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More 3G antennas in more places! Anyone else seeing this?

Rybold

Rybold

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 23, 2008
960
0
California, USA
I have had my iPhone3G for three and a half weeks now. For the first two and a half weeks, I only had EDGE service throughout my house. About a week ago, I was surprised to notice for the first time that I had one bar of 3G on one side of my house. This morning, I noticed two bars of 3G in some spots of my house and one bar of 3G in most of my house. Has anyone else noticed new 3G coverage in an area that previously only had EDGE?

Note: sometimes the 3G signal cuts out and it switches back to EDGE. The transition takes about 5 seconds. I live in Southern California, USA.
 
I live up in northern ca, It has gotten alot better here also. BUT i have been updating my firmware but i dont know for sure if that does anything but apple said the 2.0.2 said up messed with the 3g stuff. Did you update?
 
Ozzhead said:
I live up in northern ca, It has gotten alot better here also. BUT i have been updating my firmware but i dont know for sure if that does anything but apple said the 2.0.2 said up messed with the 3g stuff. Did you update?
Click to expand...

I'm still using 2.0.0 ... I have never updated.
 
In my part of NJ there was only EDGE service, the AT&T 3G coverage map showed this as well. Roughly 3 weeks after launch, all of the sudden I now have 5 bars of 3G signal in some parts of my house. The AT&T 3G coverage map looks like it was just recently updated a few days ago because it now shows my house being around a huge blanket of 3G.
 
yeah tonight i noticed the 3g service near levittown pa increase majorly

i still have the blackjack 2 but soon ill be buying an iphone and this is good news : )
 
I was walking back from martial arts, which is right down the road from my house(10min walk) so i go up the road and i'm on my iPhone. I notice that i lose my signal and it changes from Edge to 3G with 1 bar and i'm like OMG. So i start yelling like a crazy man and keep walking. I take 2 steps and it goes back to Edge. I try to take 2 step backs so that i can play around with this new speed and still on Edge. I was so sad i almost started to cry, i never had 3G except at the mall where i got the iPhone >.>
 
Inukami said:
I was walking back from martial arts, which is right down the road from my house(10min walk) so i go up the road and i'm on my iPhone. I notice that i lose my signal and it changes from Edge to 3G with 1 bar and i'm like OMG. So i start yelling like a crazy man and keep walking. I take 2 steps and it goes back to Edge. I try to take 2 step backs so that i can play around with this new speed and still on Edge. I was so sad i almost started to cry, i never had 3G except at the mall where i got the iPhone >.>
Click to expand...

Lol. I totally know what you mean. Lol.
 
Today, I got in my car and drove around my neighborhood. There is a 3G antenna about half a mile from my house. I noticed, in driving towards the antenna, driving away from the antenna, and around my neighborhood and surrounding streets that signal strength (the number of bars displayed on the phone) can vary significantly depending on surrounding houses, buildings, telephone poles, UPS trucks parked on the side of the road, and just about anything that contains metal. In some spots, I noticed the signal drop from 5 bars down to 2 bars just by moving 20 feet. I noticed that when my car was driving toward the 3G antenna (only the windshield of my car between phone and cell tower) the signal was usually 4 or 5 bars, yet when I was driving away from the 3G antenna the signal was usually about 2 bars. I live on a hilly area, and I noticed 5 bars in all of the high spots and 2 bars in most of the low spots. In some locations, when I would have thought the signal to be one bar, it was mysteriously 5 bars, and in other locations when I expected 5 bars, it was only 3 or 2 bars. In conclusion, the number of bars on your phone can vary significantly based on many different factors of your surroundings; so don't whine too much that you only have 2 bars at your house when your buddy 20 miles away has 5 bars - maybe it's because of the immediate surroundings of your houses that is creating the difference, and not the cell tower. In my own experience, I have noticed no obvious difference in speed between 2 bars or 5 bars. Maybe a quantified internet speed test will show a difference; but to the human brain, the speed seems the same between 2 bars and 5 bars of 3G ... at least for my brain. :)
 
Firstapple wrote: "I would just like to inform anyone in Michigan here that AT&T has just recently increased 3G significantly! I am in Howell, MI and I now have full bars, and I never had anything before. It now extends from Detroit to Lansing (you have to individually click on Lansign in order for the coverage to show up, as AT&T has yet to update the nation's map yet)!
I say Thumbs up for AT&T on this one! I can now use 3G during my whole car ride to and from work, Howell to Farmington and back...
Any other states/cities seeing any new results lately?
Here is the new coverage for the Detroit metro area..."
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/549481/
 
I was driving down Brookhurst in Huntington Beach yesterday and I saw an AT&T phone truck with a bunch of guys up on the lift working on a cell phone tower. I whipped out my phone and saw that I had EDGE coverage. I just drove by there today and now I have 5 bars of 3G. Sweet! :D:D:)
 
droisman said:
Curious, what does a 3g antenna look like?
Click to expand...

