AT&T Dropped Call Rate of 30% Considered Normal in New York City

You think it is bad for iPhone users only....with my company's massive (thousands) number of blackberries with AT&T, not to mention aircards, the iPhone's massive use of bandwidth and cell saturation is hurting more than itself.

At least AT&T has been stepping up their efforts by investing billions into building new towers and expanding and solidifying their coverage.

I get about the same drop rate or worse in the DC Metro area. I also have friends on AT&T that have their text messages go to the wrong person. Thinking seriously of getting a Verizon BB and an iPod Touch to replace my iPhone. Sorry

Yeah, I would estimate my dropped call rate is around 20-30% (Northern Virginia) sometimes higher depending on the day. They said they built a new tower near me, but ever since I got that message, my coverage has dropped at least one to two bars everywhere I go.

i live in teh SF bay area (east bay), and i usually get about 4 bars of 3G outside, with about 1mbps down, and 150kbps up (horrible) speeds. but inside... i'm lucky to get two bars of 3G, and i it drops the call more than 50% of the time, and i have to manually switch to edge. and even outside when i get good service, its about 30% fail rate.

Step up your game AT&T, you knew what you were getting into when you saw what this godlike device could do, and what it required to do it. and then you failed to meet the requirements, europe seems to handle it just fine, so what the ****?

at least so far MMS has been flawless, that deserves props

Don't you just love AT&T?


(BTW, there's a few good reasons I use Verizon.)

One of those reasons is that there is no AT&T signal at my house.

Beric said:

Don't you just love AT&T?


(BTW, there's a few good reasons I use Verizon.)

One of those reasons is that there is no AT&T signal at my house.

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Having worked very closely with the head engineers of AT&T, I do feel sorry for them. As someone stated earlier, that are spending billions to upgrade the network, but all that money will only meet current demand in some areas. The iPhone is such an incredible success that AT&T never had a chance. The same would be said about Verizon had they got the exclusive contract. If you want to lay the blame at anyones feet, it should be Apple. They should have made a CDMA version and split the load between the networks.

Here in Phoenix I have not had too many issues. i get full strength signal most of the time and almost always 3g. however there are a few places i have that and still cannot get data, luckily its not often, and usually its in the evening which is probably heavy usage times.

Yeah, if it weren't exclusive the load would be split between multiple networks, and also increase competition in terms of network performance, features, and pricing. But no, that would be too logical...

You suck Apple! At least you have a chance to correct your mistake, just don't renew the agreement with AT&T.

NeroAZ said:

Here in Phoenix I have not had too many issues. i get full strength signal most of the time and almost always 3g. however there are a few places i have that and still cannot get data, luckily its not often, and usually its in the evening which is probably heavy usage times.

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You also live in a place without a lot of trees and which is relatively flat. It doesn't get much better for signal coverage. I live in an area that is about the same coverage wise and the 3G signal is ALWAYS 5 bars anywhere I go in town. 3G speeds are easily as fast as my iPhone on wifi. You and I have it good. I really do feel for people in densely populated areas like NYC and San Fran who have dismal service. You have no idea how good it can be.

ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC AT&T!!!

I took my 3G in to an Apple Store after extensive phone-based troubleshooting with Applecare techs and AT&T techs complaining of dropped calls. They ran a diagnostic that showed I had a 44% dropped call rate and gave me a replacement phone. Unfortunately AT&T also spent the summer robusting their network, so I continued to have problems though to a lesser degree. Over the last few weeks since they completed their network upgrades, I have seen my dropped call rate decrease significantly. Not necessarily happy with AT&T, their network, and the problems/service to date, but if the upgraded network proves over time that it is less prone to signal and dropped call issues, then I will be happier at least.

BTW, Denver, CO.

leaving for Verizon

The dropped calls are the dealbreaker. I love my iPhone but it just doesn't perform at anything approaching an acceptable level.

Missed calls. Dropped calls. Missing voicemails. 3 day late voicemails. There are consequences these days of having a communication device that behaves randomly. You trust it when you shouldn't and it costs you business and makes you look unreliable.

Most of this is ATT's fault, but frankly the phone has attributes that are Apple's fault, like the volume level. In any case it has to be a good phone first and it is not. The network is the phone, and the network sucks.

Hope I get enough on Ebay to buy an iPod touch.

