AT&T Customers Continuing to Experience Excessive Dropped Calls

[IgnatiusTheKing]

It's funny how the only place that people are unhappy with AT&T service and the iPhone is in surveys and on these forums.

While I won't pretend I read that entire, giant block of unformatted text, I will say that this is hardly the only place people complain about AT&T service. Though there are undoubtedly people that get great service and rarely drop calls on the carrier, AT&T service is almost universally disliked and has become the butt of many jokes, both on and off the Internet.

Agree about the iPhone, though I suspect most of the complaining here is due to the fact that people rarely sign up for a message board account (you being a notable exception, of course) just to say that everything is fine.

 

[alent1234]

Another fallout from terrible AT&T service is that in many shops and restaurants, at least in the San Francisco area, and especially Berkeley, you can't check in using location services like Foursquare or Facebook Places since there isn't adequate coverage- eg: no service, no signal etc.

That's bad for business.

Merchants too should press AT&T and local authorities for more towers and better connections.

SJ said it takes 2 years to build a cell tower in the bay area. compared to something like 6 months in texas

 

[IgnatiusTheKing]

:d

 

[AndrewLockhart]

For once I am glad to live in the UK. Usually we get ripped off left right and center. The iPhone4 is available on all networks, even if there is little difference in price.
Andy Lockhart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5GOFMuiFkk

 

[AJsAWiz]

Ridiculous number of dropped calls. What a terrible excuse for customer service this was. Whenever I have called them about any other issues, they have been really helpful. When this guy found out I had Iphone4, he acted like he couldn't get me off the phone fast enough. Told me "the phone has problems, get the bumper, have I resolved your issues?"

My device is quirky. The proximity sensor has a mind of its own, it gets hung up on tasks daily, the reception is terrible. For ME, Iphone4 SUCKS and when people ask me if I recommend it, I'm with CR. Miss my 3gs which my husband is enjoying. Crap.

I can relate to your frustrations, I've been going through the wringer with AT&T for about a year now . . . Mass dropped calls, poor reception in most areas or no service at all. I made multiple calls to AT&T and a few to Apple. I've been through all of the trouble shooting steps many times, including 2 sim card replacements and 3 iPhone replacements. All this on an iPhone 3 GS! As a last resort I've filed a complaint with the BBB. When my contract runs out in a few months I'll have to jump ship and ditch AT&T, and regretfully abandon the iPhone. If opens iPhone to other carriers by then I might reconsider. Guess I'll give the Android a look

:d

LOL

Why do you stay with ATT?

Probably, because like me and many others they are locked into a two year contract. Mine can't end fast enough

 

[yukio]

SJ said it takes 2 years to build a cell tower in the bay area. compared to something like 6 months in texas

it's not a sf bay area problem nearly as much as it is a san francisco problem.

i live in the city, and i swear - while the rest of us are working - the "neighbors against things we don't understand" go to each and every city board meeting and derail cell antenna applications.

even though we have huge chunks of the city with electrified light rail wires overhead emitting their own em radiation, it's the cellphones that must be stopped.

i'm not making excuses for att - because i think that they have experience deploying in plenty of difficult markets - they just choose to not work the system to get things done.

and let's face it - service always declines in a single-provider model.

 

[JoEw]

only issue i have with at&t is dropped calls. 3G in my area is fast and reliable usually.

I had this issue before my iphone 4 with my 3G iphone.

 

[tangodiva]

Had drop call issues with my iPhone 3G ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. Not kidding. Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Indiana, New York, New Jersey . . . you get the picture.

Now with my iPhone 4, it is WORSE. I get dropped 3 or 4 times during a 15 minute conversation.

