AT&T 3G outage in the Phoenix area

[mingoglia]

I'm curious if anyone else in the Phoenix metro area is having problems. About 1 1/2 weeks ago (maybe 2 weeks) I noticed having more dropped calls on my Blackberry. My business partner was having some problems on his Motorola phone. Anyway, on Friday I was talking to the COO of another subsidiary of my company that said he had to run out early to get to the AT&T store because he thought that the iPhone was having an issue. Apparently his one and NINE others were ALL experiencing the same issue. He thought perhaps it had been an update that he was not aware of since the issue was happening for an extended period. I stopped him and told him about my and my partner's phone. He called AT&T and they said they were not experiencing any outages (BTW, this is in Tempe, AZ about 2 miles from ASU).

I was then driving home and I called my wife a couple of times and she didn't answer. Finally she answered and she said that she was on the phone with AT&T (she did not know of the issues I was experiencing). She said that she was having issues with her LG phone. I told her about the issues and she swapped back over to the AT&T representative. At this time AT&T ADMITTED (for once in my lifetime) that there WAS a problem, though it was isolated to Scottsdale. They said the problem was specific to 3G only. That would explain why my business partner's phone didn't work at his house, but not why the other phones in Tempe didn't work, and why my wife was experiencing a problem in Gilbert.

Figured I'd throw this out there in case anyone else was having an issue. Over the weekend I switched my Blackberry to the 2G (EDGE) network from the auto setting (2g/3g). I'm not sure if the iPhone allows you to switch this but if you're having the issue it has proven to be a good long term bandaid as I now have a functioning phone.

ATT doesn't have an update and just said they escalated it to a "senior engineer" that will investigate the problem. They said that there isn't an outage at any tower and that the issue is "bigger than that". Not sure how much of this is BS.

 

[lumpypalmer]

Same experience in Tempe

I work in Tempe driving around the city and have had problems everywhere connecting through 3G. I have taken my iphone to the apple store twice now and they tell me because they can't duplicate the problem there is nothing they can do. It seems like it has been this way for the last two weeks, maybe more.

 

[mingoglia]

I work in Tempe driving around the city and have had problems everywhere connecting through 3G. I have taken my iphone to the apple store twice now and they tell me because they can't duplicate the problem there is nothing they can do. It seems like it has been this way for the last two weeks, maybe more.

That's consistant with what I've experienced and from what I've heard from a couple others. I don't know how a company as large as AT&T can have such an outage for such a long period of time... it's also frustrating that like usual no one (from AT&T or their stores) seems to admit there's a problem. Well that one guy admitted a small problem in just Scottsdale to my wife, but that was an isolated admission.

 

[rahuljha80]

iPhone 3G Outage - Tempe

Yes, I have been having similar outage issues since the last two weeks. Initially I thought this might have been caused by some app I've downloaded. I deleted the new apps I installed over the last two weeks. But that did not fix it. I changed the network setting to EDGE and the internet seems to work fine. But 3G is pathetic - dropped calls and no internet. I hope this issue get fixed soon. But, what puzzles me is the fact that this outage is not made public. ATT should come out with the issue like Toyota did with theirs. It is frustrating to not utilize 3G despite having the device and paying the bill.

 

[vmac117]

Problems in tempe 2-28-10

I have also been having A LOT of problems with AT&T. When I first got my iphone about a year ago everything was fine, but now I can barely hold a conversation in my home (Tempe, close to ASU) without dropping a call. It is very frustrating. Personally I think that AT&T doesn't have enough coverage and are getting too many customers. For example, I was in Las Vegas for new years eve and you couldn't use your phone to make a call or send a text if your life depended on it. There were just too many people on the network in one area (I am only assuming this was the problem, I have no education to back this up).
Well since AT&T has made the iphone cheaper more people can afford it and are more inclined to switch to AT&T. Therefore I have come to the conclusion that in areas with high volume use, such as a college town like tempe, the network is overloaded and doesn't work as well. If AT&T is going to push their phones and their service ultimately making their customer base grow they must also keep expanding their equipment (i.e towers). I don't think they are doing this.

 

[DarkKnightAZ]

Im in North Scottsdale. The last few weeks, my signal has been terrible.

I think 3g is down. My phone barely has 2 bars and has been in edge more of the time.

I hope they fix this soon !

 

[danembraceddc]

I live in northern arizona and we've had nearly no service for over a month. I know it's unrelated, but i feel we share an unspoken bond.

 

[divabimbers]

Come to think of it, I was in Tempe a few days ago before I left to go to the northern part of AZ and I noticed my 3G dropped to EDGE. It was a brief outage for me though and that was the only time I had any problems. I believe it was Friday when this happened to me. Thought it was just my iPhone momentarily acting up at the time.

 

[desertpig50]

AT&T Customer Service "non-service?"

This outage thing is really getting irritating for me. I live on the Phoenix-Tempe border. I have had 1... maybe 2 bars of service for the last week and a half. I've contacted the customer service department several times, and each time I get the run around. It's bad enough that when you call, the automated system tells you that there are reported service issues in my area, however, the agent was still saying that I should take my iPhone to the store to have it checked out because there was no evidence of this issue with other phones... HELLO!?!?

They have sent an "over-the-air activation" to my phone twice, which did nothing and I'm pretty sure is their way of getting me off the phone because they don't like resolving issues. They have also deactivated my phone and re-registered it to the tower twice, which again, did absolutely nothing but waste my precious time.

I asked the agent that I spoke with tonight what my solutions were for this issue because I was paying a lot of money for service that I was not receiving (she didn't agree with that statement btw). She told me that she could sent the activation again, which I told her had been done twice already and was not going to work this time either. She then told me to go to the store because of the "lack of evidence" scheme. I asked what the solution would be after I went to the store because they would inevitably tell me that my phone was fine. She had no answer. So I gave her one. Switching to a service provider that works sounded good to me. She did not like that one....

Well, long story short, I finally found out the reason for this freak "outage". AT&T only has one tower for the greater Phoenix area currently. Which means the thousands and thousands of us using their service are all sharing one tower. AWESOME! Heard Verizon was getting the iPhone soon...

 

[LxHunter]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148a Safari/6533.18.5)

Well I know this is off topic.
But, just be glad you don't live in downtown Toronto.
Rogers 3G never works.