Article Suggests iPhone is to Blame for AT&T's Network Failures

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/12/14/article-suggests-iphone-is-to-blame-for-atandts-network-failures/)

A NY Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/business/13digi.html?_r=1) suggests that the iPhone may be to blame for AT&T's network failures. Despite the fact that AT&T fell last on the list of Consumer Reports' latest annual cell phone satisfaction survey, the author claims that independent data suggests that AT&T may have "the superior network nationwide". Meanwhile, the iPhone, itself, may be contributing to the performance problems by causing interference that affect both its voice and data services. Roger Entner, senior vice president for telecommunications research at Nielsen, said the iPhone's "air interface," the electronics in the phone that connect it to the cell towers, had shortcomings that "affect both voice and data." He said that in the eyes of the consumer, "the iPhone has the nimbus of infallibility, ergo, it's AT&T's fault." AT&T does not publicly defend itself because it will not criticize Apple under any circumstances, he saidAT&T has recently acknowledged (http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/12/09/att-to-new-york-and-san-francisco-were-working-on-it/) that service in some major U.S. cities have been performing below standards and claims that AT&T is working on it. At no time has AT&T publicly blamed Apple for any issues.

John Gruber, however, appropriately questions (http://daringfireball.net/2009/12/stross_lying_eyes) the objectivity of the article as well as the "independent" sources of data, but also raises the most convincing argument against this probability:[i] If it’s the iPhone’s fault, not AT&T’s, why aren’t iPhone users around the world having the same problems as those here in the U.S.?


Article Link: Article Suggests iPhone is to Blame for AT&T's Network Failures (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/12/14/article-suggests-iphone-is-to-blame-for-atandts-network-failures/)

[Grimace]

AT&T can't keep up with the saturation of data from iPhone users.

If exclusivity were with Verizon, the same issue would be occurring, and might even be worse.

[carmenodie]

The iphone is the beast of cell phones! I would be on the bus listening to a podcast. Next thing I'm on itunes buying tracks. Then I'm downloading apps. And the ease at which I do those things is staggering. No other phone even comes close to the iphone experience.

[kennycheng93]

should get rid of exclusive

[caonimadebi]

A possible answer to Gruber's question: maybe it's because AT&T has a much higher percentage of iPhone users? This explanation would be consistent with the observation that AT&T 3G service tend to be poor in New York and San Francisco, where everyone and their moms seem to have iPhones

[jayhawk11]

Randal Stross is an asshat.

/thread.

[ziggyonice]

John Gruber, however, appropriately questions (http://daringfireball.net/2009/12/stross_lying_eyes) the objectivity of the article as well as the "independent" sources of data, but also raises the most convincing argument against this probability: If it’s the iPhone’s fault, not AT&T’s, why aren’t iPhone users around the world having the same problems as those here in the U.S.?

Bingo. Article is rubbish.

[Snowy_River]

A flaw that I see with this is the question of whether the data rating AT&T's network near (at?) the bottom in performance according to customer experience was so severely affected by iPhone users, which this article seems to suggest are the only ones really affected by bad network experience. I mean, even if every iPhone user said that the network satisfaction was the worst possible, what percentage of AT&T customers are actually iPhone users? If we were to suppose 10%, and, as the article suggests, the rest should find AT&T's network to be the best, then this would hardly pull AT&T all the way to the bottom of overall user satisfaction.

It seems clear that this issue isn't as clear cut as this article seems to be trying to make it out to be. While there may be some truth to the issue that they bring up, to blame all of AT&T's perceived network issues solely on the iPhone's "air interface" just doesn't ring true.

[solipsism]

A possible answer to Gruber's question: maybe it's because AT&T has a much higher percentage of iPhone users? This explanation would be consistent with the observation that AT&T 3G service tend to be poor in New York and San Francisco, where everyone and their moms seem to have iPhones

That points the finger back at AT&T, not the iPhone it self. He isn’t arguing that iPhone user’s excessive network use is not a reason why AT&T’s network is having these profound issues, just that the problem isn’t with the iPhone itself.

[iWork]

The iPhone 3G was criticized by AT&T's Ralph de la Vega and Kristin S. Rinne earlier this year for its inability to effectively filter noise from overlapping cell sites. I believe this is what Roger Entner is referring to when he criticizes iPhone's "air interface" (baseband).

According to Infineon data sheets, iPhone 3G and 3GS contain chipsets capable of Rx Diversity, seemingly nullifying AT&T's complaint. It may however be that Apple has not activated the feature or that Apple has and AT&T is spreading misinformation.

The question that arises, however, is that if AT&T is indeed unimpressed by iPhone's baseband, why do they continue to promote and sell iPhone?

[OriginalMacRat]

should get rid of exclusive

Very much so.

A single network can't handle the iPhone.

[thejadedmonkey]

I can believe it. I have a 2G phone (S.E. w300i), and have never had an issue in NYC. I get superb reception everywhere. It's definitely something to do with the 3Gness of the network, although if it's iPhone related, or just that the 3G band sucks, I could not say.

[RazHyena]

AT&T is responsible for AT&T's network failures.

Hey Apple....it's time to move on to a provider that's competent........

Edit: make that MULTIPLE providers.

[solideliquid]

I can see this argument being valid in certain situations. However why is it that my iphone can only get 1-2 bars of edge when I live 2 miles from a tower? I drive down the street and I get full 3G but not at my front door.

[solipsism]

I mean, even if every iPhone user said that the network satisfaction was the worst possible, what percentage of AT&T customers are actually iPhone users? If we were to suppose 10%, and, as the article suggests, the rest should find AT&T's network to be the best, then this would hardly pull AT&T all the way to the bottom of overall user satisfaction.

Aren’t there some 30-35M iPhones out there as of the end of Apple’s 2009 fiscal year? And a little over half are from the US that makes for at least 15M? If so, when compared to AT&T’s 82.5M subs as of November 2009 that is 18% of AT&T’s market. I think I’m lowballing the numbers so they could be much higher.

[Papajohn56]

lol right, AT&T has the best network - with the most dropped calls. Verizon is easily best in the US

[CFreymarc]

This is right out of the Ma Bell PR playbook. When you network is screwed up, blame the equipment! Many a Western Electric manager was a whipping boy when network upgrades didn't come on schedule when they rolled out units into the install trucks. Bah!

[aksmax]

This is an utterly ridiculous premise for an argument. "Gee, service would be great if it wasn't for all these pesky customers" Give me a break!

[Livestfastest]

RE: "If it’s the iPhone’s fault, not AT&T’s, why aren’t iPhone users around the world having the same problems as those here in the U.S.?"

It's easy to kick AT&T.
But, be careful what you wish for Verizon lovers.

The fact that the U.S. is way behind Europe & Japan in cell phone coverage and technology does not necessarily put all the blame on AT&T nor do I believe these AT&T vs. Verizon map battles one bit.

The U.S. Government's FCC is largely responsible for poor cell coverage more than anything else because they botched the DTV switch and delayed it so long that valuable frequencies were not available until recently, and not even for emergency services either!

[lilo777]

The iphone is the beast of cell phones! I would be on the bus listening to a podcast. Next thing I'm on itunes buying tracks. Then I'm downloading apps. And the ease at which I do those things is staggering. No other phone even comes close to the iphone experience.

The point is that your beast has serious technical flaws which causes problems for entire network.

[lilo777]

This is an utterly ridiculous premise for an argument. "Gee, service would be great if it wasn't for all these pesky customers" Give me a break!

You shoud read the artcle about iPhone syndrome (http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10414356-71.html?tag=dis). You totally fit the description. :D

[lilo777]

I can see this argument being valid in certain situations. However why is it that my iphone can only get 1-2 bars of edge when I live 2 miles from a tower? I drive down the street and I get full 3G but not at my front door.

Because the tower is busy servicing dealing with interference from all other iPhones in the area?

[lilo777]

AT&T is responsible for AT&T's network failures.

Hey Apple....it's time to move on to a provider that's competent........

Edit: make that MULTIPLE providers.

No, other providers would not accept such crap. AT&T only puts up with it because of exclusivity agreement but this might become a self-defiting strategy if AT&T's reputation gets too damaged. Perhaps hey are starting to worry hence the leaks like this one.

[MacInTO]

AT&T has the best network - with the most dropped calls.

This could the AT&T's new advertising slogan.

[sysiphus]

That points the finger back at AT&T, not the iPhone it self. He isn’t arguing that iPhone user’s excessive network use is not a reason why AT&T’s network is having these profound issues, just that the problem isn’t with the iPhone itself.

Not necessarily. If, perhaps, the iPhone causes problems beyond simply a high volume of data usage (the too many users for the crappy network argument)...could it be that the interference/problems caused by the device are simply magnified on networks with high saturation of iPhones--eg ATT? Percentage-wise or straight user numbers, either way, there are LOTS more iPhones running in the US than anywhere else.

Overall, I'm inclined to think that the issue is primarily ATT's network--but given Apple's inability to build a phone with decent reception/call quality, I wouldn't be entirely stunned if there are problems with the device that impact the network, either.

[lilo777]

A flaw that I see with this is the question of whether the data rating AT&T's network near (at?) the bottom in performance according to customer experience was so severely affected by iPhone users, which this article seems to suggest are the only ones really affected by bad network experience. I mean, even if every iPhone user said that the network satisfaction was the worst possible, what percentage of AT&T customers are actually iPhone users? If we were to suppose 10%, and, as the article suggests, the rest should find AT&T's network to be the best, then this would hardly pull AT&T all the way to the bottom of overall user satisfaction.

It seems clear that this issue isn't as clear cut as this article seems to be trying to make it out to be. While there may be some truth to the issue that they bring up, to blame all of AT&T's perceived network issues solely on the iPhone's "air interface" just doesn't ring true.

Read ythe article. It says iPhones intefere with the work of entire network thus all customers are affected not just iPhone ownes. Poor non-iPhone suckers. I understand why iPhone owners put up with crappy network. But why others have to suffer? ;)

[Livestfastest]

AT&T can't keep up with the saturation of data from iPhone users.

If exclusivity were with Verizon, the same issue would be occurring, and might even be worse.

I totally agree.

And while it's possible Verizon has an advantage in overall 3G coverage, recent Apple ads seem to suggest Verizon's weakest link, the inability to be on the phone and get on the internet at the same time, which is a true AT&T advantage whether it's 3G or 2.5G. You can't check that restaurant location while chatting with a friend you're meeting on Verizon. You have to hang up, get online, then call them back. Apple's new commercials are slick and point that out, but interestingly do not mention Verizon.

This is what leads me to believe there will be a Verizon iPhone soon.

Verizon attacked AT&T more than Apple.

Exclusivity and popularity and the U.S.'s terrible cell phone infrastructure in general is the main problem, not AT&T.

[lilo777]

This could the AT&T's new advertising slogan.

Apple, on the other hand, can now claim that their phone has the feature (interference) no other phone on earth has :p (and this is what they call "think different")

[lilo777]

I totally agree.

And while it's possible Verizon has an advantage in overall 3G coverage, recent Apple ads seem to suggest Verizon's weakest link, the inability to be on the phone and get on the internet at the same time, which is a true AT&T advantage whether it's 3G or 2.5G. You can't check that restaurant location while chatting with a friend you're meeting on Verizon. You have to hang up, get online, then call them back. Apple's new commercials are slick and point that out, but interestingly do not mention Verizon.

This is what leads me to believe there will be a Verizon iPhone soon.

Verizon attacked AT&T more than Apple.

Exclusivity and popularity and the U.S.'s terrible cell phone infrastructure in general is the main problem, not AT&T.

There is no voice and data sharing on EDGE (2.5G). Verizon customers can probably still have shared voice and data but not in a conventional sense - they can use Vonage (VOIP) for talking and because all other platforms (but iPhone) support real multitasking they can use data connection simultaneously.

[lostngone]

Well, we all knew that the iPhone was going to be a large consumer of data. AT&T knew this so I have no sympathy for them. AT&T bit off more then they can chew.

You can't deliberately shoot yourself in the foot and then cry and expect sympathy from people.

[bmacir]

If it’s the iPhone’s fault, not AT&T’s, why aren’t iPhone users around the world having the same problems as those here in the U.S.?

Who said that iPhone users around the world aren't having the same problems?
I am.

[Livestfastest]

There is no voice and data sharing on EDGE (2.5G). Verizon customers can probably still have shared voice and data but not in a conventional sense - they can use Vonage (VOIP) for talking and because all other platforms (but iPhone) support real multitasking they can use data connection simultaneously.

Thanks for correcting me.
I wasn't aware of the EDGE limitation since I only get 3G here, but it's quite clear Apple is targeting VERIZON in the recent iPhone commercials for this limitation.

And no one uses all those fancy tricks on Verizon to accomplish the same thing except the tech types because they are a pain to do. Let's face it, most cell phone users, even smartphone users are not that motivated.

The point remains though, and Apple has clearly pointed this out, that there is NO VOICE & DATA sharing at all on Verizon's network, 3G or not. Apple just chose not to call Verizon out on it by name, but it's clear they are referring to Verizon.

[the vj]

The iphone is the beast of cell phones! I would be on the bus listening to a podcast. Next thing I'm on itunes buying tracks. Then I'm downloading apps. And the ease at which I do those things is staggering. No other phone even comes close to the iphone experience.

Keep your comments on topic.

Is abvious the article is a maneouver to cheat some investors at AT&T and distract the attention in public opinion but it will last the day went out and that is it. There is nothing wrong with the iPhone.

[FightTheFuture]

Verizon customers can probably still have shared voice and data but not in a conventional sense - they can use Vonage (VOIP) for talking and because all other platforms (but iPhone) support real multitasking they can use data connection simultaneously.wow lilo! 8 posts in 10 minutes! didn't know the trolls stay up this late. it's going to be tough touting both verizon and t-mobile when the 'real google phone' is released. considering at&t already admitted fault in the dense areas, i don't see why speculation from the nytimes has any credibility.

[MrCubes]

Well I'm in and around London on O2 and I have noticed a significant degredation over time in the quality of service. In certain areas, such as London Bridge where I currently work - and Canary Wharf where I used to work, I regularly get full, or near full, bars but can't get data or make or receive calls!
I had attributed this to over-subscribed cells, since these are areas that are heavy with users, and with high ratio of iPhone users in particular (using a lot more data than most). This article has given me more food for thought, although I remain skeptical about "air interference".

Either way its been a serious enough problem that I'd been considering unlocking the phone and using another network, despite my ongoing contract with O2. Which sucks. However I did theorize that as the exclusivity with O2 ended and other networks began to "share the load" that we would start to see a pick up in service. I have to say that over the last month or so, since Orange have started to carry the iPhone, I have noticed an improvement in quality! Even other people have commented on how they can actually reach me when I'm at work now. It's still a little too anecdotal to be evidence, but it's a good sign. I'm not sure how that relates to this article, though.

In any event I believe my contract with O2 finishes next month and I'll be looking to move to Orange or Vodafone.

[ThunderSkunk]

Yet another problem solved by killing the exclusivity bs.

Instead of sitting around pointing fingers, as AT&T is content to do, hopefully Apple is focusing on fixing the problem, by opening the device up to multiple carriers.

[Analog Kid]

I'm just not buying this... iPhone passed qualification by all the necessary testing agencies, and AT&T undoubtedly tested it before it shipped. If it were such a threat, AT&T shouldn't have let it on their network.

[guet]

Apple, on the other hand, can now claim that their phone has the feature (interference) no other phone on earth has :p (and this is what they call "think different")

You seem determined to vociferously defend AT&T by answering every post on this thread with some retort. Why is that, do you work there?

In the UK, the iPhone has not seen such major problems with reception, or we'd be reading about it all over the O2 boards and here, and yet it has sold well, probably especially in cities, so this does seem to be limited to the US and AT&T. The most reasonable conclusion is that AT&T 3G network just can't keep up with the traffic it's seeing. That or there is something specific to the interaction with the network in the US that is to blame.

[lilo777]

wow lilo! 8 posts in 10 minutes! didn't know the trolls stay up this late. it's going to be tough touting both verizon and t-mobile when the 'real google phone' is released. considering at&t already admitted fault in the dense areas, i don't see why speculation from the nytimes has any credibility.

Well, AT&T could not nut admit the problems in dense areas but I do not think they actually gave technical explanation. In any case, according to the article, AT&T is not willing to blame iPhone as long as it brings more customers (this would be self-defeating).

And you are right, this article along is not enough to make a conclusion. On the other hand, counter-arguments from iPhone fans here are much more ridiculous ;)

[lilo777]

I'm just not buying this... iPhone passed qualification by all the necessary testing agencies, and AT&T undoubtedly tested it before it shipped. If it were such a threat, AT&T shouldn't have let it on their network.