Talked my friend into an iPhone (it is GREAT for everything except being a phone) and she, in 3 days, has had to return 2 phones that were defective. She, a tech industry executive, asked AT&T and Apple what their failure rate was, and they replied, "We can't tell you that." Go figure. Also learned that there is one side of the band on the iPhone 4 for telephone and the other side for data. Having your hands directly on either side will diminish the reception. Using a headset does help (keeping hands off phone)

My iPad hasn't seemed to have so many problems connecting on the go, but it does run a little slower sometimes. Have to say it rules, except the flash thing (best surfing anywhere?????), but another thread

 

[alent1234]

Had drop call issues with my iPhone 3G ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. Not kidding. Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Indiana, New York, New Jersey . . . you get the picture.

Now with my iPhone 4, it is WORSE. I get dropped 3 or 4 times during a 15 minute conversation.

Talked my friend into an iPhone (it is GREAT for everything except being a phone) and she, in 3 days, has had to return 2 phones that were defective. She, a tech industry executive, asked AT&T and Apple what their failure rate was, and they replied, "We can't tell you that." Go figure. Also learned that there is one side of the band on the iPhone 4 for telephone and the other side for data. Having your hands directly on either side will diminish the reception. Using a headset does help (keeping hands off phone)

My iPad hasn't seemed to have so many problems connecting on the go, but it does run a little slower sometimes. Have to say it rules, except the flash thing (best surfing anywhere?????), but another thread

why is it that it's usually the newbie accounts that have the most trouble with their iphones?

 

[alent1234]

my wife used to complain about dropped calls and poor signal at a military base in Long Island. i see a few dead zones once in a while in NYC. in laws have dumb phones on AT&T and never complain. my wife and I moved them from Verizon to get on a family plan

 

[jctevere]

I have consistently had problems with dropped calls ever since I switched from the original iPhone to the iPhone 3GS, they replaced my phone twice because of it. It would work for a while, but then drop calls, or get 10 call failures before actually placing a call, just to be dropped minutes later...

Yesterday I finally upgraded to 4.0.2 and it is even worse! Not only do I barely get any signal in my house, even when it shows I have a signal it still doesn't work. The problem seems to be when it goes into sleep mode it disconnects, because when I unlock it, a swarm of text messages and voice mails from missed calls I never received pour in...

I finally called up AT&T to see if there was anything they could do (maybe give me one of the femtocells to keep my 5 iPhone family plan happy (bill is almost $300 a month)... I was greeted by an unfriendly and unhelpful customer service agent. She pretty much told me there was nothing she could do (and when I asked about the femtocell she had no idea what it was, didn't even offer for me to buy it), and then she said its just the network, it happens to her all the time, I am probably in an area with poor coverage.

I told her to look it up on the AT&T coverage map it shows "best coverage" all around my house and where I live, pretty much most of Long Island. To which she said "coverage is not at all guaranteed", I flipped a bird and said "what the fu*k does that even mean, so I can get an at&t phone and pay for the service and you can't even guarantee I get service in any location around the world, even if you advertise it" to which she responded "yup". And I said, that's just ridiculous, I might as well switch to a carrier such as sprint or verizion (my parents have one of each) and they get service in our household. And then she said "Go ahead and switch". I don't remember exactly what I said after that, but she followed with other dumb remarks, such as, it could just be what your house is made of, or do you live underground? I'm sure I live in a cave lady... But I really can't bash all the Customer service agents at AT&T, some are great and very helpful.

Never the less, I was very pissed and disappointed with how AT&T is handling itself. Never have I had such poor customer service. When I had nextel and complained about their crappy service, they were very apologetic and offered me free stuff, and even if I never mentioned dropping them, but even hinted at the possibility, they would offer me upgrades and the works just to keep me... AT&T is just hit or miss, when the network works, its great and super fast, but if your in a high traffic or any other area, its the pits... Which is why I think people on the forums have such a hard time understanding these complaints. I bet the reason for the big change in satisfaction surveys has to do with geographic location. When I was in any other state but NY the service worked when it said I had service, but even then I could have full service, travel 10ft and get No service to show up on the iPhone, very spotty at best.

I am definitely going to switch my entire family plan over to verizion when our contracts are up in a year, I really hope they get the iPhone, if not, droid here I come! But to the rest of the community, has this ever happened to anyone else but me? Should I call back AT&T, at this point I would be willing to buy the femtocell, my phone doesn't work in passive mode, only gets service when I am on it and unlocked.