I never knew people were experiencing this many dropped calls. I guess I don't make calls enough to experience all the fail. AT&T is the only phone company I've had, so I don't know any different. If Verizon did get the iPhone, I'm sure their network would struggle a bit too.

THIS IS DISGRACEFUL !!!!!!!!!

With AT&T being the cell phone carrier that charges the most, they should be EXPECTED to provide the best quality service in the industry. If AT&T thinks 30% of all calls being dropped is "normal," this is absolutely unacceptable! So this means that of every ten phone calls to 911, 3 being dropped is "normal" and acceptable????? And major corporations with thousands of employees are supposed to sign up for cell service with AT&T, knowing that 30% of all calls (with customers) being dropped is, in AT&T's eyes, acceptable????????

well then maybe i'll pay 30% of my bill... =P

Manhattan has some crappy, crappy AT&T service. It's not even "coverage" that's the issue. 5 bars of 3G (whether I'm using a BlackBerry or iPhone)-- it just doesn't want to work. The iPhone needs some sort of compression or else it'll just bring the entire network down.

liquidsnake621 said:

well then maybe i'll pay 30% of my bill... =P

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You mean you will pay 70% of your bill, sinc ethat is the amount that works.

I really think AT&T cannot make it better.
MMS is not looking that good either. I know many that still cannot use it.
Dropped calls all the time. The alien voice syndrom was always funny, but not anymore.

They are over their heads. Too much to handle.

The only thing that they can do is let apple out of the agreement so other carriers can take some of the load off their hands.

I will stay with AT&T since most everyone I know uses it, but it would be nice to let everyone that came to AT&T to be able to go back to the carrier of their choice.

I also think AT&T should lower the monthly charges. They were suppose to use the extra to upgrade. That didnt happen. Now they are scrambling.

BS...How is this a purely iPhone caused issue?

I used to live in NYC when the technology was just TDMA, it was piss poor then.

AT&T had terrible service then, and the New York State AG wanted to sue them for overselling their service.

In 2005 AT&T was passing out 3G SIMS like raffle tickets in phones that weren't 3G -I need some internal wireless guru to tell if that extra hand-off doesn't make a difference.

Does the 2007 iPhone (2G) having better call performance versus the iPhone 3G?

What percentage of all 3G devices on the AT&T platform is the iPhone 3G?

Is there something wrong in the code for the iPhone's 3G implmentation of the protocol that makes it use more of the network compared to a Blackberry Bold?

Or does AT&T just keep scapegoating iPhone cause they finally have a product that no other U.S. carrier has and everybody appears to want.

Metatron said:

Having worked very closely with the head engineers of AT&T, I do feel sorry for them. As someone stated earlier, that are spending billions to upgrade the network, but all that money will only meet current demand in some areas. The iPhone is such an incredible success that AT&T never had a chance. The same would be said about Verizon had they got the exclusive contract. If you want to lay the blame at anyones feet, it should be Apple. They should have made a CDMA version and split the load between the networks.

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You have a point, but Apple didn't necessarily want an exclusive carrier. That does nothing for Apple's business. AT&T obviously paid for Apple's exclusivity.

I understand that AT&T has a problem, and they are trying to fix the problem. But they have made TONS OF MONEY off people switching from Verizon/Sprint/etc. It may take time for that money to become new towers and infrastructure, but they cannot say that there is no problem.

AT&T had to drop the "Fewest Dropped Calls" ad campaign because it turned out to be mostly false. "More Bars in More Places" means nothing when everyone else is using all those bars.

33scottie33 said:

I get about the same drop rate or worse in the DC Metro area. I also have friends on AT&T that have their text messages go to the wrong person. Thinking seriously of getting a Verizon BB and an iPod Touch to replace my iPhone. Sorry

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I get very good reception in the DC metro area (NoVA). I estimate only 1-5% dropped calls, which is acceptable to me.

wow, how spectacularly awful.

Whorehay said:

Manhattan has some crappy, crappy AT&T service. It's not even "coverage" that's the issue. 5 bars of 3G (whether I'm using a BlackBerry or iPhone)-- it just doesn't want to work. The iPhone needs some sort of compression or else it'll just bring the entire network down.

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I'll second that - I actually use EDGE most of the time in Manhattan and I find that I'll get a random voicemail from a call 6 hours ago... and my iPhone didn't even ring.