Why not? Did not iPhone bring tons of new customers to AT&T? As they say, "think different". As long as business is good who cares that customers can not make calls ;)

[kdarling]

I'm just not buying this... iPhone passed qualification by all the necessary testing agencies, and AT&T undoubtedly tested it before it shipped. If it were such a threat, AT&T shouldn't have let it on their network.

There is precedent. Remember the network mess with the original iPhone 3G baseband code?

That was something that should've showed up in testing as well.

Power control code blamed for iPhone network interference (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10028026-37.html)

Basically, a mistake in the iPhone WCDMA code kept ramping up the cell power output until other users were forced to drop. Owners were urged to update to fixed code.

The latest OS uptake statistics show that there are still a lot of iPhone users on the old 2.x code. Just a few 3G owners with the original code would mess up a cell. Perhaps that's part of what's going on.

[Livestfastest]

FACT: U.S. cellular infrastructure is way behind Europe and Japan.

It doesn't matter what "exclusive" carrier the iPhone is on in the U.S.
There would still be similar problems, just in different areas.

I'm not defending AT&T either, I'm just stating a fact of life.

Personally I don't like AT&T, but I don't really like Verizon either.
Most people hate their cell carriers!

I don't think the iPhone is like defective or anything.
I simply believe it's too powerful of a device for the U.S.'s current cell phone infrastructure.

And that's the fault of the FCC & the U.S. Government, not AT&T.

[lilo777]

You seem determined to vociferously defend AT&T by answering every post on this thread with some retort. Why is that, do you work there?

In the UK, the iPhone has not seen such major problems with reception, or we'd be reading about it all over the O2 boards and here, and yet it has sold well, probably especially in cities, so this does seem to be limited to the US and AT&T. The most reasonable conclusion is that AT&T 3G network just can't keep up with the traffic it's seeing. That or there is something specific to the interaction with the network in the US that is to blame.

Hi there. I happened to visit London in September. Can not say I saw a lot of iPhones. Another observation - a lot of people still using wired head sets (it's all BT here in US). As far as quality of service is concerned, just read a post from MrCubes a few posts above.

[Jpoon]

Yeah, AT&T just oversold their market in some areas of the country. Sure that has to do with new iPhone customers. But not necessarily with the phone specifically :P. That train of logic is begging to be picked apart.


ALSO, I don't know why Verizon is getting such good press. There are incidents with their network being ****** too in certain cases. Their customer service is the most terrible out of any company I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with. Also, I couldn't get coverage in my house with any of their phones so they let me out of my contract a year and a half early. Been with the iPhone / AT&T ever since.

I have 0 problems with AT&T in Memphis. I don't even pay attention to the BS that has been circulating on the internet for the most part. All I know is that my iPhone works great, and that my bill is a bit expensive. But hey, I have a great phone that does what it's supposed to do and a bit more.

[lilo777]

There is precedent. Remember the network mess with the original iPhone 3G baseband code?

Power control code blamed for iPhone network interference (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10028026-37.html)

Basically, a mistake in the iPhone WCDMA code kept ramping up the cell power output until other users were forced to drop. Owners were urged to update to fixed code.

That was something that should've showed up in testing as well.

The latest OS uptake stats I've seen, show that there are still a lot of iPhone users on the old 2.x code. Just a few 3G owners with the original code would mess up a cell.

This should not be all too surprising given the fact that Apple is a total newbie in communication area. Just check how Apple screwed up antennas in the latest AirPort Extreme - http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-features/30974-more-surprises-from-the-new-airport-extreme

[jbplaya]

The argument of surfing the web while talking is laughable. That's about as useless as toting the Droid as a nice paper weight as well as a phone.

[michaelr123]

I totally agree.

And while it's possible Verizon has an advantage in overall 3G coverage, recent Apple ads seem to suggest Verizon's weakest link, the inability to be on the phone and get on the internet at the same time, which is a true AT&T advantage whether it's 3G or 2.5G. You can't check that restaurant location while chatting with a friend you're meeting on Verizon. You have to hang up, get online, then call them back. Apple's new commercials are slick and point that out, but interestingly do not mention Verizon.

This is what leads me to believe there will be a Verizon iPhone soon.

Verizon attacked AT&T more than Apple.

Exclusivity and popularity and the U.S.'s terrible cell phone infrastructure in general is the main problem, not AT&T.

My guess is the vast majority of people don't use this at all, so it would be next to irrelevant anyway.

[guet]

Hi there. I happened to visit London in September. Can not say I saw a lot of iPhones. Another observation - a lot of people still using wired head sets (it's all BT here in US). As far as quality of service is concerned, just read a post from MrCubes a few posts above.

I use an iPhone frequently in the UK - London, and see a lot of iPhones around. I've had 1 dropped call in the last year, and possibly 3 calls with bad reception. That doesn't sound anything like the issues in say NYC, where a 30% rate of dropped calls is the norm for AT&T. Mr Cubes is talking about specific areas which have a high concentration of smartphones (of all kinds) so I guess there may be issues with O2's network in those specific places, or with using an iPhone on a network when congested? Without proper testing (the testing in this article is anything but), it's hard to say which factor is most important, but given the correlation with high density usage, it seems strain on the network network is to blame.

If the problem were solely with the iPhone it wouldn't matter how many iPhones you saw, as any of them would have issues. I'm sure it doesn't have the best reception of all phones, but it is a pretty good phone in my experience.

[adztaylor]

Hi there. I happened to visit London in September. Can not say I saw a lot of iPhones. Another observation - a lot of people still using wired head sets (it's all BT here in US). As far as quality of service is concerned, just read a post from MrCubes a few posts above.

The iPhone sells incredibly well here in the UK.

[dr34mc4st3r]

Well I'm in and around London on O2 and I have noticed a significant degredation over time in the quality of service. In certain areas, such as London Bridge where I currently work - and Canary Wharf where I used to work, I regularly get full, or near full, bars but can't get data or make or receive calls!
I had attributed this to over-subscribed cells, since these are areas that are heavy with users, and with high ratio of iPhone users in particular (using a lot more data than most). This article has given me more food for thought, although I remain skeptical about "air interference".

Either way its been a serious enough problem that I'd been considering unlocking the phone and using another network, despite my ongoing contract with O2. Which sucks. However I did theorize that as the exclusivity with O2 ended and other networks began to "share the load" that we would start to see a pick up in service. I have to say that over the last month or so, since Orange have started to carry the iPhone, I have noticed an improvement in quality! Even other people have commented on how they can actually reach me when I'm at work now. It's still a little too anecdotal to be evidence, but it's a good sign. I'm not sure how that relates to this article, though.

In any event I believe my contract with O2 finishes next month and I'll be looking to move to Orange or Vodafone.

i would say its o2's fault. im in london for a few months and realised o2 coverage is rubbish. whats the use of unlimited internet when many times there's no data coming through! i don't have such problems back at my home country's telco

[AAPLaday]

Thats why im glad that Orange have started selling it now as well as o2 and soon vodafone. One single network cant keep up with the demand created by the iPhone experience.

[Orup70]

If it’s the iPhone’s fault, not AT&T’s, why aren’t iPhone users around the world having the same problems as those here in the U.S.?

Who said that iPhone users around the world aren't having the same problems?
I am.

Never had a problem in Sweden with my iPhone, nor have I heard about anyone else having problems. Never had a dropped call myself and is getting about 2.1 Mbit/s download speed on 3G. And (of course) I have free tethering included in the service plan (although with a total 5 GByte per month cap).

It seems hard not blaming AT&T for the problems...

[Compile 'em all]

If they can't keep up with data consumption of the iPhone why are they selling it?

[manu chao]

Who said that iPhone users around the world aren't having the same problems?
I am.
I cannot recall having heard of such problems from France or Germany (whose tech-media I follow), nor do I recall dropped calls myself (or from my iPhone-using acquaintances). Whereas my Razr occasionally just would not dial.
But maybe it is only Americans liking to bitch about it much more.:D

[kernkraft]

I live in the UK, but I recently have been to the US and Canada with my iPhone. I am on O2 and in our rural home setting, I have very poor reception. Nevertheless, it is enough to cover most parts of the house with minimal signal (1-2 bars, no 3G). Most of our phones had problems with this, but I think we have more dropping phone calls with the iPhone. It is not dramatic, but it is noticeable, a minor annoyance. Furthermore, recently I stayed in Central London and a friend of mine had his HTC phone with him. The iPhone's GPS regularly placed me to south London or streets away from our actual location. The HTC seemed to have handled the situation better and faster. The iPhone is getting dated, there is no question about it. Two and a half year (or two, in case of the 3G) is a long time in telecommunication. That is why I expect some minor cosmetic changes in the next revision. These devices demand larger aerials/antennas/loops. I haven't got any experience with the 3GS, but I saw some threads claiming similar problems, concerning fluctuating network signal strength.

When I used my iPhone in various large cities in the US and in Canada, I've had a completely different experience. Service WAS significantly poorer. Most of the times my iPhone connected onto AT&T's networks (not in Canada), but data roaming was ridiculously slow and unreliable. In fact, I was wondering, why people even bothered with any smart phones, especially at that price. I paid £340 (around $540) for my 3G, with unlimited internet for a year, on a 'pay-as-you-go' card. I've had another iPhone in the past, but I didn't want to tie myself into a long contract with a phone that I always knew was not the best for making calls. I still use my Nokia for making phone calls. It is stupid, but that is the harsh reality. My battery wouldn't last half a day otherwise.

Most of us believe in the free market and competition. With these exclusive network deals, tie-ins and restrictions, I wonder, whether that is really the case. I had to go to the US to see that it is actually the land of monopolies, not the free market.

[entropys]

In Australia, all carriers and MNVOs have the iphone. (disclosure, I use an unlocked iphone on virginmobile in the city, and Telstra in the country)

The buildout of the various networks goes
Telstra (best);Optus medium;Vodafone; '3' smallest.. Some of these also have roaming arrangements with the others

(Virgin is an MNVO and subsidiary of Optus, but operates as a separate business but uses the optus network. You can also get iphones through them).

You can also buy outright from Apple unlocked and go with whoever, and even if the iphone is bought on contract, you can pay to get it unlocked, or get it unlocked after a certain time for free.


So, how does the iphone do on various networks?
Optus & Virgin have the best deals, so most people have gone with them.

Result: Optus suffers constant loss of network issues. The network cannot handle the massive increase in data volumes. They have minimised dropped calls however, by prioritising calls over data services. This can be very annoying though when you are accessing data, but a solution I have found is to turn airplane mode on and off. I think this is because for some reason the network thinks you are a new entrant to that tower and lets you on.

Telstra has hands down the best network, but charge like wounded bulls for access. There are no problems whatsoever with this network. it is fast, reliable and never drops a call. But as a company they hate the iphone, as users tend to treat Telstra as a dumb pipe, and Telstra want to sell you a lot of 'value added'

All that said, the likely answer as to whether or not it is AT&T or the iphone to blame for the US problems, based on a network comparison in Australia?

It's the network, stupid!

[vvebsta]

I honestly feel bad for the poor souls that are setting up the 3G network... its not like they aren't doing anything...

12/09/2009 AT&T Brings 3G Mobile Broadband Network to More Area of New River Valley
- Christiansburg, Virginia
12/08/2009 AT&T Brings 3G Mobile Broadband Network to Fredericksburg
- Fredericksburg, Texas
12/07/2009 AT&T Brings 3G Mobile Broadband Network to Front Royal
- Front Royal, Virginia
12/02/2009 AT&T Brings 3G Mobile Broadband Network to Appleton, Green Bay and Oshkosh - Green Bay, Wisconsin
11/27/2009 AT&T Brings 3G Mobile Broadband Network to Roanoke
- Roanoke, Virginia

...its just that AT&T needs to hire an army of workers and get their network up to speed. Heck they should be putting in 4G networks not 3G.

[jasonfj]

I use my iPhone on AT&T in LA, but have unlocked it and use Virgin in the UK. The difference is massive. I can barely receive or keep a call on AT&T, whilst reception on Virgin is not only consistently good, but louder too.

[samvie]

Never had a problem in Sweden with my iPhone, nor have I heard about anyone else having problems. Never had a dropped call myself and is getting about 2.1 Mbit/s download speed on 3G. And (of course) I have free tethering included in the service plan (although with a total 5 GByte per month cap).

It seems hard not blaming AT&T for the problems...

I've had surprisingly many dropped calls since I bought my 3G S last summer. Reception is subpar when compared to my old Nokia E70, which had its own problems, but did not drop calls. iPhone can't get 3G connectivity at all in places where my E70 had no problems. Sometimes the disappearance of 3G connection leads to No Carrier and it takes a long time to find EDGE (or even GPRS) network. Oh, and this is in Finland.

Could be just my unit, but then again there's no way I could get a replacement on those grounds.

[SimonTheSoundMa]

Hi there. I happened to visit London in September. Can not say I saw a lot of iPhones. Another observation - a lot of people still using wired head sets (it's all BT here in US).
Perhaps they were using the headset that came with their phones? guessing Nokia or Sony phones which have had MP3 players and radios for years — phone manufacturers you're not used to in America.

Europe is light years ahead of the USA. Handsets are usually released six months to a year before they are released in the US. 4G is being rolled out, and 3.5G is available over most of the UK already.

I can understand if the AT&T network suffers from congestion in high dense areas, such as areas with skyscrapers. However, people in the suburbs are also suffering where density is quite low.

[kernkraft]

Hi there. I happened to visit London in September. Can not say I saw a lot of iPhones. Another observation - a lot of people still using wired head sets (it's all BT here in US).

There are lots of iPhones here, too. Only, we consider flashing phones rather vulgar. In the US, I saw so many people flashing their gadgets, that I felt embarrassed for them. I especially 'liked', how many iPhone headsets were attached to much cheaper devices. I also noticed, how many use iPod Touches on the move. When I listen to music, I don't tend to play with the device and use the crap out of Coverflow.

I have a bluetooth headset and a wired headset. I prefer the wired one. The voice clarity is superior and I don't have to charge it all the time. Also, they are more comfortable as there is no extra weight for the transmitter.

[lostinspace2011]

Just like a falling tree does not make a noise when there is nobody there to hear it, AT&T's network works perfectly and is the best and fastest in the world with the best coverage as long as you keep your phone switched off. I even got an AT&T signal on both North and South poles and I believe even the moon and mars got great coverage too. The trick is to switch you damn phones off to get it all working properly.

On a serious note, here in the UK O2's coverage is so poor (at least for me) that I can't even use most of the features of the phone. Will be switching to Orange next month which has better coverage and friendlier service (I hope)

[djellison]

A NY Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/business/13digi.html?_r=1) suggests that the iPhone may be to blame for AT&T's network failures.

No.

Fail.

Wrong.

AT&T are to blame for AT&T's network failures. Any idiot could have told them that there would be huge network demand on 3 and 2.5G networks when the phone was launched. Their high tarrifs and mandatory data subscription are there to pay for that network.

What AT&T has failed to do is invest in their network early enough, rapidly enough and thoroughly enough to keep up with demand.

For that, the blame lies firmly, fully, entirely and wholly at the feet of AT&T, not the iPhone or its users.



and 3.5G is available over most of the UK already.


Errr... no it isn't. Not even slightly. Not even 3G is available over 'most' of the UK. There is 3G available in most suburban and urban areas - but beyond that, if you're lucky 2.5G, if you're not - nothing.

[cyclotron451]

3G or UMTS/WCDMA is based around 1700 to 2100MHz RF frequency. These frequencies are quite strictly LOS line of sight only, they don't propagate well through buildings. Compare this with the GSM frequencies which are lower around 750 - 950MHz and can usually get indoors. Now that the GSM A5/1 and A5/2 crypto algorithms have been comprehensively hacked such that all GSM is to be considered plaintext it makes more sense to use 3G more, as there are no known security problems with this standard. Separately, the European Commission (law proposer) has mandated in 2009 that all EU telecoms companies shall introduce the 3G waveforms at GSM frequencies. This is expected to roll-out (after some legal fighting over 'monopolies') over the next 2 yrs. In the early days of 3G there were problems with RF doppler shift (UMTS was designed for non moving users!) and the 3G cells would start to drop power levels to an individual user once more and more devices roamed onto the base-station.
How this affects the iPhone, dunno! we only get 3G in the big cities in Italy, the 3G phone which is very popular works reasonably well in the suburbs, in order for a product such as iPhone to be allowed 'on-air' it MUST meet the ETSI/FCC emissions masks. statements such as "AT&T network being broken by a **** phone", don't seem to make sense unless **** is one of the ChiPhones that I've seen which cost around 30 Euros and may well not meet any standards at all

[bergmef]

I honestly feel bad for the poor souls that are setting up the 3G network... its not like they aren't doing anything...

