot.org/news/08/08/31/1225252.shtml
It's only Washington state, but it is their Supreme Court.

I still think what would be best is if Apple were to decide that it is no longer bound to its exclusivity agreement with ATT and to issue iPhone 3Gs for other carriers like T-Mobile. It's true that no carrier is going to be 100% the best choice for each and every person. But at least then there will be competition by carriers for iPhone 3G users, and people won't be required to choose ATT to get the benefit of the iPhone OS. Better for Apple too, if they can pull it off.

The idea that simply outgrowing its own capacity is appealing - but that should affect all people, the people I know with iPhones are perfectly happy (NYC and Boston/Cambridge). I still have to meet a person who reports on his problems personally. That is not explained by the network so there are additional problems.

[cobalts]

The idea that simply outgrowing its own capacity is appealing - but that should affect all people, the people I know with iPhones are perfectly happy (NYC and Boston/Cambridge). I still have to meet a person who reports on his problems personally. That is not explained by the network so there are additional problems.

I don't know what's happening with the iPhone in other countries, but that would be interesting to know.

After thinking about it, if there was an error in the iPhone 3Gs networking stack (if it's called that), I still have to at least jointly attribute it to ATT and Apple. Just because, it's pretty clear that the cell carrier has ultimate say about what phones and OSs are going to run on its network. They're the ones that pick and choose out of all the phones and decide what hardware and software functions will be included and supported. But more importantly, ATT must have given the iPhone programmers parameters around which to operate. In my limited experience, I wouldn't be able to get a software programmer to talk to me for more than 3 minutes without being expected to specify more parameters than I would ever have thought of. If ATT had had a functional 3G network prior to the iPhone, that would shift the blame in my mind more to Apple. But ATT really rolled out 3G for the iPhone, so there was some kind of joint planning at work there -- or the absence of it, which is no excuse.

The last iPhone 3G user I met asked me what was up with the email program that gets stuck accessing 3G data indefinitely with no error notice. He wasn't so concerned about it, though. I'm amazed by how people are willing to overlook these things.

If I had to say one thing what is wrong with the iPhone 3G on the Apple side, it's iTunes. It doesn't make sense for the media player and PMP synchronization application that is also now a media store and a network media server to also back up and sell apps for an entire operating system for a phone and serve out updates -- especially a phone that never needs to be synced for any reason, especially if you use the iTunes store function from the phone and Mobile Me on top of that (if it's working).

It's a lesson about the development of the computer-free networked smart phone -- there has to be a way to not just kill malicious or illegal software, but to force an update if needed, specifically in this type of situation. Or, what if there were a security exploit of great significance, stealing people's personal information via malicious code on a website? The iPhone OS functions on iTunes are so inelegantly organized and hard to understand; and, you have to click on a button to even know if there is an OS update. That is a design flaw clearly attributable to Apple. On the other hand, this realm of technology is finally here and very compelling. Apple is pushing the entire market towards the benefit of consumers. App stores (like WM's new Skymarket proposal, Android's Marketplace, Nokia's something or other) are great for developers, existing web services, and consumers. So, if they gaffe a bit in pushing the whole thing forward, I'm willing to take some of it. Everyone in the industry is learning a lot of important things from the iPhone 3G, both its problems and its successes.

On the other hand, there would have been no need to screw around with the networking aspect of the firmware six weeks after release (and 2 weeks after a lot of people would have been able to get out of their ATT contract) were it not for some screw up with ATT. But no one can differentiate between ATT's and Apple's performance when the iPhone 3G doesn't work on this scale. It would be best for Apple to get out of the exclusivity agreement with ATT for that reason in particular. Then the differences in carriers will come to the forefront and serve as the basis of competition, instead of the iPhone being stuck with ATT and having to compete with other smart phones on the basis of one carrier's functioning or malfunctioning.

That's why I submitted an email to Apple, telling them to
1. get out of the exclusivity agreement with ATT,
2. provide the groundwork to get us users out of paying an ETF if we want to switch to another carrier, whenever that option might be available,
3. make as many iPhone 3Gs for other carriers (like T-Mobile) as possible, and
4. give users who want to switch carriers some kind of iTunes store credit or something.

If I knew the coverage by another carrier were better for me, I for one have no problem paying Apple another $300 for a $700 phone if I can get out of paying an ETF, switch carriers and get a new phone at the same time. Some iTunes store credit (like $100 worth) would make it all the more worthwhile.

I sent my email as a product feedback enhancement request. I think carrier non-exclusivity is the best enhancement the iPhone 3G could have right now. If anyone feels the same way, you might as well shoot them an email. Who knows, maybe if enough of us suggest the idea, Apple will do it. Maybe our suggesting it will give Apple enough testimony to get out of the exclusivity agreement. We can only succeed or change nothing.

[cobalts]

Let me get in one point about something that came up on the blogs a while ago, about the ATT dude talking about Android, that is significant to understand about ATT. The ATT dude was quoted as saying yes, there is now a possibility that ATT would consider offering an Android OS phone. Why? Because he was assured that Android's app store could work with ATT apps, not just T-Mobile apps.

What is he really saying?