Quick answer: A F@#ked up looking palm tree! Lol. :D
(plastic leaves and metal poles)

palm_tree_antenna081007_1a.jpg


or it can look like this ...

cell_tower.jpg


masts.jpg


How do you know if it is 3G or 2G ? Look at the your phone - do you have 5 bars of EDGE or 5 bars of 3G ?
.
.
 
I also live in the middle of OC, specifically Fountain Valley.

And I do drive on Brookhurst to HB. I commute to HB, Irvine, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Anahiem, Garden Grove, and etc.

I have business in these areas.

I mostly get 4 to 5 bars while DRIVING. ***And rarely drop down to 1 bar.

I am wondering, at HOME, is your signal goes up (4 to 5 bars) and down (1 bar) often? Mind behave this way quite often.
 
toss002 said:
I also live in the middle of OC, specifically Fountain Valley.
And I do drive on Brookhurst to HB. I commute to HB, Irvine, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Anahiem, Garden Grove, and etc.
I have business in these areas.
I mostly get 4 to 5 bars while DRIVING. ***And rarely drop down to 1 bar.
I am wondering, at HOME, is your signal goes up (4 to 5 bars) and down (1 bar) often? Mind behave this way quite often.
Click to expand...

If I stay still in one place, the signal is rather consistent. It can vary maybe one bar back and forth while I'm standing still, but usually it's 2 to 3, or 3 to 4 bars, so it really doesn't make a difference to me. On the first floor of my house, I only get 1-2 bars of 3G, but on the second floor, I get 3-4 bars. Read my comment above that starts with "Today, I got in my car and drove around my neighborhood..." By the way, the ARCO station at Brookhurst and Hamilton/Victoria has the lowest prices in all of OC. :D
 
Rybold said:
If I stay still in one place, the signal is rather consistent. It can vary maybe one bar back and forth while I'm standing still, but usually it's 2 to 3, or 3 to 4 bars, so it really doesn't make a difference to me. On the first floor of my house, I only get 1-2 bars of 3G, but on the second floor, I get 3-4 bars. Read my comment above that starts with "Today, I got in my car and drove around my neighborhood..." By the way, the ARCO station at Brookhurst and Hamilton/Victoria has the lowest prices in all of OC. :D
Click to expand...

Thank for the reply.

(Are you sure if you stay in one place at home, the signal doesn't vary? Have you make time to observe it closely?)
If I stay in in one place at home it does stay consistent, like 2-3 or 3-4 bars; but then after, say within a minute, it OFTEN drops to 1. But within a couple of seconds there after, it will go back up to 2-3 or 3-4 again. Weird.

Thanks for the tip at the gas station, I ALWAYS stop at ARCO station too, many times on Brookhurst and Slater. But I do go to see my client on Hamilton and Bushard in HB--so I bale out to check it out and compare.:)
 
toss002 said:
If I stay in in one place at home it does stay consistent, like 2-3 or 3-4 bars; but then after, say within a minute, it OFTEN drops to 1. But within a couple of seconds there after, it will go back up to 2-3 or 3-4 again. Weird.
Click to expand...

If I'm upstairs (3-4 bars of 3G), rarely on occasion it will drop down to 1 bar or even convert to EDGE (5 bars), but that doesn't happen very often to me. If I stood still or walked around my upstairs for two hours, it might drop down to one bar or EDGE maybe once and last for one minute. It does do it, but it's rare.
 
As more and more leaves start to fall off of the trees around here for fall/winter, every carriers signal starts to improve for everyone. Until next spring/summer, anyways.... Yipee.
 
andyblila said:
Yeah I was surprised when I went up to LA too. There was no 3G at Disneyland! Happiest Place in the world my butt! LOL!
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That sucks lol. I live about an hour north of Disneyland and we go all the time. It's gonna suck when I have to kill time in line on EDGE instead of 3G!
 
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