12/09/2009 AT&T Brings 3G Mobile Broadband Network to More Area of New River Valley
- Christiansburg, Virginia
12/08/2009 AT&T Brings 3G Mobile Broadband Network to Fredericksburg
- Fredericksburg, Texas
12/07/2009 AT&T Brings 3G Mobile Broadband Network to Front Royal
- Front Royal, Virginia
12/02/2009 AT&T Brings 3G Mobile Broadband Network to Appleton, Green Bay and Oshkosh - Green Bay, Wisconsin
11/27/2009 AT&T Brings 3G Mobile Broadband Network to Roanoke
- Roanoke, Virginia

...its just that AT&T needs to hire an army of workers and get their network up to speed. Heck they should be putting in 4G networks not 3G.

They can't do that, without more 3G, people will realize that Apple commercial is only good in the little blue area, not the big 2G areas.

[SeaFox]

[deleted]

[Nuvi]

Regarding Grubers claim; iPhone users around the world do have the same problems. iPhone is probably the coolest phone out there but at the same time most unreliable. I'm on my fourth iPhone and I've started thinking I would be better off with some other phone and iPod...

[diamond.g]

AT&T can't keep up with the saturation of data from iPhone users.

If exclusivity were with Verizon, the same issue would be occurring, and might even be worse.

From my understanding of the split between voice and data on CDMA2000 networks, I don't think Verizon would see the same problem.

[jimmyjoemccrow]

I had to switch away from O2 in the UK because their data service was so crap. It showed full bars in my house yet it would often trickle down. On the way into town on the bus I would lose data altogether, completely defeating the purpose of the 3.5g network. I wonder if the iPhone has anything to do with it. Probably not, there aren't a lot of iPhone owners in my city.

[JollyRogers]

wife's Samsung was terrible on the AT&T network... ummm it's not an iPhone. Don't travel through the Midwest with At&T, you get laughed at.

[fishmoose]

Here in Sweden, Telia was the only iPhone carrier for a pretty long time under that time I had one dropped call, the person I was talking with was in a basement. I also had tethering and MMS the same day 3.0 was out.

[iZac]

Sounds to me like load of bollocks from a company who run their data network on a shoe-string budget.

"users taking advantage of data on their own phones? prepostererous!"

You could argue that its Apples fault that they provide such a fucntional browser that leads people to use their damn phones as they're supposed to be used!

[michelle21]

I don't know what to make of this:

If the iphone is to blame you would expect the poor service to be constant.

But in the last couple months the service in my area has gotten worse in some places and better in others.

I used to have really good coverage were I live, but lately I've been getting a lot more dropped calls. Its almost like we lost a cell tower or something.

On the other hand were I work in metro detroit coverage is actually a bit better.

I noticed time of day makes a difference to, with voice and especially data.

Over last month I have been testing a streaming video application we are hopeing to submit really soon. And before anyone comments I know the risks of that, but I figure it will be approved for at least wifi. And its worth the risk because over wifi it works great. Even for watching 2 hour good resolution movies.

What I've noticed is that in the morning, around the time I am heading for work 5:00 am streaming is somewhat watchable, but by noon the quality over 3g is more like a slow scan video. It doesn't lose it because the media server accounts for signal degregation, but you have to press the play button repeatedly.

[SeaFox]

Regarding Grubers claim; iPhone users around the world do have the same problems. iPhone is probably the coolest phone out there but at the same time most unreliable.
Isn't that funny?

When the iPhone came out it was supposed to change the cell phone industry forever, but it's really just more of the same. A device that remains locked down to a single carrier's network in such a way you question if actually bought it or not, and focuses so much on it's multimedia functionality that it's dismal at the task on making and receiving voice calls -- the very reason it's named a cell phone.

Sounds like every other "phone" made in the last five to ten years. The difference is the iPhone actually does some of those non-phone functions well.

[Plutonius]

The next thing you will hear is that jail broken iPhones are causing the network trouble.

[bbplayer5]

I totally agree.

And while it's possible Verizon has an advantage in overall 3G coverage, recent Apple ads seem to suggest Verizon's weakest link, the inability to be on the phone and get on the internet at the same time, which is a true AT&T advantage whether it's 3G or 2.5G. You can't check that restaurant location while chatting with a friend you're meeting on Verizon. You have to hang up, get online, then call them back. Apple's new commercials are slick and point that out, but interestingly do not mention Verizon.

This is what leads me to believe there will be a Verizon iPhone soon.

Verizon attacked AT&T more than Apple.

Exclusivity and popularity and the U.S.'s terrible cell phone infrastructure in general is the main problem, not AT&T.


Spoken like a true Apple fanboi. Lets be real. I have never once wanted to check my phone while in a call. Mainly because its really not that important to me, or I already have a computer around. The instances I would need to check something would be in a car, yet, I wouldnt want to check in a car.

Not to mention when I owned an iPhone, I often was unable to do anything on the network while in a call. It simply didnt work unless I was on wifi. Sure it sounds great on paper, but its not a foolproof at&t feature.

Would that really make or break a cell company for you anyway?? Lets be real here. Verizon is dominating AT&T in the marketing right now, just face the fact.

[Evangelion]

The point is that your beast has serious technical flaws which causes problems for entire network.

Such as?

Sure, it could be said that iPhone causes AT&T's network to burst at the seams. But that's not because iPhone has a "technical flaws", quite the opposite. The iPhone is the first phone that is actually actively used for those net-features operators have advertized for years. It's the first phone people use to actively surf the web.

The problem is not caused by "technical problems" in iPhone, it's caused by the fact that AT&T's network is unable to handle all those people actually USING their iPhones for web-browsing and the like.

Remember: web-connected phones were advertised as the future of cell-phone-service and cell-phones in general. Well, future is here, today, and AT&T is failing to keep up.

Technical flaw my ass.

[iPhoneNYC]

ATT is just pathetic. With carriers around the globe why is it only ATT who complains? One suspects that upper management is last in brain cell use just like the company ranks in customer satisfaction. The sooner ATT has some Verizon competition with the iPhone the better it will be for all users.

[starflyer]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

A possible answer to Gruber's question: maybe it's because AT&T has a much higher percentage of iPhone users? This explanation would be consistent with the observation that AT&T 3G service tend to be poor in New York and San Francisco, where everyone and their moms seem to have iPhones

That is Gruber's point. It's not faulty hardware as the article suggests, it's the network.

[nefan65]

I hope the iPhone DOES go to Verizon. Then when Verizon starts having issues, people can start spouting off how terrible Verizon is...lol. Verizon already sucks in my area, so I could care less...

Oh, and don't know if anyone saw this: [http://mobile.engadget.com/2009/12/13/verizon-down-in-midwest-and-california/]

LOL...Pretty funny...Ironic. Do they have a map for that? LMAO.

[NoExpectations]

Verizon is slower, does not offer concurrent voice and data (anyone who says that this is not really a useful feature clearly does not use the iPhone the way it was meant to be....and is probably a Verizon employee trying to defend their company), costs more, and is a control freak.

No thanks.

[NoExpectations]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)



That is Gruber's point. It's not faulty hardware as the article suggests, it's the network.

The why aren't all the Blackberry, Nokia, and Palm users as irate as the iPhone users?

[speedriff]

If AT&T spent it's profits from the massive iPhone sales on infrastructure instead of B.S. advertising campaigns they wouldn't have a problem. It is so typical of todays corporate mindset. We have a problem and we don't want to spend the money to fix it as it may affect our bonuses. Solution: A nationwide advertising campaign that tells everyone we have the least amount of dropped calls (*********) and the best 3g coverage. Hey if we say it enough, a lot of people will believe it. Sadly, it seems to work. People however, are starting to wake up to this nonsense and the sooner the better..
I tried AT&T again last May and the service was HORRIBLE. I cancelled and they actually triple billed me. I disputed the charges even circling the calls on the bill where they had tripled charged me. They still refused to take it off. They sent bill collectors after me even while my bill was being disputed. I had to use my attorney to threaten them for billing fraud to get them off my back. All of a sudden they got apologetic and removed all charges. No thanks, I will NEVER do business with them again. They have terrible service and they are corrupt thieves. If I was someone who didn't have the luxury of an attorney I would have had my credit ruined by these incompetent idiots.

[Evangelion]

The why aren't all the Blackberry, Nokia, and Palm users as irate as the iPhone users?

Because

a) maybe they are on other networks

b) maybe they don't use their phones as much as iPhone-users do

c) maybe they, like PC-users, are more willing to accept crappy user-experience

[MavsX]

AT&T can't keep up with the saturation of data from iPhone users.

If exclusivity were with Verizon, the same issue would be occurring, and might even be worse.

exactly. no one seems to grasp this. If Verizon had the iPhone, people would be bashing their network for the last 2 years..and at&t would be looking like the network that everyone wanted

[Maury]

This claim is obviously bogus.

For one thing, the iPhone works fine on all three major networks here in Canada. When I sat "fine" I really mean "almost constant 4-bar or better 3G connections".

Furthermore, the "air interface" Apple uses is whoever's chipset they have in the box. The same one that's used by other cell phones that don't have problems either.

I'm always amazed that these analyst's are so completely ignorant of basic technology. After all, they're presenting themselves as experts and millions of dollars are being traded on their say-so.

Maury

[iriejedi]

iPhones for all wireless providers - spread the burden around - then let service be driven by competition - and not neglected because we have the coolest phone no need to invest in infrastructure attitude of ATT


AT&T can't keep up with the saturation of data from iPhone users.

If exclusivity were with Verizon, the same issue would be occurring, and might even be worse.

[MavsX]

The why aren't all the Blackberry, Nokia, and Palm users as irate as the iPhone users?

i've read that the blackberrys data that is sent/received gets compressed, where as the iPhone's isn't. I remember reading that for every 1 iPhone, that would be the same has having 20 blackberrys...so that could contribute to the iPhone sucking up all the bandwidth, and why people complain about at&t.

i have an iPhone, and i dont think its that bad. my voice quality is good, the browsing the web is decent. I mean 3G really isn't that fast. It doesn't matter whether its at&t or verizon, 3G is slow at best. Its like dial up. So yeah....

[Sabenth]

Yoget pots and string spring to mind. iPhone is sold all over the globe and yet all we hear is the American network at&t cant handle the network stress. Use tin foil might work better .

[Bubba Satori]

Unpossible !

[guzhogi]

A possible answer to Gruber's question: maybe it's because AT&T has a much higher percentage of iPhone users? This explanation would be consistent with the observation that AT&T 3G service tend to be poor in New York and San Francisco, where everyone and their moms seem to have iPhones

Personally, I think it's both AT&T & the iPhone's fault. Compared to other countries, AT&T's service is fairly poor. I heard that in Australia, you can get a 50 Mbps fiber connection throughout the whole country/continent. Can AT&T say the same? That's one of the many problems of America: they been so far ahead of everybody else in technology, they've been resting on its laurels for too long while everyone else has been improving infrastructure, making it even better than America's.

As for the iPhone, remember the US got the iPhone so it probably has the largest share. Plus, in areas like New York & San Francisco where the population & density is pretty high, I don't care how good the infrastructure is, that's a lot of demand.

[*LTD*]

That's enough baloney to make a sandwich.

I guess I get great reception and performance on the Rogers network . . . because something's really wrong with the iPhone hardware. LOL.

[fuzzy76]

Sadly, this is true.

I know for a fact (got told by a guy that worked there) that the largest norwegian network owner (Telenor) became aware of the problem as soon as imported iPhones (first gen) started appearing in their network, but luckily they were too few to cause serious problems.

They frantically upgraded ALL their base stations before the iPhone 3G launch in Norway in order to handle all the garbage and bogus packets. That's why the network feels fine now, but if they hadn't done the upgrade, the entire network would've suffered when the number of iPhones in the network increased.

So I guess the severity of this problem would depend on who manufactured the base stations and how the actual firmware deals with bad traffic.

[aeaglex07]

It's AT&T's fault. Its their network LOL. They sell the iphone and the access to their network. They need to fix their network, its not like they didnt know the iPhone was gonna hog bandwidth. their data pricing clarifies this LOL... either way they werent prepared which says a lot about their business practices.

[tkatz]

I live up in Westchest (about 45 mins north of NYC) and work in the city.

When the iPhone was just a rumor, I had a BlackJack on AT&T. The phone was a piece of junk but supported 3G and tethering. Up in Westchester I would get lousy signal, but when I did, I had excellent 3G data service (granted IE on it sucked but tethered use was fine). While traveling down to the city, service would start to drop off as I passed south of White Plains. I could be in my office in mid-town and have full bars of 3G but unable to pull up a page even using the phones IE browser, let alone trying to do anything while tethered.

Having used the iPhone since the original model came out, its just been more of the same. I get 1-3 bars at home and really good 3G (I haven't done speeds tests but the network is very responsive) whereas in my office I'll have a full bars of 3G and most of the time unable to pull up a single page.

I suspect as more people are using their phones they're just finding these issues. They've always been there. Sure they're probably getting worse as there are more people "using" their devices but, the problem has been there.

Funny enough, everyone up where I live always touted how great Verizon was compared to AT&T until a few months ago. Where I live, Verizon drops calls constantly, and while AT&T isn't "great" it works, doesn't drop as often, and gets good data rates even with weak 3G signal.

[ctt1wbw]

Verizon is slower, does not offer concurrent voice and data (anyone who says that this is not really a useful feature clearly does not use the iPhone the way it was meant to be....and is probably a Verizon employee trying to defend their company), costs more, and is a control freak.

No thanks.

Exactly. When you can look something up on Safari or send a text or something while still talking on the phone, that's a great way to get business done. In my line of work, I get service calls via text message and I'm always doing this.

[Maury]

When the iPhone came out it was supposed to change the cell phone industry forever,

It did, obviously.

"Feature phones" that used to sell for hundreds of dollars, like the RAZR, are now given away free because no one will pay money for anything other than an iPhone. My daughter's free phone was a model that used to be $199 before Telus got the iPhone two months ago.

As a result, all of the major handset makers are on the ropes as they slit their throats trying to lower prices in a race to the bottom. Sony-Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia are all handing out one bad report after another, and all freely point to Apple as the cause of their problems. Some of these reports basically suggest they have no idea how to compete, and the companies are just going to go after the low end instead. Good luck with that.

Meanwhile Apple sits pretty at the exact same price point they started at, in spite of component costs falling so their margins are widening out. It's hardly surprising they account for something like half of all the profit in the entire industry. There have been a few attempts to break their stranglehold, like the Pre, but they turned out to be exactly what everyone expected: pale imitations of the overall experience (which includes iTunes, et all).

Moreover, the AppStore has utterly changed the software world, forever. Apple sells more applications than music (just stop and think about that for a moment). Other companies attempted to break in here too, but their attempts have been utterly pathetic so far (go to the RIM version some time). And I'm not talking about the "mobile software" world, I mean everything. When Apple does an AppStore for the AppleTV...

So while the former "big three" are going bankrupt, and RIM and Android are copying last year's earth-shattering market change, Apple is busy working on the next thing they're going to turn upside down. We've seen this before: when the iPod was introduced everyone dismissed it, but then when it went vertical everyone got desperate and started cloning it. But it was too late, Apple was already moving onto the next product, and no one ever caught up. I'd argue the Zune is a better music player than the iPod, but who cares? That's SOOO 2000-and-late.

Really, if you don't think the iPhone changed everything, I don't think you're really looking very carefully. Seriously, the entire industry is upside down.

Maury

[diamond.g]

Exactly. When you can look something up on Safari or send a text or something while still talking on the phone, that's a great way to get business done. In my line of work, I get service calls via text message and I'm always doing this.

I love that my phone calls don't go straight to voicemail. But it still stinks when I visit the outer banks and can only get EDGE...

[Maury]

Spoken like a true Apple fanboi. Lets be real. I have never once wanted to check my phone while in a call.

That's right, Apple is completely clueless and spent millions of dollars on this ad because they have no idea what they're talking about.

We all know how poor Apple's ads are. After all, they went from almost bankrupt to 10th largest company in the world in the last 6 years, so clearly they don't know what they're doing.

Maury

[TraceyS/FL]

I live up in Westchest (about 45 mins north of NYC) and work in the city.

When the iPhone was just a rumor, I had a BlackJack on AT&T. The phone was a piece of junk but supported 3G and tethering. Up in Westchester I would get lousy signal, but when I did, I had excellent 3G data service (granted IE on it sucked but tethered use was fine). While traveling down to the city, service would start to drop off as I passed south of White Plains. I could be in my office in mid-town and have full bars of 3G but unable to pull up a page even using the phones IE browser, let alone trying to do anything while tethered.

Having used the iPhone since the original model came out, its just been more of the same. I get 1-3 bars at home and really good 3G (I haven't done speeds tests but the network is very responsive) whereas in my office I'll have a full bars of 3G and most of the time unable to pull up a single page.