He's saying something like this: T-Mobile allows notebook tethering for a pretty low fee, if they monitor it at all. It's part of their "sorry, we have crap coverage, and we're only in the U.S. for our European business customers, but please have a cup of coffee" business strategy. T-Mobile will allow Android apps that facilitate tethering. ATT doesn't even know if it wants to offer tethering on an existing unlimited plan. So, ATT doesn't want a tethering app on any of ATTs Android OS phones, written to work with some other carrier's data plan. They don't want to have to look out for it either, because it costs them money, or they don't know how, because the phones have browsers that are just like desktop browsers. You used to be able to differentiate WAP from ISP. Now you can't rely on that. Or maybe, they just publicly admitted that they have no idea what the hell is going on on their network. Apparently, your phone could be urinating on your leg from the internet and ATT wouldn't know.

What's wrong with what the ATT dude is saying?

It doesn't make any ****ing sense. There's going to be one Android store. It's going to have apps that work on Android OS phones.

These smart phones with 3rd party app development will force cellular carriers to compete because they won't have any control over what apps are running on their phones. That will be over, and ATT doesn't know it, and if they know it now, they don't like it, and they don't understand it.

If Apple and ATT are having a legitimate dispute around divergent interests, this is where the money is.

[effer]

Need a fix to disable 3G when making calls and downloading, then back to 3G in standby. I'm sure the MBA firmware team is already working on it.

[cobalts]

Other than what I wrote about above, I just asked Apple for a couple more hardware buttons and a thing that would allow me to hang a small plastic figurine from a string off the iPhone.

[abnospam]

I am not sure why anyone thinks the exclusivity can be broken. It is a business deal. It has a contract with it. There is a lot of money, kick backs, and other stuff at stake. No way the lawyers let this agreement be broken.

Apple got visual voicemail, absolute control, secrecy, subsidies, kick backs, etc.
AT&T got new subscribers and a hook no other carrier can dangle.

You all better come to grips with exclusivity, cause it aint going away until 2011.

[natasha69]

I am not sure why anyone thinks the exclusivity can be broken. It is a business deal. It has a contract with it. There is a lot of money, kick backs, and other stuff at stake. No way the lawyers let this agreement be broken.

Apple got visual voicemail, absolute control, secrecy, subsidies, kick backs, etc.
AT&T got new subscribers and a hook no other carrier can dangle.

You all better come to grips with exclusivity, cause it aint going away until 2011.

and service level agreements. if ATT isn't delivering what it promised to AAPL, i'm sure AAPL's lawyers have some sort of penalty clause in the contract.

[cobalts]

I am not sure why anyone thinks the exclusivity can be broken. It is a business deal. It has a contract with it. There is a lot of money, kick backs, and other stuff at stake. No way the lawyers let this agreement be broken.

Apple got visual voicemail, absolute control, secrecy, subsidies, kick backs, etc.
AT&T got new subscribers and a hook no other carrier can dangle.

You all better come to grips with exclusivity, cause it aint going away until 2011.

I have no idea if the exclusivity agreement is really disputable or not. Successfully, I mean. Anyone can sue anyone over practically anything in the U.S.

As far as I've seen, I've been the only person to suggest it to this degree.

But when I look at this situation, I think, if Apple is providing apps to iPhone 3Gs all over the world, and wants to have one app store for the iPhone OS (even though we know there are two) -- why should ATT be able to block the sale of a tethering app for everyone? Of course, I can't imagine only ATT would be against such an app.

But still, there's a real divergence of interests between Apple and ATT or really any carrier over 3rd party smart phone software development. The same for Android OS, but much more so, specifically because it is not tied up in an exclusivity deal. That non-carrier exclusivity gives the Android OS much more weight in the market than Apple can get riding on ATT.

It seems like there are just a few players in the upcoming mobile app / network game.
1. mobile device manufacturers;
2. people who manage app stores and quasi-open to open mobile device OS's;
3. existing web service providers;
4. 3rd party app developers who are very successful (a thoroughly relative term);
5. people who own and operate a network.

For the most part, it seems like players 1-4 have a lot to gain by pushing against player 5. Consumers have a lot to gain if players 1-4 do push against player 5. And, Apple is basically players 1, 2, and 3 at the same time.

Apple would benefit tremendously by being unhooked from ATT, not just in relation to the iPhone, but also because the iPhone connects with your home entertainment network over cellular. A lot of music is going to be streaming over the cellular network to people's iPhones, and with that a lot of behavioral data in terms of music listening. That data is worth money to a company that wants to sell all media content digitally. Apple can figure out a way to get a piece of that, and that's worth more than whatever they got from ATT for carrier-exclusivity. And that's just one way. The bigger stake is in mobile apps, and that definitely goes the same direction.

More and more, network service providers offer only one product: access to the internet. If we had a completely stable cellular data network, we could talk to each other on Skype all day. (One thing cellular providers should have done is increased the bandwidth for voice data, to make people sound more like people; given how many cell to cell conversations there are, that would have actually added some value to cell phone service.) Anyway, everyone just wants the internet all the time. That's it. I use my iPhone as a phone <2% of the time I'm using it.