That is what i thought i'd heard/read - that AT&T coverage in NYC & SF wasn't that hot BEFORE the iPhone. So how can that be blamed on the iPhone?

Please take notice that i am a Verizon user in FL. It doesn't impact me - but while the iPhone might have some issues, i'm not thinking the 30% call drop rate in NYC can be related to JUST the iPhone usage.

Dunno..... having an alternate carrier can't HURT at all, and here is hoping there is one sooner than later.

ETA: And, in the 3 years i've had a smart phone - there has probably only been ONE TIME i have wanted to check something online while on a call. And I don't work for Verizon either it's a non-issue for me. Maybe it would be an issue if i could do it, but i can't now, so no biggie.

[apolloa]

Sorry AT&T users I would also blame your crappy network. In the UK on O2 I would have to say voice performance is the strongest part of the wireless signal.
I'm currently sat in a car dealers boared waiting for my car to have a check up and I have full signal and 3G.

[Maury]

Verizon is slower, does not offer concurrent voice and data (anyone who says that this is not really a useful feature clearly does not use the iPhone the way it was meant to be..

Yeah, I love the fact that the same people who claim the iPhone is useless because it doesn't multitask are the ones that are claiming voice-n-data isn't important. The irony could flatten my shirts.

Back in my university days I would haunt the FidoNet debating creationists. The argument always took this form: "Evolution can't explain X; Yes it can, here's a detailed reason why; [That reason is then ignored, as if it was never brought up] Evolution can't explain Y" Repeat.

The arguments against the iPhone have exactly the same pattern. It starts with the claim that the phone is useless and Apple are clueless because it's missing some feature X. The fact that you don't actually want that feature is ignored, EVERYONE uses it! Then they add that feature and suddenly everyone just forgets that they were arguing about it in the first place.

Case and point: MMS. The iPhone is useless because it doesn't have this MMS. Everyone else has had it for years, Apple is a bunch of clueless noobs who don't know what they're doing.

The fact that you could do the equivalent of MMS, and more, using e-mail was derided as fanboi posturing. The fact that most carriers charged an arm and a leg for MMS messages (mine charged $5 a picture - I'm not kidding) and no one used it as a result was also derided.

And then Apple added MMS. Suddenly the haters just stopped talking about it, as if they had never brought it up.

... Apple is clueless and the iPhone is useless because it doesn't multitask...

This pattern will continue, ad nausium. In the meantime Apple will continue selling more phones and being the only driver of innovation since RIM's original BB over a decade ago.

Maury

[phillipduran]

That doesn't excuse AT&T or put any blame on Apple or the iPhone. We AT&T users want to use the iPhone to its full capability and often times AT&T is the bottleneck. The finger gets pointed at AT&T because they are holding things up. This is as it should be.

I think more carriers need to have the iPhone so we can have some network usage distribution.

Now that other carriers under$tand how good the phone i$ for them, I don't them meeting Apple$ needs are going to be a problem $hould they adopt the iPhone.

[eastcoastsurfer]

"AT&T, more dropped calls in more places"

I have full 5 bars and drop nearly every call now. Any conversation that lasts more than 15 minutes is almost guaranteed to be dropped.

I may take my iPhone in and ask for a new one. I was at the apple store the other day getting a new battery (one I had start the exploding thing) and I watched 3 different people come in and complain about iPhone service and get a new phone on the spot.

[Rot'nApple]

Isn't that funny?

When the iPhone came out it was supposed to change the cell phone industry forever, but it's really just more of the same. A device that remains locked down to a single carrier's network in such a way you question if actually bought it or not, and focuses so much on it's multimedia functionality that it's dismal at the task on making and receiving voice calls -- the very reason it's named a cell phone.

Sounds like every other "phone" made in the last five to ten years. The difference is the iPhone actually does some of those non-phone functions well.

You want quality voice phone calls with a up time of 99.9% and no dropped calls... it's called a Landline! :rolleyes:

"The Verizon landline network, which nationally processes more than 1 billion calls a day, with 99.9 percent reliability, is self-powered, with backup power in place, so customers can still make phone calls on a corded phone during a power outage..."


http://newscenter.verizon.com/press-releases/verizon/2008/verizon-landline-network.html

[arkmannj]

AT&T knew this would happen as the phone grew, you can't tell me they didn't project the aprox. amount of data usage, and all that the phone could do...

AT&T wanted the exclusive they need to stop whining about it, and stop making threats about capping data usage, etc. and just get their freaking network up to snuff. besides the iPhone is just the tip of an iceberg, a lot of other phones now have data usage capabilities now, and there sure won't be less of them coming down the pipeline in the coming years. iPhone is just forcing them to get their network ready for when that happens.

[RaZaK]

apparently some "independent researcher" is not happy about iPhone exclusivity going away some time soon (hopefully in time for the next iPhone launch :D )

lol

[kdarling]

I think more carriers need to have the iPhone so we can have some network usage distribution.

We see this comment a lot. But...

I'm not convinced that adding more USA iPhone carriers (verizon, tmobile, sprint) would cause any significant distribution of the load away from ATT.

I think it'd simply add more load to the new carriers.

Sure, a million people might switch away from ATT, but mostly we'd see many more million new iPhone owners who never left the other carriers in the first place.

[*LTD*]

The point is that your beast has serious technical flaws which causes problems for entire network.

Except for some reason those "technical flaws" don't exist in Canada.

[sjo]

Aren’t there some 30-35M iPhones out there as of the end of Apple’s 2009 fiscal year? And a little over half are from the US that makes for at least 15M? If so, when compared to AT&T’s 82.5M subs as of November 2009 that is 18% of AT&T’s market. I think I’m lowballing the numbers so they could be much higher.

you forgot that millions of the phones sold in the us were exported. mostly into china, but also to russia and india. that's why the official iphone sales have been lacking in those countries (you can read all about this in other discussion about the articles concerning iphone sales in eg china).

also several iphone users have updated their phone at least once, many a couple of times. so the number of iphones in active use in the us might be as little as 4-5m, less than 5% of att users.

[Carniphage]

What is a dropped call?

C.

[*LTD*]

What is a dropped call?

C.

I assume it's like dropping your phone or having it fall off a table?

I'm just guessing here . . .

[KnightWRX]

It did, obviously.

"Feature phones" that used to sell for hundreds of dollars, like the RAZR, are now given away free because no one will pay money for anything other than an iPhone. My daughter's free phone was a model that used to be $199 before Telus got the iPhone two months ago.

The RAZR is what now ? 4 years old ? 5 ? Heck, I bought my GF a KRZR like 2 years ago for 50$ new from a carrier. That should show you how much BS you're spouting.

Blackberries are still anywhere from 200$ to 500$ with a 3 year contract everywhere, same as the iPhone. Same for other high end Windows Mobile or even dumbphones.

Of course some phones are free and featureful, they are last years and the year before that models.

As a result, all of the major handset makers are on the ropes as they slit their throats trying to lower prices in a race to the bottom. Sony-Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia are all handing out one bad report after another, and all freely point to Apple as the cause of their problems. Some of these reports basically suggest they have no idea how to compete, and the companies are just going to go after the low end instead. Good luck with that.


Uh, not following the market are you ? Motorola just released the Droid, which Verizon is happy to sell for 199$ with a 2 year contract.

Nokia just released the N900, which they sell for a whopping 599$ without contract (no carrier subsidy yet, since it uses T-mobile frequencies, and Wind Mobile/Videotron in Canada which has yet to launch).

And Sony Ericsson just announced their Android offering, the Xperia X10 (a continuation of the Xperia family that used Windows Mobile). The phone is way higher end than the iPhone 3GS, using a Snapdragon 1 GHZ chip, 8 MP camera with led "flash" and Droid like higher resolution screen. The phone is also expected to sell for a higher price than the iPhone after subsidy, since it's retail price has been fixed to about 750$.

Low-end right ? Stop being ignorant and spouting BS. The iPhone isn't the end all be all of Smartphones. It's 3rd in market share, behind NOKIA and RIM. You know, the same Nokia you just said didn't know how to compete and the same RIM that was behind the iPhone in market share last year (yes, they caught up and passed the iPhone in sales this year).

The iPhone is a great phone and all, but it's not the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's just another phone on the market.

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

As far as the article is concerned, it's a load of crap. Even when Rogers had the exclusivity of the iPhone, their network didn't crap out (I'm a rogers subscriber). They even offered MMS and Tethering when it became available, and the Tethering was included in your data plan (so no extra cost). So much for the argument that AT&T isn't to blame here.

[Carniphage]

I just found an old article about Apple's plans to create a smart MVNO.

The handset would be able to pick from several carriers. This would happen at dial time. The phone would pick the best carrier to handle a call.

You pay Apple for your calls and data - and Apple would have agreements with multiple carriers. Perhaps paying by the minute or the megabyte.

Imagine a world where carriers competed amongst themselves to take your call, instead of just competing by trying to retain customers with contracts and bad service and exclusivity deals.

The current contract model means there is really no financial incentive to resolve over-taxed networks. The carrier get your money whether the call is dropped or not. That is the downside of "unlimited".

But if every call were negotiated on the fly. Then there would be a strong financial incentive for all networks to upgrade those cells which were under performing.

I doubt whether such a scheme would be allowed to happen. It's just too sensible!

C.

[aucl]

I'm just not buying this... iPhone passed qualification by all the necessary testing agencies, and AT&T undoubtedly tested it before it shipped. If it were such a threat, AT&T shouldn't have let it on their network.

my thoughts too

[bdkennedy1]

They didn't finish the story. iPhone may be responsible for AT&T's network failures only because AT&T's network sucks in the first place.

AT&T's arrogance allowed them to rest on their laurels. Their network was never prepared to handle the iPhone's demand.

[kingtj]

It doesn't explain why so many VOICE calls get dropped or have issues. My big issue with AT&T is with huge amounts of dropped calls. For a LONG time, my iPhone would often report "No Service" and not function at all, for random periods of 5-15 minutes in length, throughout the day, while I was at my workplace. They *finally* did something with the tower in this area and addressed that problem satisfactorily. But it took about 3 years of complaints.



AT&T can't keep up with the saturation of data from iPhone users.

If exclusivity were with Verizon, the same issue would be occurring, and might even be worse.

[PeterQVenkman]

Wouldn't that suck for AT&T- to have a network that's fine, but the number one phone that can't call?

I'll stick with my iPod touch. ;)

[Rocketman]

And the iPhone itself may not be so great after all. Its design is contributing to performance problems.

Roger Entner, senior vice president for telecommunications research at Nielsen, said the iPhone’s “air interface,” the electronics in the phone that connect it to the cell towers, had shortcomings that “affect both voice and data.” He said that in the eyes of the consumer, “the iPhone has the nimbus of infallibility, ergo, it’s AT&T’s fault.” AT&T does not publicly defend itself because it will not criticize Apple under any circumstances, he said.

It appears there is a firmware/hardware issue with Apple's cell interface that needs a serious upgrade and optimization. If Apple were to both fix it substantially, and let it slip the newest handsets are "200% better", there might be a wave of upgrades and they can send all the older handsets to China. :D

Rocketman

cites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Um_Interface

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Mobile_Telecommunications_System

http://www.tiaonline.org/news_events/press_room/press_releases/2009/PR-511_TIA_Issues_New_Standards_for_UMB_TDD_Air_Interface.cfm

and lean forward . . .

http://www.freshwap.net/finder/LTE+for+4G+Mobile+Broadband:+Air+Interface+Technologies+and+Performance.html

[alent1234]

I just found an old article about Apple's plans to create a smart MVNO.

The handset would be able to pick from several carriers. This would happen at dial time. The phone would pick the best carrier to handle a call.

You pay Apple for your calls and data - and Apple would have agreements with multiple carriers. Perhaps paying by the minute or the megabyte.

Imagine a world where carriers competed amongst themselves to take your call, instead of just competing by trying to retain customers with contracts and bad service and exclusivity deals.

The current contract model means there is really no financial incentive to resolve over-taxed networks. The carrier get your money whether the call is dropped or not. That is the downside of "unlimited".

But if every call were negotiated on the fly. Then there would be a strong financial incentive for all networks to upgrade those cells which were under performing.

I doubt whether such a scheme would be allowed to happen. It's just too sensible!

C.

and how long did it take Apple to drop the price of the original iphone? until we get a very cheap smartphone you can buy without a contract for $100, the current contract model will rule

[alent1234]

It appears there is a firmware/hardware issue with Apple's cell interface that needs a serious upgrade and optimization. If Apple were to both fix it substantially, and let it slip the newest handsets are "200% better", there might be a wave of upgrades and they can send all the older handsets to China. :D

Rocketman

cites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Um_Interface

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Mobile_Telecommunications_System

http://www.tiaonline.org/news_events/press_room/press_releases/2009/PR-511_TIA_Issues_New_Standards_for_UMB_TDD_Air_Interface.cfm

and lean forward . . .

http://www.freshwap.net/finder/LTE+for+4G+Mobile+Broadband:+Air+Interface+Technologies+and+Performance.html

supposedly it's the infeneon chips that are the problem

[jclardy]

The point is that your beast has serious technical flaws which causes problems for entire network.

I think the problem is people actually use their iPhones way more during the course of the day than other smartphones. I had an HTC touch that I would pull out if I absolutely HAD to look something up, but I pull out my iPhone randomly to check weather, twitter, facebook, email, websites, anything. On my HTC Touch I would use email because opening any web browser was slow and typing an address was even slower.

Now iPhone comes along and makes web browsing easy for non-technical users and more people use it. Go figure.

[Mattie Num Nums]

It doesn't explain why so many VOICE calls get dropped or have issues. My big issue with AT&T is with huge amounts of dropped calls. For a LONG time, my iPhone would often report "No Service" and not function at all, for random periods of 5-15 minutes in length, throughout the day, while I was at my workplace. They *finally* did something with the tower in this area and addressed that problem satisfactorily. But it took about 3 years of complaints.

I have an iPhone for my personal use and a BB for work. Both on ATT. I have noticed my BB gets full signal here at work and is perfect but my iPhone suffers horribly. I said a while ago in one of these the iPhone is God posts that I think the iPhone has a technical flaw. Im not saying ATT is perfect because they are far from it but this might actually make some sense.

[diamond.g]

It doesn't explain why so many VOICE calls get dropped or have issues. My big issue with AT&T is with huge amounts of dropped calls. For a LONG time, my iPhone would often report "No Service" and not function at all, for random periods of 5-15 minutes in length, throughout the day, while I was at my workplace. They *finally* did something with the tower in this area and addressed that problem satisfactorily. But it took about 3 years of complaints.

Because voice and data share a connection. Overload one and the other suffers. Verizon wouldn't suffer from the same problem as the voice and data are separate.

[SeattleMoose]

LOL!!!!! "who cut the cheese?" :p

Wow, what a lame excuse.

Hopefully in 2010 Apple will get a divorce from that decrepit dinosaur company and make the iPhone available with other service providers.

Until then, AT&T doesn't get a dime of my money.

Until then....I bide my time.

[Becordial]

I dont even live in the US, and yet I think AT&T are being beyond lame. They have no-one to blame but themselves for failing to invest in their network.

No phone manufacturer can be held responsible for their lack of foresight.

Sure, data use probably was hard to estimate a few years back, but it's not that hard to scale up quickly as many other countries have retrofitted fast, high capacity mobile networks over a period of 12-18 months, and seem to elicit less complaints than generated by AT&T.

[Rocketman]

supposedly it's the infeneon chips that are the problem

Back in the day in 2007 the competitive handset manufacturers were saying (to deaf ears) that Apple was unlikely to get it right as to efficiency of network interface because it is a black art it has taken them years to evolve. It turns out not only were they right (while losing market share and industry profits), this non-optimization also made a bad situation worse on the AT&T network. AT&T leaned forward to the tune of $20B/year or more on network rollouts, so they did a pretty good job of staying ahead of the network usage despite all faults.

You have to go with what you got and by being a team, Apple and AT&T did an above average job of covering each other's a$$ on device and network limitations while rolling out the largest and fastest data device uptake ever undertaken.

Hey guys, please do some optimizations on the device side and roll out LTE sooner not later in population centers and travel routes, then when you get a DEVICE that is a substantial improvement, and compatible with forward leaning networks as well, publicize it, so we can all switch over and make you guys a fortune. We're willing.

Rocketman

One more thing:

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?threadid=105144

"The iPhone currently utilizes an Infineon chipset for its GSM and 3G networking. Palm uses chips from Marvell, while RIM contracts with Freescale."

It appears the PowerPC type guys they are using with the ARM team might use Freescale style code to make their own network interface someday.

[christian_k]

It doesn't explain why so many VOICE calls get dropped or have issues. My big issue with AT&T is with huge amounts of dropped calls.

Possibly it does. Unlike in more traditional systems like GSM cell towers do not have a fixed area they cover.When there is much traffic in a cell, the noise level will increase in UMTS and any other CDMA based system. Oviously an increased distance from the tower will make your signal weaker.

So with increased distance and growing load in the cell the "signal to noise ratio" will get worse. Under such conditions the devices in the cell that have the worst SNR (because of distance, obstacles or bad receivers) will "suddenly" loose connection because they cannot decode the signal any more.

The cell is said to "breath" because the covered area of a tower increases and decreases depending on the load.

Christian

[christian_k]

It doesn't explain why so many VOICE calls get dropped or have issues. My big issue with AT&T is with huge amounts of dropped calls.

Possibly it does. Unlike in more traditional systems like GSM cell towers do not have a fixed area they cover.When there is much traffic in a cell, the noise level will increase in UMTS and any other CDMA based system.

So with growing load in the cell the "signal to noise ratio" will get worse. This happens when huge transfers are started or when active users move into the area of that tower. Under such conditions the devices in the cell that have the worst SNR (weak signal because of distance, obstacles or bad receivers) will "suddenly" loose connection because they cannot decode the signal any more.

The cell is said to "breath" because the covered area of a tower increases and decreases depending on the load and there are often cycles based on daytime and so on.

Christian

[schwell]

AT&T is responsible for AT&T's network failures.

Hey Apple....it's time to move on to a provider that's competent........

Edit: make that MULTIPLE providers.

If only such an animal existed. :)

[aristotle]

So the basic gist I get from this thread is that people in heavily populated areas tend to have band cellular reception from over subscription of cell towers and that areas with a high density of smart phones with webkit browsers and "unlimited" data tend to be the worst off. Areas like New York, San Francisco and London, England seem to be the worst.

You can have full bars and still not be able to make a phone call. Recently, I have experienced dropped calls and not being able to dial calls some times here in Canada on the Fido network on the 3G. It tends to be worst on the weekends when there is unlimited local calling and it seems like everyone is getting an iPhone these days.

I have had to switch off 3G on several occasions to call the cab from my apartment.

Even though data and voice are on separate channels for UTMS/HSPA, a cell tower can still become oversubscribed by a combination of data and voice users. That is something that people often do not stop to consider. The government did not pay for and does not maintain the cell towers. They may have paid for the internet backbone but what you are paying for are the maintenance and setup of cell towers and those have a finite capacity.

Here is what I think AT&T needs to do to fix their network:
1. Find and ban all IMEIs of iPhone running 2.x firmware as that version has bugs in it and users have no excuse not to upgrade.
2. Find and ban all IMEIs of all jailbroken iPhones as they may be running the hack to allow video streaming slingbox over 3G.
3. Offer to officially unlock and unban all IMEIs of iPhones that were banned because of jailbreaking with the understanding that they will be permanently banned if they jailbreak again.
4. Offer unbanning and a forced upgrade to 3.1.2 of all iPhone that were banned for not upgrading.
5. Get rid of unlimited data and institute a 5GB cap at 30 bucks and lower caps for less money.
6. Offer a 10 GB cap for more than 30 bucks but put an limit on number of customers allowed to subscribe to it by geographical area.

*Edit*
Listen to Christian, he is right. CDMA 2000 networks would have the same problems as UTMS (3G) networks have with so many iPhones on the network at once. Verizon is ok right now because their subscriber base is more spread out and they have less smart phones on their network of the same calibre as the iPhone.

[JGowan]

The best article on this subject is Fake Steve Jobs (http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/12/a-not-so-brief-chat-with-randall-stephenson-of-att.html#more-15494) posted on 12-11-09. Truly one of the best that Daniel Lyons ever scribed (typed, penned, noodled, whatever) -- awesome.

Randall, baby. we’ve got a hit on our hands. We’ve got the smartphone equivalent of Meet the Beatles. It’s not like that album was the first rock album ever. It’s not like nobody ever made a band with some guitars and drums before. But it was radical. It was new. They took old forms and made them new. Same with us. We didn’t invent the smartphone or the PDA or the music player or the Web browser. We just made them better. We made them new. We changed the ****** world, Randall.Again -- Fake Steve is rocking the blog with this one! Check it out if you haven't!

[mingoglia]

I can't say much for the current iphones on ATT as I haven't had one in awhile. Back when I had an original iPhone the phone had terrible reception compared to other phones on the ATT network. Even my replacement had poor reception. I then moved back to Blackberry. I've been an ATT customer for 17 years straight and have had dozens of phones. I'm also a Verizon customer but only for the 3 wireless cards I have for business related laptops. I went Verizon because the equipment offered for the wireless appealed to me more.

With that being said, at least here in Phoenix, I rate my experience probably 8/10 with regards to ATT service with my Blackberry Bold. In fact the speaker phone on my Bold is superior to my office phone and will end up using it during conference calls and never worry about a dropped call. I had a 2.5 hour training on Friday where I was on the Bold during a training. I rarely drop calls with an exception for my business partner's house. His house is brick and even my Verizon card only has 1 bar in it...

I travel to England once or twice a year and yes, the service is and always has been superior to our own. I have family from over there that visits at least once or twice a year and they always complain about our service when they come over. :) You have to realize though they have a lot less land area to cover when newer technologies come out....and therefore far less infrastructure to roll out.

In closing, I know the iPhone *used to* have poorer reception than my other phones. I've heard though this is not the case anymore so take that for what it's worth... I do however see how there's certainly a possibility that having such a high percent of iPhone users on the network could cause some issues since the typical iPhone user uses much more bandwidth than the user of a different phone. That's ATT's fault for not keeping up with infrastructure but if that's the case and you move all the iPhone's over to Verizon it's possible that Verizon could certainly experience the same issues...

[jamespa66]

The best article on this subject is Fake Steve Jobs (http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/12/a-not-so-brief-chat-with-randall-stephenson-of-att.html#more-15494) posted on 12-11-09. Truly one of the best that Daniel Lyons ever scribed (typed, penned, noodled, whatever) -- awesome.

Again -- Fake Steve is rocking the blog with this one! Check it out if you haven't!

Fully agree, fantastic article.

[Maserati7200]

Anyone who says that this is anyone's fault other than AT&T, is most likely a drone that is only taught that AT&T is flawless and that everything they do is right. As others said, other non-US networks handle the iPhone just fine without hiccups, with plenty of users using them. And considering that Verizon actually invests in its own network, is highly reliable, and that other smaller non-US networks can handle the iPhone, Verizon would not have the same problems AT&T is having, if at all.

[Carniphage]

...its the cellphone business model that is to blame.

Contract customers pay a fixed rate for data (and a fixed rate for a package of voice calls). AT&T get this money, month on month, regardless of whether the voice call drops - or whether the data connection fails.

It's not possible for customers to leave AT&T and take their iPhones to other carriers.

This broken anti-competitive model means there is absolutely no financial incentive for AT&T to fix their network. The less they spend on upgrading the network, the more profitable they are.

If this were a real market - customers could make a choice to place their call with the cheapest network - or the most reliable network - or the fastest network on a call-by-call basis. The money would follow the calls.

In such an open market, the carriers would be incentivised to improve their products. They would compete for the calls. They would be motivated to upgrade their networks to meet the demand.

The current unsatisfactory state of affairs is the inevitable conclusion of a locked-in, locked down, minimum contract pseudo market.

I would argue that it works against the interests of the consumer and it needs fixing.

C.

[scroto]

Alot of people in denial, the Iphone's not perfect.

[*LTD*]

Alot of people in denial, the Iphone's not perfect.

It's about as close as you damn well can get. And it keeps getting better.

When the complaints don't carry over to iPhone users in the rest of the world, there's a problem with the carrier doing the crying.


The best article on this subject is Fake Steve Jobs (http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/12/a-not-so-brief-chat-with-randall-stephenson-of-att.html#more-15494) posted on 12-11-09. Truly one of the best that Daniel Lyons ever scribed (typed, penned, noodled, whatever) -- awesome.

Again -- Fake Steve is rocking the blog with this one! Check it out if you haven't!

Gotta love Fake Steve!

[iZac]

I assume it's like dropping your phone or having it fall off a table?

I'm just guessing here . . .

Dropped...

Into the loo...

While you're having a Gypsy's kiss.

[jbernie]

I would be curious to see a full break down of the # of iPhones each provider has (w/breakdown by model 2g vs 3g) the % of total phones on their network which are iPhones, and the saturation in the areas where the biggets problems are.

Given the iPhone is biggest in the US, and NYC & SF would be the cities on top of the list for the most iPhones, I wouldn't expect to be shocked by the numbers or the fact that they are having the most issues.

I also wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of iPhone users being Consumer Reports subscribers, I just don't see pay as you go or very basic cell phone users making up the majority of the subscribers to CR.

Also something to factor in, is there a breakdown of the numbers of CR subscribers who are AT&T subscribers & then iPhone users in SF or NYC, vs break down of numbers for other networks and phone types.

Without a full understanding of the sampling it is hard to full understand the validity of the numbers. Maybe the iPhones users are just the biggest whingers, maybe AT&T does have serious issues, maybe Apple hasn't optimized the device and went with form over function.

iPhone owner, 8 year AT&T subscriber, more issues with the device than the service, and then it is the user experience and not hardware failures that annoy me.

[lilo777]

In Australia, all carriers and MNVOs have the iphone. (disclosure, I use an unlocked iphone on virginmobile in the city, and Telstra in the country)

The buildout of the various networks goes
Telstra (best);Optus medium;Vodafone; '3' smallest.. Some of these also have roaming arrangements with the others

(Virgin is an MNVO and subsidiary of Optus, but operates as a separate business but uses the optus network. You can also get iphones through them).

You can also buy outright from Apple unlocked and go with whoever, and even if the iphone is bought on contract, you can pay to get it unlocked, or get it unlocked after a certain time for free.


So, how does the iphone do on various networks?
Optus & Virgin have the best deals, so most people have gone with them.

Result: Optus suffers constant loss of network issues. The network cannot handle the massive increase in data volumes. They have minimised dropped calls however, by prioritising calls over data services. This can be very annoying though when you are accessing data, but a solution I have found is to turn airplane mode on and off. I think this is because for some reason the network thinks you are a new entrant to that tower and lets you on.

Telstra has hands down the best network, but charge like wounded bulls for access. There are no problems whatsoever with this network. it is fast, reliable and never drops a call. But as a company they hate the iphone, as users tend to treat Telstra as a dumb pipe, and Telstra want to sell you a lot of 'value added'

All that said, the likely answer as to whether or not it is AT&T or the iphone to blame for the US problems, based on a network comparison in Australia?

It's the network, stupid!

So you are saying that the more iPhones any particular provider has the more troubles there is but ... this is definitely not an iPhone related problem. It might be a stretch :) Granted, we just do not have data to claim otherwise but your observation clearly does not help to prove that iPhone is without blame in this situation.

[lilo777]

Such as?

Sure, it could be said that iPhone causes AT&T's network to burst at the seams. But that's not because iPhone has a "technical flaws", quite the opposite. The iPhone is the first phone that is actually actively used for those net-features operators have advertized for years. It's the first phone people use to actively surf the web.

The problem is not caused by "technical problems" in iPhone, it's caused by the fact that AT&T's network is unable to handle all those people actually USING their iPhones for web-browsing and the like.

Remember: web-connected phones were advertised as the future of cell-phone-service and cell-phones in general. Well, future is here, today, and AT&T is failing to keep up.

Technical flaw my ass.

Network capacity is a separate issue. The fact that AT&T might have capacity issues does not prove that there is no technical issues (flaws) with iPhone. You did not provide any facts to the contrary either. All we have to go with is the facts stated in the article. So far, I did not hear Apple rejecting these claims either (granted it might be simply too soon for that)

Piece of advice: keep you ass for something more useful.

[lilo777]

ATT is just pathetic. With carriers around the globe why is it only ATT who complains? One suspects that upper management is last in brain cell use just like the company ranks in customer satisfaction. The sooner ATT has some Verizon competition with the iPhone the better it will be for all users.

Did you consider the possibility that AT&T has the highest percentage of iPhones than any other carrier in the World?

[aristobrat]

ATT is just pathetic. With carriers around the globe why is it only ATT who complains?
In part because the other carriers around the globe were finished with their 3G network deployments before they started selling the iPhone.

[raybo]

I can see this argument being valid in certain situations. However why is it that my iphone can only get 1-2 bars of edge when I live 2 miles from a tower? I drive down the street and I get full 3G but not at my front door.


Crappy tower?

[lilo777]

That's enough baloney to make a sandwich.

I guess I get great reception and performance on the Rogers network . . . because something's really wrong with the iPhone hardware. LOL.

Or maybe you are the only Rogers customer with iPhone. The article claims that the nature of the problem is "interference". So it's not like any individual iPhone will have a problem, it's that iPhones interfere with the work of the network. It's when you get enough iPhones in the system that the problem becomes severe.

Again, not really my claim, just helping you read the article.

[aristobrat]

I can see this argument being valid in certain situations. However why is it that my iphone can only get 1-2 bars of edge when I live 2 miles from a tower? I drive down the street and I get full 3G but not at my front door.
Crappy tower?
Right. Just because you live 2 miles from a tower doesn't guarantee that the antennas on the tower are pointed in a way that gives you the coverage that you would assume that you'd get.

[SnapMac]

Why on Earth are we having a debate on who's to blame? If AT&T couldn't handle the surge in network usage, they shouldn't have negotiated exclusivity. Some will argue that they had no idea of the massive increase in usage. If that were true they should have automatically began rolling out the necessary steps to make this a non-issue.

This is like blaming automobile manufacturers for rush hour traffic! Give me a break!

[lilo777]

Except for some reason those "technical flaws" don't exist in Canada.

iPhone flaws do exist in Canada. iPhones? Not so much.

[*LTD*]

Dropped...

Into the loo...

While you're having a Gypsy's kiss.

ROFL. Well done! :D

[*LTD*]

Or maybe you are the only Rogers customer with iPhone. The article claims that the nature of the problem is "interference". So it's not like any individual iPhone will have a problem, it's that iPhones interfere with the work of the network. It's when you get enough iPhones in the system that the problem becomes severe.

Again, not really my claim, just helping you read the article.

Which means it's a network problem.

[KnightWRX]

Or maybe you are the only Rogers customer with iPhone.

You've just lost all credibility with such an idiotic statement. Rogers/Fido had a year and a half of iPhone exclusivity. They were sold out for most of it as the units that came in were barely enough to fill the demand for it.

There are plenty of iPhone users on Rogers.

[RazHyena]

There are lots of iPhones here, too. Only, we consider flashing phones rather vulgar. In the US, I saw so many people flashing their gadgets, that I felt embarrassed for them. I especially 'liked', how many iPhone headsets were attached to much cheaper devices. I also noticed, how many use iPod Touches on the move. When I listen to music, I don't tend to play with the device and use the crap out of Coverflow.

I have a bluetooth headset and a wired headset. I prefer the wired one. The voice clarity is superior and I don't have to charge it all the time. Also, they are more comfortable as there is no extra weight for the transmitter.

My iPod Touch has proved to be pretty much all I really need sans a phone.(No AT&T coverage in my state.) Free wireless can be found everywhere these days.

Protip: Coverflow murders battery life. ;)

[Carniphage]

iPhone flaws do exist in Canada. iPhones? Not so much.

Lilo - I follow this stuff pretty closely - and this is the first time I have heard the "interference" argument.

Which given the age of the iPhone is surprising. If iPhone is a bad team player, then engineers would have discovered it long ago, and Apple would have been very motivated to resolve the issue. It certainly does not help Apple if the iPhone experience is less than good.

This sounds like a rumor generated to deflect criticism away from AT&T.

So we have a "who is telling the truth" question. The best way to resolve it is to produce a named engineer who can demonstrate this interference is a reality. Is there a named source for this rumor?

My view is that AT&T are simply a victim of their own business model. They have no direct financial incentive to upgrade their network to cope with the demands of a device like the iPhone.

They are happy to sign-up contracts, the more the better, - because that generates regular predictable revenue. But where is the benefit in spending the money to upgrade their network to cope with it?

AT&T offer no quality-of-service guarantees, and if customers are not happy, there is absolutely nothing they can do about it!

C.

[lilo777]

You've just lost all credibility with such an idiotic statement. Rogers/Fido had a year and a half of iPhone exclusivity. They were sold out for most of it as the units that came in were barely enough to fill the demand for it.

There are plenty of iPhone users on Rogers.

When you have free time, try to master the concept of sarcasm. My point is that there is no way that Rogers has the same concentration of iPhones as AT&T does in NY and San Francisco. So, why to bring up your experience with Rogers in a first place? AT&T does not have problems with iPhones in many places in US either. For example, so far, nobody from Nebraska complained about AT&T in this thread. So what?