It's like record labels and the recording industry to a degree. Record labels have no real product that differentiates them from one another. No one knows or cares which label a record comes out on.... until now. Now, people just avoid the recording industry, because of, well, increasing amounts of hatred. At least in one way, companies who provide network access are in the same boat. They all offer one thing: internet access. Anything else they can give you, like cable TV, or phone calls, or music -- all of that can just come from the internet.

It's a real change. I don't know what's going to happen. But I do think Apple should get unhitched if it can. What are they getting from ATT really, except money that they might be better off not having with whatever conditions come attached to that money. Given how much apps are going to make, Apple should be selling the iPhone at a loss.

[cobalts]

ATT Network reportedly down in the Northeast.
http://gizmodo.com/5044755/att-data-network-knocked-out-in-northeast

Apple and ATT being sued for overselling iPhone 3G:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/09/03/apple_att_sued_for_over_saturating_3g_network_with_iphones.html

[17thletter]

New guy on the board but have been reading the site for a year and some change...anyway...

I bought a 3G iPhone in July and I really haven't had any problems with it. 3G service is pretty good (normally 2 to 3 bars) and I live in Northridge although I'm in Los Angeles alot. The only problems I had with the phone was the bit of lag using the keyboard when I'm txting or writing down notes on the notepad, the contacts had a bit of lag also and an app crashing here and there. This was all on 2.0.1. As I was reading the problems many people have had regarding upgrading to 2.0.2., I was worried that if I had upgraded to 2.0.2, my buggy but workable iPhone would just turn to utter crap like some people have reported. Oh BTW, the phone was jailbroken.

This past weekend, my phone went out on me because I was messing around with customizing a theme and what not and since I deleted the past jb restore, I had to upgrade to 2.0.2, redownload pwnage and do everything all over again. Once everything was done, I have to say that whatever 2.0.2 did to remedy 2.0.1, from my experience, it did. Contacts now run smoother with no lag as does using the keyboard. As far as 3G service quality, it's pretty much the same although I'm getting 4 bars more often than before. Didn't really have a problem with dropped calls prior to 2.0.1 (I had a couple but not a frustrating amount) and I haven't had a dropped call since upgrading...granted it's only been 2 days since the upgrade.

I'm not gloating...but after reading all the iPhone horror stories, I'm wondering how many actual people are suffering from problems vs. those that aren't. At one point, I was beginning to think that the majority of the people who purchased 3G iphones were having problems but I think that's due in part to reading the many stories of problematic iphones...

[baaron]

I don't buy that an Iphone vs any other 3g GSM phone, will cause a tower to drop calls.

There should be no difference. Thats why standards are in place for design.

[cobalts]

I don't buy that an Iphone vs any other 3g GSM phone, will cause a tower to drop calls.

There should be no difference. Thats why standards are in place for design.

My 3G and EDGE data connections have been down all day in the Boston area from my iPhone 3G. From what I've read on the blogs, this is just a problem with iPhone 3Gs. So you're right, this is not a problem with all 3G phones. This is a problem with ATT and the iPhone 3G.

[cobalts]

Both my 3G and EDGE are back up, slower 3G than before but seemingly stable. I wonder if ATT wasn't aware that they had to do something and initiated a planned fix, or if there was some kind of sudden failure in the system.

[bryanr74]

all i know is that my reception has been worse since the 2.0.2 update. in fact, ive had more dropped calls in the past 3 days than at any other point with the 3g

I am so regretting "upgrading" my iPhone. My wife and I both replaced our old iPhones with the 3g model when it came out.

We have had nothing but horrible 3g reception and tons of missed, dropped and downright crappy calls.

We both keep our 3g turned off.

[Methodical]

To add a little clarification here.... UMTS works on a shared spectrum where every phone is listening to bits destined to multiple phones.

When one phone requests an inordate amount of power it raises the noise floor for the rest of the phones, and even creates a problem with the requesting phone.

So yes, it DOES increase reception (higher power).

It decreases reception at the tower (slightly).

It's apparently wreaking havoc on ATT's network and they are going to be pissed about not getting to QA it properly, or someone is going to be in the ******* for sucking at their job. This is what QA is for.

These are all complexities that verizon and spring have had to deal with for years, using CDMA.

So keep on using 2.0.1 for now if you so desire, but after a week or two after most everyone has upgraded, you'll have no incentive to be needlessly jamming other people off the network, unless you just like being a jerk.

[macnews]

So traveled around a bit. The software update made NO difference in my local calling area. All was the same as before, no more or less dropped calls. No more or less data speeds. No more or less crashes, though my phone doesn't crash much before.

Traveled to NYC AFTER the update. Could have sworn I was in the sticks. Kept switching between 3g and edge. Poor call quality. Slower 3g speeds and dog slow edge (compared to my local area). Best I could figure out was the buildings. Some buildings seemed to interfer with 3g signal or perhaps AT&T was correct and there is just that many people in NYC with an iPhone to draw the power down on a tower. And there are a ton of people with iPhones!

I did find in certain place, at various times throughout the day I would get consistent poor service. I think this would rule out the "power drawn down" concept.