[KnightWRX]

My iPod Touch has proved to be pretty much all I really need sans a phone.(No AT&T coverage in my state.) Free wireless can be found everywhere these days.

Really ? I was in Reston VA/Washington DC last week and about the only free Wifi I could find was at Dulles airport, and only because Google decided to pay Boingo to open it up for the holidays.

You must only hang out in Starbucks or something.

When you have free time, try to master the concept of sarcasm. My point is that there is no way that Rogers has the same concentration of iPhones as AT&T does in NY and San Francisco. So, why to bring up your experience with Rogers in a first place? AT&T does not have problems with iPhones in many places in US either. For example, so far, nobody from Nebraska complained about AT&T in this thread. So what?

So now you're saying the problem is the network, not the phone ? Backtracking much ? This very article is trying to alude the iPhone is the reason for AT&T's woes, because of some hardware flaw. I think most people responding that they haven't had the problems AT&T users face is very much on topic and shows how much this article is a bunch of crap.

So let me ask you this, why not bring up our experience with Rogers ? It is very on-topic.

(and protip : trying to pass your comments as sarcasm after people have responded to them showing you how wrong you are doesn't help your now 0 credibility).

[RazHyena]

When the complaints don't carry over to iPhone users in the rest of the world, there's a problem with the carrier doing the crying.


Quoted for truth.

No, other providers would not accept such crap. AT&T only puts up with it because of exclusivity agreement but this might become a self-defiting strategy if AT&T's reputation gets too damaged. Perhaps hey are starting to worry hence the leaks like this one.

They're not worrying, they're trying to defend their abysmal network with lame excuses. That's pretty freaking obvious at this point.

[iphonetravel]

You seem determined to vociferously defend AT&T by answering every post on this thread with some retort. Why is that, do you work there?

In the UK, the iPhone has not seen such major problems with reception, or we'd be reading about it all over the O2 boards and here, and yet it has sold well, probably especially in cities, so this does seem to be limited to the US and AT&T. The most reasonable conclusion is that AT&T 3G network just can't keep up with the traffic it's seeing. That or there is something specific to the interaction with the network in the US that is to blame.

What planet have you been on?

Personally I am so disappointed with the performance of the phone on the O2 network and I know many colleagues are in a similar boat. Not sure if I can point the blame at the phone or the network yet, but I have to say that the performance here in central London is pretty dismal to say the least.

Perhaps those of you in the regions are less likely to experience issues? :confused:

[RazHyena]

Really ? I was in Reston VA/Washington DC last week and about the only free Wifi I could find was at Dulles airport, and only because Google decided to pay Boingo to open it up for the holidays.

You must only hang out in Starbucks or something.

Starbucks doesn't offer free wifi here. It is paid only. :rolleyes: Most of our local businesses like the malls, restaurants and local coffee houses do. The university also offers free wifi to surrounding businesses.

Your part of town must simply be behind the times? :confused: And I'm not even in a big city.

[lilo777]

Lilo - I follow this stuff pretty closely - and this is the first time I have heard the "interference" argument.

Which given the age of the iPhone is surprising. If iPhone is a bad team player, then engineers would have discovered it long ago, and Apple would have been very motivated to resolve the issue. It certainly does not help Apple if the iPhone experience is less than good.

This sounds like a rumor generated to deflect criticism away from AT&T.

So we have a "who is telling the truth" question. The best way to resolve it is to produce a named engineer who can demonstrate this interference is a reality. Is there a named source for this rumor?

My view is that AT&T are simply a victim of their own business model. They have no direct financial incentive to upgrade their network to cope with the demands of a device like the iPhone.

They are happy to sign-up contracts, the more the better, - because that generates regular predictable revenue. But where is the benefit in spending the money to upgrade their network to cope with it?

AT&T offer no quality-of-service guarantees, and if customers are not happy, there is absolutely nothing they can do about it!

C.

The article actually has an explanation as to why AT&T might have kept (and still is) the information about iPhone flaws under wraps - because they do not want to alienate Apple. This article is not about AT&T's official complaints either.

And yes, if iPhone has interference problems (and we do not really know this yet) it does not mean that AT&T is off the hook with their inadequate infrastructure (although Apple seemingly is defending them - what an irony).

[KnightWRX]

Starbucks doesn't offer free wifi here. It is paid only. :rolleyes: Most of our local businesses like the malls, restaurants and local coffee houses do. The university also offers free wifi to surrounding businesses.

Your part of town must simply be behind the times? :confused: And I'm not even in a big city.

Reston VA is one of the big centers for technology with companies like Microsoft, Oracle, VMWare, Unisys, etc.. all having a big presence. I'd doubt it was "my part of town" (I was there on business).

Most restaurants didn't and I didn't try the starbucks. Same in Washington DC, right near Capitol Hill/Downtown.

[lilo777]

Starbucks doesn't offer free wifi here. It is paid only. :rolleyes: Most of our local businesses like the malls, restaurants and local coffee houses do. The university also offers free wifi to surrounding businesses.

Your part of town must simply be behind the times? :confused: And I'm not even in a big city.

There is a big difference between being a student and ... not being one ;) Me, being a typical American (professional, living in the suburbs), I can get free WiFi maybe once a month when I go to a supermarket (not all of them have one) but then it would be stupid for me to do this would not it? Who goes to the supermarket to use WiFi :)

[entropys]

So you are saying that the more iPhones any particular provider has the more troubles there is but ... this is definitely not an iPhone related problem. It might be a stretch :) Granted, we just do not have data to claim otherwise but your observation clearly does not help to prove that iPhone is without blame in this situation.

You clearly did not understand. I am using the *same* iphone on two Australian networks. On my main service (optus) which is saturated, I often lose data access. On the unsaturated, fully built out network (Telstra) I do not get any issues at all, but fast connections/downloads and never lose a call. I would use them all the time if they were not such price gougers.

Problems on one network (the saturated one), no problems on another (not saturated).

Therefore, my bet is that in the USA it is a network issue, not the iphone hardware.

[eastcoastsurfer]

I'm confused why everyone just doesn't admit that the iPhone is a horrible phone. It's a great small computing device (best ever so far), but it is by far the worst cell phone I've ever owned. I had the original iPhone and now have a 3GS for what it's worth. I'm about to the point of taking out my sim and using it in an old Sony/Ericsson phone I have lying around just so I can make calls and not get dropped.

My iPhone toting friends and I joke around that it's a miracle that we get connected if we try and call one another. Keep in mind this is with full 5 bars of signal. It really is that bad. I was trying to do a conference call the other day, sitting still in my house with 5 full bars and got dropped 4 times in the span of about 20 minutes. After the 3rd or 4th drop I got back on and someone said "you must have an iPhone, we had to get rid of ours because the voice was so bad."

IMHO, Apple cut corners either in the voice transmitter or antenna in order to get the iPhone to look the way they wanted. Most likely to make it as thin as SJ wanted because we all know his obsessiveness with thin.

[palmerc2]

That word....."blame" is a poor choice of words, sounds like a child who is ratting out on the kid down the street.

The iPhone is not the problem, it has provided more money to AT&T them they could've ever imagined......and some editor is "blaming" the iPhone?!? :eek:

That would be like someone giving me a 2 year, all inclusive trip to bora bora and my mom complaining to you that I got a sunburn.

Me = wear sunscreen, and why is my mom here anyway?
AT&T = boost your network capacity, put up more towers, whatever you have to do with ALL that money you got so these editors won't put you down

Get your act together, stop trying to compete with verizon, actually HAVE something to compete with......which may include stopping those commercials of yours which bashes on verizon, and putting your money where your mouth is.

sheeeeeeeesh

[mingoglia]

Anyone who says that this is anyone's fault other than AT&T, is most likely a drone that is only taught that AT&T is flawless and that everything they do is right. As others said, other non-US networks handle the iPhone just fine without hiccups, with plenty of users using them. And considering that Verizon actually invests in its own network, is highly reliable, and that other smaller non-US networks can handle the iPhone, Verizon would not have the same problems AT&T is having, if at all.

You can't compare the vast land mass of this country with other countries. I'll use Great Britain for example since I spend a lot of time there do to my family on my father's side being there. It's 93,278 square miles. The United States is 9,372,614 square miles. So that's 93 thousand, to 9 million. The US is approximately 100 times more land area than GB. I think you have to take this scale into account when you compare networks.

[brendon2020]

they're network has always been ****, but i guess the iphone didn't help :)

[lilo777]

I'm confused why everyone just doesn't admit that the iPhone is a horrible phone. It's a great small computing device (best ever so far), but it is by far the worst cell phone I've ever owned. I had the original iPhone and now have a 3GS for what it's worth. I'm about to the point of taking out my sim and using it in an old Sony/Ericsson phone I have lying around just so I can make calls and not get dropped.

My iPhone toting friends and I joke around that it's a miracle that we get connected if we try and call one another. Keep in mind this is with full 5 bars of signal. It really is that bad. I was trying to do a conference call the other day, sitting still in my house with 5 full bars and got dropped 4 times in the span of about 20 minutes. After the 3rd or 4th drop I got back on and someone said "you must have an iPhone, we had to get rid of ours because the voice was so bad."

IMHO, Apple cut corners either in the voice transmitter or antenna in order to get the iPhone to look the way they wanted. Most likely to make it as thin as SJ wanted because we all know his obsessiveness with thin.


It might be so called "iPhone syndrome". Some people did a research and concluded that many iPhone users are delusional (read: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10414356-71.html?tag=rtcol;pop)

[entropys]

I'm confused why everyone just doesn't admit that the iPhone is a horrible phone. It's a great small computing device (best ever so far), but it is by far the worst cell phone I've ever owned. I had the original iPhone and now have a 3GS for what it's worth. I'm about to the point of taking out my sim and using it in an old Sony/Ericsson phone I have lying around just so I can make calls and not get dropped.
........

Your SE is a 2G right?

[NoExpectations]

"Global Wireless Solutions, one of the third-party services that run network tests for the major carriers, shared some of its current findings. The service dispatches drivers across the country with phones and laptops equipped with data cards. They have covered more than three million miles of roads this year, while running almost two million wireless data sessions and placing more than three million voice calls, said Paul Carter, the president.

The results place AT&T’s data network not just on top, but well ahead of everyone else. “AT&T’s data throughput is 40 to 50 percent higher than the competition, including Verizon,” Mr. Carter said. AT&T is a client and Verizon is not, he added.

"More evidence that AT&T’s data network is head-and-shoulders above Verizon’s comes from Root Wireless, a start-up in Bellevue, Wash., that is developing software for consumers to install on their smartphones to do continuous network tests. This generates empirical data for consumers who “today are buried under opinions and advertising slogans,” said Paul Griff, the chief executive. Root Wireless has no business relationship with any carrier.

This year, Root Wireless ran 4.7 million tests on smartphones for each of the four major carriers, spread across seven metropolitan areas: Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles/Orange County, New York, Seattle/Tacoma, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Washington. In every market, AT&T had faster average download speeds and had signal strength of 75 percent or better more frequently than did Verizon. (A Verizon spokesman declined to comment about these test results or those of Global Wireless Solutions.)"


I think that Verizon has more troubles than they want to admit.

[entropys]

You can't compare the vast land mass of this country with other countries. I'll use Great Britain for example since I spend a lot of time there do to my family on my father's side being there. It's 93,278 square miles. The United States is 9,372,614 square miles. So that's 93 thousand, to 9 million. The US is approximately 100 times more land area than GB. I think you have to take this scale into account when you compare networks.

Except it isn't a land mass issue to be having dropped calls on one network and not on another (competing networks are in the same land mass after all). In Australia Optus=dropped calls while telstra = high performance (and poverty if you use it:))

It is a network capacity issue. I bet in Britain O2 has dropped calls and orange may not.

The only relevance of land mass it is that it would obviously cost a lot more to build out a network in bigger, geographically dispersed countries like the US. But then again you have the population to spread the cost.

[Rocketman]

I wonder if anybody here has enough low level information and expertise to know if the majority of the problem is lower iPhone OS/firmware builds and/or older handset hardware. Or is even the latest hardware and OS/firmware builds also a culprit of inefficient cell access?

If it a simple matter of getting laggards to upgrade, that might be something worth propogating to popular media. If the problem is inherent or caused by a rash of jailbroken phones or some such, there may be no solution until user habits change.

Rocketman

[mingoglia]

Except it isn't a land mass issue to be having dropped calls on one network and not on another (competing networks are in the same land mass after all). In Australia Optus=dropped calls while telstra = high performance (and poverty if you use it:))

It is a network capacity issue. I bet in Britain O2 has dropped calls and orange may not.

The only relevance of land mass it is that it would obviously cost a lot more to build out a network in bigger, geographically dispersed countries like the US. But then again you have the population to spread the cost.

You're correct. Part of my point is that due to the vast scale upgrading equipment to keep up with demand is certainly a huge undertaking.

To scale the example down a bit let's say you have a 802.11b network set up to work at every corner of your yard. Now you want to upgrade to 802.11n. Well, you buy yourself a new access point and 1 new repeater and you're all set. It's an afternoon project. Now your buddy across town is the head of the IT department for a University and he's tasked with upgrading their 802.11b to 802.11n. He'll obviously have a lot more equipment to take into account during his upgrade. It's going to take a lot longer than a weekend.

The point I'm trying to make is, this country has a lot of land area to cover and there fore there's a lot of places to upgrade equipment or add equipment. I believe ATT ran into a major scaling issue as a result of the popularity of the iphone and in part to the popularity of other similar devices. I remember reading somewhere that a typical mobile phone tower only covers a few miles or so... maybe the number was 8 miles. Regardless, that's a LOT of infrastructure to cover. I'm sure some mistakes were made along the way as well.... ATT probably supported cellular technology a bit too long and didn't concentrate all their resource into the newest technologies like Verizon did. The legacy stuff can really drain your resources.

Mike

[kdarling]

Listen to Christian, he is right. CDMA 2000 networks would have the same problems as UTMS (3G) networks have with so many iPhones on the network at once.

No. Verizon deliberately keeps voice and data separate, so that they would NOT have the same problem as ATT does: with CDMA cell breathing dropping voice users because of an extra load of data users.

The only relevance of land mass it is that it would obviously cost a lot more to build out a network in bigger, geographically dispersed countries like the US. But then again you have the population to spread the cost.

Plus ATT does not geographically cover anywhere close to the whole USA, not even a fifth of it. They're mostly concentrated in heavily populated areas. Still, it's a lot compared to other countries.

[polaris20]

The why aren't all the Blackberry, Nokia, and Palm users as irate as the iPhone users?

AT&T sucked for me when I had a WinMo phone, it sucked when I had a Treo, and it sucked when I had a Blackberry. No phone made any difference. I constantly had dropped calls.

So while that is all personal anecdote, I hardly sympathize with AT&T regardless.

[chadder007]

More like AT&T is to blame for AT&T's network. It was crap years ago and its crap now, they need to reinvest some of that money made from iPhone sales back into the infrastructure.

[TuckBodi]

This claim infuriates me and I can clearly see AT$T is behind this FUD. If this doesn't put the final nail in the coffin for them by Apple, I don't know what will!

As an original iPhone 2G user, over a 1 1/2 year timespan, I saw my reception go from 3 bars to 2 bars and finally 1/0 bars. First they tried to tell me it was me, their network was great. Then they blamed it on Apple and/or my iPhone, so Apple gave me a new phone. Then they blamed the trees around my house and lately they have blamed my microwave and refrigerator!

It is SOOOOO obvious $eth the $hill wrote that article for the NY Times! It is a slap in the face and an insult to my intelligence, seeing this low sniveling stab-in-the back approach by AT$T!

[pmjoe]

The article quotes Paul Carter, president of Global Wireless Solutions, saying they have covered more than three million miles of roads this year [...] and AT&T’s data throughput is 40 to 50 percent higher than the competition.

LOL! Because road mileage is obviously a measure of throughput!

Of course, he failed to mention AT&T's lack of coverage on that 3 million miles of road.

"AT&T is a client and Verizon is not, he added."

Well, that explains everything.

[aksmax]

You shoud read the artcle about iPhone syndrome (http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10414356-71.html?tag=dis). You totally fit the description. :D

I read it. It's a valid point. iPhone users have definitely defended their big ticket purchase that lacked significant features or suffered from issues. Actually, I don't own an iPhone. The niche between my MBP, little used cell phone and work BB hasn't been big enough to justify it.

It's still the premise of the article I have an issue with. ATT's behavior has been questionable on several points. Timeliness of supporting new features. Quality of activations. Wishy Washy on wifi policies. And my own experience is similar. My cell is Verizon, BB is ATT. Both are on my local tower. I can use the cell in my basement, my BB only outside on the porch. My firm is no longer doing new ATT BB's. Verizon only, despite a slightly higher rate.

Now a study indicating it's not US, it's THEM. Weak.

[Livestfastest]

Spoken like a true Apple fanboi. Lets be real. I have never once wanted to check my phone while in a call. Mainly because its really not that important to me, or I already have a computer around. The instances I would need to check something would be in a car, yet, I wouldnt want to check in a car.

Not to mention when I owned an iPhone, I often was unable to do anything on the network while in a call. It simply didnt work unless I was on wifi. Sure it sounds great on paper, but its not a foolproof at&t feature.

Would that really make or break a cell company for you anyway?? Lets be real here. Verizon is dominating AT&T in the marketing right now, just face the fact.

How am I a true Apple fanboi? I'm just stating a simple fact. Apple is currently running a ton of ads touting the iPhone's simultaneous voice & data use and stating "Can your phone do that?"

Whether lots of people will use the feature is debatable, but it is an AT&T advantage, not to mention AT&T's speed advantage in its 3G areas.

The real problem here is too many people are using their iPhones for data for just ONE cell carrier to handle and iPhone's tend to have higher data usage than the typical smart phone (although that is changing with the newer competition being more, ummm, "iPhone-like"). That's the problem that Apple needs to address when their contract with AT&T is up if AT&T hasn't solved these problems by then and I'm pretty damn sure AT&T knows it.

A potentially bigger question is will the problem get worse as more and more iPhones are sold? That's a scary thought.

[eastcoastsurfer]

Your SE is a 2G right?

Good point. Maybe I'll switch my iPhone to 2G and see if that fixes the dropped call issue for now.

[cmaier]

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/12/claim-that-crappy-iphone-service-is-apples-fault-is-bunkum.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

[ThunderSkunk]

Wow, awesome! Our town is getting 3G coverage "sometime next year"!

Meanwhile...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=4g-networks-open-for-business-sort-2009-12-14

F@#$%k!!!

But yea, it's really Apples fault, for making a phone people actually want to use.

[lilo777]

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/12/claim-that-crappy-iphone-service-is-apples-fault-is-bunkum.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

Thanks for the link. However this article is totally pointless. I realize that our discussion totally lacks serious arguments because we simply do not have access to relevant data. But it is just a forum discussion. For [serious] technical publication to make such claims without providing any data supporting it is just ridiculous. But it is easy to understand why they would do it :-)

[GSPice]

The iPhone is responsible for AT&T's poor network quality?

lol that's like saying my car isn't good enough to prevent traffic jams.

[MH1972]

Other users around the world are having the same problems. In Australia, Optus is the largest carrier of iPhones, and there are plenty of user forum complaints about call dropouts etc.

[*LTD*]

When you have free time, try to master the concept of sarcasm. My point is that there is no way that Rogers has the same concentration of iPhones as AT&T does in NY and San Francisco. So, why to bring up your experience with Rogers in a first place? AT&T does not have problems with iPhones in many places in US either. For example, so far, nobody from Nebraska complained about AT&T in this thread. So what?

You're falling all over your own words. It's horrible to watch.

NETWORK PROBLEM. Allow it to sink in.

[AtlasBoy]

Exactly. When you can look something up on Safari or send a text or something while still talking on the phone, that's a great way to get business done. In my line of work, I get service calls via text message and I'm always doing this.

+1. I estimate that at least 50% (maybe higher) of the time I'm on a call, I'm also checking email, on the web, sending a text etc. If you have the ability to do so, why would you not get other things done while on a call? I routinely use my phone for conference calls and am using data services the whole time.

[iphones4evry1]

If you do the math on AT&T's income (from $80 cell phone bills) and their extremely high dividends they pay to investors, you will see that they are clearly under-funding their network infrastructure.

[MizzouCowboy]

lol right, AT&T has the best network - with the most dropped calls. Verizon is easily best in the US

And if Verizon had an exclusive on the iPhone, it's network would be dead on arrival.

I equate this with football. The starting quarterback is not doing as well as you'd like, so you just fall in love with the backup quarterback sitting on the bench...trouble is, he's a backup for a reason and when he finally gets into the game, you begin to hate him too...why? Because he did not perform the way you dreamed he would.

It's the same here. Verizon's network could no more handle the iPhone exclusively that AT&T can at the moment.

[cmaier]

And if Verizon had an exclusive on the iPhone, it's network would be dead on arrival.

I equate this with football. The starting quarterback is not doing as well as you'd like, so you just fall in love with the backup quarterback sitting on the bench...trouble is, he's a backup for a reason and when he finally gets into the game, you begin to hate him too...why? Because he did not perform the way you dreamed he would.

It's the same here. Verizon's network could no more handle the iPhone exclusively that AT&T can at the moment.

So why can all (or at least most) of the foreign networks that have iPhone handle the load?

[lPHONE]

i love AT&T, I wish Apple would leave them alone. :(

[cmaier]

i love AT&T, I wish Apple would leave them alone. :(

How, exactly, is Apple not "leaving them alone?"

[lilo777]

You're falling all over your own words. It's horrible to watch.

NETWORK PROBLEM. Allow it to sink in.

I agree that the ultimate responsibility lies with AT&T. If they knew that iPhone had technical issues and did not cancel its sales, they are guilty of greed. That is not to say that iPhone has nothing to do with the problems. If indeed it has interference problems, Apple should have fixed them.

[bjmrk]

I didn't take the time to read the entire article, just what's on this site, but to me it seems possible. But I'm pretty sure this is all just speculation, meant to stir up trouble, not anything based on actual facts. In theory I suppose this could happen, but I just think its very unlikely.

[lilo777]

+1. I estimate that at least 50% (maybe higher) of the time I'm on a call, I'm also checking email, on the web, sending a text etc. If you have the ability to do so, why would you not get other things done while on a call? I routinely use my phone for conference calls and am using data services the whole time.


You are multitasking. It looks like Droid would be a better fit for you ;) Most actions that you described you can do on Verizon without problems. e-mails are stored on the phone and do not need access to Internet. Same is true with sending e-mails. They will be stored and sent when you finish talking.

The type of calls your are describing sound like customer service calls :-) In this case you probably would be better off (money wise) by switching to Verizon and using Vonage VOIP application - cheap plus you could share voice and data.

[lilo777]

The iPhone is responsible for AT&T's poor network quality?

lol that's like saying my car isn't good enough to prevent traffic jams.

Let's say I bought a tank and took it for a ride to downtown. Traffic is jammed. Who is to blame?

[cmaier]

You are multitasking. It looks like Droid would be a better fit for you ;) Most actions that you described you can do on Verizon without problems. e-mails are stored on the phone and do not need access to Internet. Same is true with sending e-mails. They will be stored and sent when you finish talking.

Using data services (as the poster suggests) while using the phone is not something "you can do on Verizon without problems." Caching outgoing mails is not an acceptable solution, and doesn't deal with the situation where you need incoming mail, or where you need to send a mail immediately (for example, when on a conference call, I frequently need to send mail to a co-worker warning them that the other participant is trying to negotiate us into a trap, etc. - these emails are real time).

[cmaier]

Let's say I bought a tank and took it for a ride to downtown. Traffic is jammed. Who is to blame?

If the same company that built the road is the company that eagerly sells tanks to all comers, promising them zero traffic wait time, and refuses to let the tanks go on any other road, then the party to blame is the company that built the road.

This is what AT&T does. They claim they have the fastest network. They negotiated an exclusive iPhone deal so the load can't be spread. They sell and market iPhones as much as they can. They promise unlimited bandwidth. etc.

[lilo777]

Using data services (as the poster suggests) while using the phone is not something "you can do on Verizon without problems." Caching outgoing mails is not an acceptable solution, and doesn't deal with the situation where you need incoming mail, or where you need to send a mail immediately (for example, when on a conference call, I frequently need to send mail to a co-worker warning them that the other participant is trying to negotiate us into a trap, etc. - these emails are real time).

That's a valid example. Obviously, for some people such usage scenario is important. On the other hand, it is first time in my life that I hear about people/businesses using cell phones for conference calls :) I hate the quality of the sound even on the conference calls held over regular phone lines.

[*LTD*]

If the same company that built the road is the company that eagerly sells tanks to all comers, promising them zero traffic wait time, and refuses to let the tanks go on any other road, then the party to blame is the company that built the road.

This is what AT&T does. They claim they have the fastest network. They negotiated an exclusive iPhone deal so the load can't be spread. They sell and market iPhones as much as they can. They promise unlimited bandwidth. etc.

This.

[KnightWRX]

Thanks for the link. However this article is totally pointless. I realize that our discussion totally lacks serious arguments because we simply do not have access to relevant data. But it is just a forum discussion. For [serious] technical publication to make such claims without providing any data supporting it is just ridiculous. But it is easy to understand why they would do it :-)

The article isn't pointless. They go on to debunk the NY Times article by showing how they don't have any data to back up the claim.

Why should they have data if the NYT doesn't ? Data to prove that the iPhone is not the problem ? You can't prove a negative unfortunately for Ars.

Not to mention Ars is not a pro-Apple publication, I don't see why you're trying to say they have a bias.

The more I read you, the more I'm thinking you're somekind of AT&T shill/astroturfer and not just a AT&T fanboy. What's your salary for posting in this thread ?

[Maserati7200]

Alot of people in denial, the Iphone's not perfect.
No one said it is, but AT&T's network clearly sucks. Seems like you are in denial of that.
You can't compare the vast land mass of this country with other countries. I'll use Great Britain for example since I spend a lot of time there do to my family on my father's side being there. It's 93,278 square miles. The United States is 9,372,614 square miles. So that's 93 thousand, to 9 million. The US is approximately 100 times more land area than GB. I think you have to take this scale into account when you compare networks.
Canada? Russia? The iPhone has plenty of users there and their land area is much larger than ours.

[lPHONE]

LISTEN UP! :mad: For all you AT&T haters out there...
THIS IS WHY I http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/7228/heart002.gif ATT!

AT&T Bellsouth deducted $5.00 from my $149.00 phone/DSL bill for my inconvenience of having to call 14 times in the last 3 months because they were throttling my bandwidth and my 2Wire kept dropping the connection.



THANKS FOR THE BUCK!!!1










http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/8906/randallstephenson.jpg

[aristotle]

That's a valid example. Obviously, for some people such usage scenario is important. On the other hand, it is first time in my life that I hear about people/businesses using cell phones for conference calls :) I hate the quality of the sound even on the conference calls held over regular phone lines.
Right, so Cisco spent money for no reason whatsoever to create a webex client for the iPhone and blackberry according to you.
:rolleyes:

[JoeG4]

So AT&T is indirectly blaming Apple for their own crappy network. Nice. See, a friend of mine was saying that Apple would go with Verizon in addition to AT&T..

I think they're going to ditch AT&T and start talking about AT&T being crap and Verizon being much better, faster,etc.. just watch. That's one thing Steve is good at, getting the fanboys all riled up, and then pulling an about face on them. XD

[lilo777]

The article isn't pointless. They go on to debunk the NY Times article by showing how they don't have any data to back up the claim.

Why should they have data if the NYT doesn't ? Data to prove that the iPhone is not the problem ? You can't prove a negative unfortunately for Ars.

Not to mention Ars is not a pro-Apple publication, I don't see why you're trying to say they have a bias.

The more I read you, the more I'm thinking you're somekind of AT&T shill/astroturfer and not just a AT&T fanboy. What's your salary for posting in this thread ?


While NYT does not have/provide the data they claim to have the "source" who knows the subject (data). Arstechnica has neither data nor source. They are just speculating (just like us :))

[lilo777]

So AT&T is indirectly blaming Apple for their own crappy network. Nice. See, a friend of mine was saying that Apple would go with Verizon in addition to AT&T..

I think they're going to ditch AT&T and start talking about AT&T being crap and Verizon being much better, faster,etc.. just watch. That's one thing Steve is good at, getting the fanboys all riled up, and then pulling an about face on them. XD

But knowing Steve ... Imagine this did happen :D How would all current owners of iPhone feel about it? That would be unprecedented but too sad for many.

[KnightWRX]

While NYT does not have/provide the data they claim to have the "source" who knows the subject (data). Arstechnica has neither data nor source. They are just speculating (just like us :))

Except like pointed out by Ars, their "source" is bunk. That is essentially Ars' claim. One of the NYT's sources is a paid shill, the other doesn't have their data collection running on iPhones.

They aren't speculating at all, they just say that lack of evidence means the article is bunk. And they are right.

Essentially, they just posted an official : [citation needed], which is far from pointless or speculation.

[cmaier]

That's a valid example. Obviously, for some people such usage scenario is important. On the other hand, it is first time in my life that I hear about people/businesses using cell phones for conference calls :) I hate the quality of the sound even on the conference calls held over regular phone lines.

I can only imagine you aren't someone who has a lot of conference calls - what happens is that the conference is set up by someone on a landline using a conference service (for example, at&t offers them). Then, everyone "dials in" from wherever they are. If I'm in a car or not in the office, as is often the case, I dial in to the conference number using my cellphone.

And please explain to me how this can be Apple's fault given that iPhone works everywhere else in the world, no phones work well on AT&T (at least in SF and NY, as admitted by AT&T, and, in my informal testing, in Los Angeles and D.C. as well).

[Rot'nApple]

So AT&T is indirectly blaming Apple for their own crappy network. Nice. See, a friend of mine was saying that Apple would go with Verizon in addition to AT&T..

I think they're going to ditch AT&T and start talking about AT&T being crap and Verizon being much better, faster,etc.. just watch. That's one thing Steve is good at, getting the fanboys all riled up, and then pulling an about face on them. XD


Steve getting the fanboys all riled up...

Not with this ammo...

AT&T given ‘Best Mobile Phone Coverage in the World’ award :eek:

Of course the conspiracy theory people will have to look at who owns Business Traveler Magazine. :D

http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=30223

[cocky jeremy]

The argument of surfing the web while talking is laughable. That's about as useless as toting the Droid as a nice paper weight as well as a phone.

You're right. Being able to talk to your friend while looking up directions to a place you're meeting at is totally not convenient at all, right? :rolleyes:

[Rocketman]

The iPhone is responsible for AT&T's poor network quality?

lol that's like saying my car isn't good enough to prevent traffic jams.

So you have a Yugo 1.0, eh?

Rocketman

[Goona]

LOL at some of the ridicilous conlusions. If the iphone was so crap, how come you don't hear complaints from other iphone users in other countries and not every iphone is on AT&T. There are tens million of iphone users outside the United States. I have used the iphone in Canada in the Toronto and on AT&T in New Jersey and have had no problems.

[Maserati7200]

So AT&T is indirectly blaming Apple for their own crappy network. Nice. See, a friend of mine was saying that Apple would go with Verizon in addition to AT&T..

What? AT&T didn't blame the iPhone for anything. You obviously didn't read the article fully. This is some analyst/writer commenting that it is the iPhone which makes AT&T bad. The article clearly says AT&T never said anything about it.

[lPHONE]

THE BLAME GAME: END OF STORY.


You guys don't seem to get it... Nobody blames the pizza dude for a cold pizza and a 45 min wait. It's the general manager takes the heat as he is responsible for his whole staff and the operation of the business. And when sales fall short, the stockholders drill the CEO. They don't care if he made a deal with Apple, Google or the devil himself.


A customer pays for a service, it better perform. The phone lines must be up, regardless of earthquakes, foreclosures and the Saints going to the Superbowl. EVEN IF (bear with me) the iPhone was complete garbage- you're paying AT&T for a monthly service. Your contract is not with Apple.

There's no ground for them to say anything because they're pimpin' the ***** out of it. What are they going to say, "The iPhone sucks, oh well :p"? That translates into "Our horrible management sold you this horrible product". No one at AT&T is stupid enough to say something like that. Now, the New York Times is a different story. The media will write anything to get you to read their crap.

You give AT&T $$$
They're responsible for the network.
Some guy at the NYT wants a big thread on MacRumors about his article
/THREAD

[lPHONE]

oh, and AT&T still sucks.

/THREAD

[MizzouCowboy]

So why can all (or at least most) of the foreign networks that have iPhone handle the load?

Simple. The Japanese and Europeans are far ahead of the US when it comes to networks. Not sure if I blame this on the companies or government regulations. Might be a smidgeon of both.

[cmaier]

Simple. The Japanese and Europeans are far ahead of the US when it comes to networks. Not sure if I blame this on the companies or government regulations. Might be a smidgeon of both.

Which is exactly my point. It's the network, not the phone.

[iphones4evry1]

I think the biggest problem with AT&T is that they hoard all of the income and give it to their CEO, corporate officers, and have a HUGE 5% dividend! (most companies have a smaller dividend than 5%. 5% is large)

As a result, the network is neglected. This business model is unsustainable long-term.

[cmaier]

I think the biggest problem with AT&T is that they hoard all of the income and give it to their CEO, corporate officers, and have a HUGE 5% dividend! (most companies have a smaller dividend than 5%. 5% is large)

As a result, the network is neglected. This business model is unsustainable long-term.

How do you figure 5%? Looks like 0.41 cents a share, with a share price of around $20. Less than 0.5%.

[huntercr]

This should not be all too surprising given the fact that Apple is a total newbie in communication area. Just check how Apple screwed up antennas in the latest AirPort Extreme - http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-features/30974-more-surprises-from-the-new-airport-extreme

I think you misread the article you quote. That's not apple "screwing up" that's apple using the same board for multiple ( future ) products. They may never use it even.

This happens all the time in the electronics industry.

Expansion ports that never get enabled. ( original Tivo PCI port, the Sega genesis "system on a joystick" device had a 2nd joystick port )

Devices that purposefully underclock (many many examples of this... most linksys NAS for instance ) .

Boards with advanced features that don't get used. ( TivoHD has an MPEG4 decoder/encoder that for some flipping reason isn't used)

Who knows why.... product differentiation, licensing, cost at production, QA product MTBF... who knows?

[ThunderSkunk]

Let's say I bought a tank and took it for a ride to downtown. Traffic is jammed. Who is to blame?

Oh oh! I know! The company that said, "Hey, yea, we can handle twenty million tanks on our roads, so give us the exclusive right to sell twenty million of your tanks to our customers for use on our congested downtown roads!"

Again, AT&T.

[fuzzy76]

And please explain to me how this can be Apple's fault given that iPhone works everywhere else in the world(...)

If the iphone was so crap, how come you don't hear complaints from other iphone users in other countries and not every iphone is on AT&T. There are tens million of iphone users outside the United States.

If you actually read this thread, you would have seen that operators with exclusive iPhone deals (and therefore a high number of them in their network) routinely have this problem all over the world. I have seen numerous countries mentioned.

The real reason for the problems with AT&T is probably that the manufacturer of AT&T's infrastructure either has been unable to fix it in a firmware update for their cell towers or that upgrading every single cell tower across the US with new firmware would be too costly.

There are many more operators with the same problem, which has been repeated several times in this thread. And as I said earlier, I got first-hand information about Norwegians largest operator noticing these problems prior to the iPhone launch here, and fixing it with a firmware upgrade for their cell towers.

[Glideslope]

AT&T can't keep up with the saturation of data from iPhone users.

If exclusivity were with Verizon, the same issue would be occurring, and might even be worse.

Exactly. :apple:

[Glideslope]

Which is exactly my point. It's the network, not the phone.

...and will only get worse as Apple moves away from the current deal. Obviously the overall picture will improve with the load being disbursed, but don't expect any warm hugs from at&t.

[kdarling]

If exclusivity were with Verizon, the same issue would be occurring, and might even be worse.

It's technically impossible to have the same issues, as the networks have some major differences.

Data speed slowdown with mass users, sure, that could happen. Dropping voice calls because of more data users? No, can't happen. Verizon keeps voice and data comms separate. It's why Verizon can allow things like Slingplayer and VoIP over 3G without worrying about affecting their voice network.

In addition, Verizon's network was designed for CDMA radios from the beginning. ATT's network was designed for TDMA and has had to be retrofitted for WCDMA 3G (UMTS)... which means different (and more) tower placement, something that's taking them extra time and also causes dropped connections.

[archipellago]

I have an iPhone for my personal use and a BB for work. Both on ATT. I have noticed my BB gets full signal here at work and is perfect but my iPhone suffers horribly. I said a while ago in one of these the iPhone is God posts that I think the iPhone has a technical flaw. Im not saying ATT is perfect because they are far from it but this might actually make some sense.

winner...!

[diamond.g]

It's technically impossible to have the same issues, as the networks have some major differences.

Data speed slowdown with mass users, sure, that could happen. Dropping voice calls because of more data users? No, can't happen. Verizon keeps voice and data comms separate. It's why Verizon can allow things like Slingplayer and VoIP over 3G without worrying about affecting their voice network.

In addition, Verizon's network was designed for CDMA radios from the beginning. ATT's network was designed for TDMA and has had to be retrofitted for WCDMA 3G (UMTS)... which means different (and more) tower placement, something that's taking them extra time and also causes dropped connections.
Sadly, you could type that out a hundred times but some people here will always think that Verizon would have the same (dropped call) problem as AT&T.

[alent1234]

If you actually read this thread, you would have seen that operators with exclusive iPhone deals (and therefore a high number of them in their network) routinely have this problem all over the world. I have seen numerous countries mentioned.

The real reason for the problems with AT&T is probably that the manufacturer of AT&T's infrastructure either has been unable to fix it in a firmware update for their cell towers or that upgrading every single cell tower across the US with new firmware would be too costly.

There are many more operators with the same problem, which has been repeated several times in this thread. And as I said earlier, I got first-hand information about Norwegians largest operator noticing these problems prior to the iPhone launch here, and fixing it with a firmware upgrade for their cell towers.

AT&T and VZW share a lot of the towers because they are owned by third party companies. for LTE the third party tower operators are upgrading their towers first.

i brought my in-laws to AT&T from VZW over the summer and they have cheapo AT&T phones. they talk more than I do on them and they never complain about dropped calls. in NYC i always have problems with my iphone.

last year there was a big issue with the 3G and some parts of the country where it wouldn't work right. i bet the same issues are there and i've read technical articles that said that the infeneon chips in the iphone aren't the best or as good as qualcomm and that the way the antenna is designed isn't very good either. i've noticed that a lot of times when i flip my 3GS sideways the signal drops

[polaris20]

Sadly, you could type that out a hundred times but some people here will always think that Verizon would have the same (dropped call) problem as AT&T.

That's because most of the "experts" and apologists on an internet forum are completely ignorant about the differences between technologies.

[harmonica01]

This is such a scapegoat, I remember how horrible AT&T was even before the introduction of the iPhone. For me, the iPhone kept me with them at contract's end.

[seedster2]

AT&T can't keep up with the saturation of data from iPhone users.

If exclusivity were with Verizon, the same issue would be occurring, and might even be worse.

Facepalm...

It's technically impossible to have the same issues, as the networks have some major differences.

Data speed slowdown with mass users, sure, that could happen. Dropping voice calls because of more data users? No, can't happen. Verizon keeps voice and data comms separate. It's why Verizon can allow things like Slingplayer and VoIP over 3G without worrying about affecting their voice network.

In addition, Verizon's network was designed for CDMA radios from the beginning. ATT's network was designed for TDMA and has had to be retrofitted for WCDMA 3G (UMTS)... which means different (and more) tower placement, something that's taking them extra time and also causes dropped connections.

Sadly, you could type that out a hundred times but some people here will always think that Verizon would have the same (dropped call) problem as AT&T.

That's because most of the "experts" and apologists on an internet forum are completely ignorant about the differences between technologies.

Good grief. It's amazing how I keep hearing that different technologies are guaranteed to perform the same way. It's even more troubling to hear the many who will echo the falsehood because of fanaticism

[mingoglia]

No one said it is, but AT&T's network clearly sucks. Seems like you are in denial of that.

Canada? Russia? The iPhone has plenty of users there and their land area is much larger than ours.

Correct, but you also have to take into account population density. I'd imagine there's a lot of areas of Canada where there is no service as there's huge areas of the country uninhabited. With regards to Russia, heck I don't know... but I don't recall anyone claiming it was great or crappy. In fact I'm not sure I've ever seen a post from someone from Russia on any forum I've ever been to. :)

[cmaier]

Correct, but you also have to take into account population density. I'd imagine there's a lot of areas of Canada where there is no service as there's huge areas of the country uninhabited. With regards to Russia, heck I don't know... but I don't recall anyone claiming it was great or crappy. In fact I'm not sure I've ever seen a post from someone from Russia on any forum I've ever been to. :)

San Francisco ain't exactly dense.

[aristobrat]

It's technically impossible to have the same issues, as the networks have some major differences.

Data speed slowdown with mass users, sure, that could happen. Dropping voice calls because of more data users? No, can't happen. Verizon keeps voice and data comms separate. It's why Verizon can allow things like Slingplayer and VoIP over 3G without worrying about affecting their voice network.

In addition, Verizon's network was designed for CDMA radios from the beginning. ATT's network was designed for TDMA and has had to be retrofitted for WCDMA 3G (UMTS)... which means different (and more) tower placement, something that's taking them extra time and also causes dropped connections.
Do CDMA phones use signaling like GSM phones do?

A source—who requested we not reveal his identity—told Ars that the problem isn't the cell radio hardware, nor the network infrustructure, but an issue with the way that the iPhone OS conserves power. All iPhone apps, including Phone.app, cause the radio to switch from "active" to "idle" mode when accessing the network far more often than traditional phones do. This causes the signaling channel, responsible for such functions as SMS messaging, initiating, maintaining, or ending a phone call, voicemail notifications, and DHCP requests, to become overloaded.

"This can lead to odd effects," the source told Ars. "For example, you could be in an area with perfect 5-bar reception, but because the signalling channel is overloaded your phone won't ring and calls go into voicemail." Our source also said that the iPhone was the first phone to cause this particular problem, but that Android and webOS phones have had a similar effect.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/12/claim-that-crappy-iphone-service-is-apples-fault-is-bunkum.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

[*LTD*]

Simple. The Japanese and Europeans are far ahead of the US when it comes to networks. Not sure if I blame this on the companies or government regulations. Might be a smidgeon of both.

Canada I'm sure is ok in the network front as well . . . ;)

[kdarling]

Do CDMA phones use signaling like GSM phones do?

They mean the paging channel (PCH), and yes, both systems use one (or more than one, in the case of CDMA 1xRTT voice + EVDO data networks).

The PCH delivers pages (rings - think "pager") to all phones within a multi-cell paging area. The pages could mean incoming voice calls, data comms, or texts.

To conserve battery, an idling phone only listens to the PCH every 2-5 seconds, during an assigned paging channel timeslot. If it hears a page for itself, the phone comes alive and instantly replies to the tower, which assigns the phone its own transfer channel to use until it goes back to sleep.

There can be a PCH overload situation if too many pages come at one time. Everything backs up, and soon the system is waiting for replies, and any further rings or texts or data ... to anyone in the paging area... are impossible.

(Under normal circumstances, paging channel overload should only happen during deliberate denial of service attacks... or temporarily with incoming flash crowd calls within a paging area. There are also various patented methods of preventing it that networks can employ.)

A source—who requested we not reveal his identity—told Ars that the problem isn't the cell radio hardware, nor the network infrustructure, but an issue with the way that the iPhone OS conserves power. All iPhone apps, including Phone.app, cause the radio to switch from "active" to "idle" mode when accessing the network far more often than traditional phones do.

This causes the signaling channel, responsible for such functions as SMS messaging, initiating, maintaining, or ending a phone call, voicemail notifications, and DHCP requests, to become overloaded.

What the Arstechnica source seems to be saying, is that the iPhone goes into power saving idle mode too often. Therefore if the iPhone is waiting for data or push notifications to dribble in, the phone has to be woken up more often... which requires an extra incoming data wakeup page. So supposedly lots of iPhones in a cell paging area can cause a PCH overload.

That's the gist of it. I hope I made it understandable. Now whether it's true or not, I don't know. If it is true, then networks could and should make adjustments for it... or do better testing and not certify the phone until its behavior is changed.

[mingoglia]

San Francisco ain't exactly dense.

By dense I'm also taking into account the density of the user base.... you gotta lotta high bandwidth folks up there.

I can't believe I'm in a forum defending ATT. Yeah I've had them for a long time. Yeah I have pretty good luck with them, at least in Phoenix.... I'm certainly not a fan though. I just don't hate them as much as most. :)

[cmaier]

By dense I'm also taking into account the density of the user base.... you gotta lotta high bandwidth folks up there.

I can't believe I'm in a forum defending ATT. Yeah I've had them for a long time. Yeah I have pretty good luck with them, at least in Phoenix.... I'm certainly not a fan though. I just don't hate them as much as most. :)

but we also probably have as high a concentration of people using verizon aircards and android phone as anywhere (in the SF bay area), and, again, it's AT&T customers who can't ever get a signal, not verizon customers.

[mingoglia]

but we also probably have as high a concentration of people using verizon aircards and android phone as anywhere (in the SF bay area), and, again, it's AT&T customers who can't ever get a signal, not verizon customers.

I'll certainly conced that point, particularly on the aircards as I know they're popular. I have 3 of them, one for myself, and 2 for employees. Not sure the amount of androids can compare to iphones though. The last time I was in San Fran it seemed like the iPhone was the official phone of the city. :D

[archipellago]

I don't think there's much doubt...in the real, non blinkered world that the iPhone performance as an actual phone, quality and reception wise is substandard.

I can go to areas where I have reception with another phone but nothing on the iPhone.

My iPhone has now been offically unlocked and so I have tried 2 other Networks and the result is the same.

Virtually any other phone (3g. EDGE or GPRS) is better at obtaining and keeping a signal.

Not saying ATT are good but the iPhone hardware is definitely a handicap for any Network Operator.

[Goona]

Yeah I wonder why all the GSM carriers aren't dropping their outdated GSM networks for CDMA heaven.

[Goona]

If you actually read this thread, you would have seen that operators with exclusive iPhone deals (and therefore a high number of them in their network) routinely have this problem all over the world. I have seen numerous countries mentioned.

The real reason for the problems with AT&T is probably that the manufacturer of AT&T's infrastructure either has been unable to fix it in a firmware update for their cell towers or that upgrading every single cell tower across the US with new firmware would be too costly.

There are many more operators with the same problem, which has been repeated several times in this thread. And as I said earlier, I got first-hand information about Norwegians largest operator noticing these problems prior to the iPhone launch here, and fixing it with a firmware upgrade for their cell towers.

Dude please show me where all iphone users are having this problem all over the world. I have used the iphone in Canada, USA, Germany, and Ghana in Africa and have never experienced such problems.

[diamond.g]

Yeah I wonder why all the GSM carriers aren't dropping their outdated GSM networks for CDMA heaven.

If you think about it in terms of air interface, they all did ;)

[Goona]

iPhone flaws do exist in Canada. iPhones? Not so much.

Do you live in Canada, I guess all those iphones I see around in Toronto are figments of my imagination. :rolleyes:

[kdarling]

Yeah I wonder why all the GSM carriers aren't dropping their outdated GSM networks for CDMA heaven.

If you knew anything about GSM phones at all, you'd know that they added a separate WCDMA radio for 3G. (CDMA radios allow for more users and greater bandwidth than a 2G GSM radio.)

While not compatible, it's derived from the same roots (http://www.qualcomm.com/common/documents/white_papers/Commonalities_CDMA2000_WCDMA_wp.pdf)as the CDMA radio used by carriers such as Sprint or Verizon.

If you think about it in terms of air interface, they all did ;)

Indeed.

[Goona]

If you knew anything about GSM phones at all, you'd know that they added a separate WCDMA radio for 3G. (CDMA radios allow for more users and greater bandwidth than a 2G GSM radio.)

While not compatible, it's derived from the same roots (http://www.qualcomm.com/common/documents/white_papers/Commonalities_CDMA2000_WCDMA_wp.pdf)as the CDMA radio used by carriers such as Sprint or Verizon.



Indeed.

What does the drivel you wrote have to do with carriers dropping CDMA and moving onto GSM. Latest carriers to do this are Bell and Telus in Canada. Soon only Verizon and Sprint will be holding onto that relic. But anyways keep deluding yourself into believing that your CDMA is part of GSM. Your inferior technology is being dropped dead, time to move on just like the many carriers moving on.

[diamond.g]

What does the drivel you wrote have to do with carriers dropping CDMA and moving onto GSM. Latest carriers to do this are Bell and Telus in Canada. Soon only Verizon and Sprint will be holding onto that relic. But anyways keep deluding yourself into believing that your CDMA is part of GSM. Your inferior technology is being dropped dead, time to move on just like the many carriers moving on.

Really? So CDMA has nothing to do with WCDMA. Please note that I am not talking about CDMA2000 which again only shares the air interface (at the basic they are both using code division multiple access sense).

[bergmef]

What does the drivel you wrote have to do with carriers dropping CDMA and moving onto GSM. Latest carriers to do this are Bell and Telus in Canada. Soon only Verizon and Sprint will be holding onto that relic. But anyways keep deluding yourself into believing that your CDMA is part of GSM. Your inferior technology is being dropped dead, time to move on just like the many carriers moving on.

Gotta love people that only know buzzwords.

WCDMA

(Wideband Code Division Multiple Access)

Wideband CDMA is a third-generation (3G) wireless standard which utilizes one 5 MHz channel for both voice and data, initially offering data speeds up to 384 Kbps. WCDMA is the 3G technology used in the US by AT&T and T-Mobile.

Link -> http://www.phonescoop.com/glossary/term.php?gid=104