EDIT:
I actually looked up the femtocell, which is now called microcell to make sure I wasn't going crazy and to see if it is available in my area (which it is), and I saw a video that I just find hilarious! If you go to the following link and click on "increased signal strength" in the interactive video that loads on AT&T website for the microcell, it starts to play a video that actually shows how crappy their service is, with the guy having to hang out of the window to make a call... WTF? AT&T should fire whoever makes their commercials...
Check it out: http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/why/3gmicrocell/

 

[IgnatiusTheKing]

why is it that it's usually the newbie accounts that have the most trouble with their iphones?

It's not just "newbies" that have excessive dropped calls on AT&T (and the iPhone in particular). If you really think it is, you haven't been paying attention to this board for the last three years.

 

[kingtj]

Yep... sounds like AT&T cust. service to me!

I *almost* feel guilty bashing AT&T at times, because 2 of my good friends have worked for them for years. But the company ALWAYS manages to infuriate me enough that I can't help myself. One of the two of them USED to try to defend AT&T when I started in on it, but even he has given up now - because the situations I keep describing to him are ones he simply can't make excuses for.

Here in St. Louis, MO - we don't have the notorious dropped call problems of parts of downtown Chicago or New York City, but it's still pretty bad! I had the original iPhone and then the 3G, and I could expect it to lose about every other call I made or answered. I can't say the iPhone's design didn't contribute to it, but all I know is, my friends on AT&T's network using other phones like the Motorola Razr told me they experienced pretty much the same thing.

We were using AT&T for cellphones, T1 data and voice circuits and regular land-lines where I work, plus advertising in the AT&T Yellow Pages, and NONE of it has been a good experience!

My "dedicated key corporate account representative" is notorious for never answering her office phone and not returning phone calls. SOMETIMES she'll email you a reply to a question or request after a few days, and other times? She might just forward it to someone else in her dept. who may or may not follow up. About the only time she made an appearance and acted like she cared was when AT&T gave her a "mission", such as getting her corporate customers to answer and send back some survey they were putting together. It was like pulling teeth to even get the company to call back to remind us when contracts were up for renewal!

Every year, we seem to have a new Yellow Pages sales rep. because whoever was assigned to us before has moved on to a new job.... It gets really old re-explaining everything about the business every year.

On the iPhone accounts, AT&T can't even seem to figure out what some of their pricing plans are for!? One of our iPhones was being billed about $10 a month more than the others because they configured it on a "corporate" plan they claimed was necessary for using it with our Exchange server. (Funny, but Exchange email worked just fine without this "extra" on the other phones!) When I questioned them, they couldn't pin down a reason for the "up charge". I finally determined it was simply an extra fee AT&T likes to try to talk businesses into paying, yet it serves no real purpose. It's probably just based on some theory that iPhone users connected to corporate Exchange servers will use more data than other people, so they'd like to get more money out of them. I finally got someone to remove the charge and the phone still works exactly like it did before!

I have consistently had problems with dropped calls ever since I switched from the original iPhone to the iPhone 3GS, they replaced my phone twice because of it. It would work for a while, but then drop calls, or get 10 call failures before actually placing a call, just to be dropped minutes later...

Yesterday I finally upgraded to 4.0.2 and it is even worse! Not only do I barely get any signal in my house, even when it shows I have a signal it still doesn't work. The problem seems to be when it goes into sleep mode it disconnects, because when I unlock it, a swarm of text messages and voice mails from missed calls I never received pour in...

I finally called up AT&T to see if there was anything they could do (maybe give me one of the femtocells to keep my 5 iPhone family plan happy (bill is almost $300 a month)... I was greeted by an unfriendly and unhelpful customer service agent. She pretty much told me there was nothing she could do (and when I asked about the femtocell she had no idea what it was, didn't even offer for me to buy it), and then she said its just the network, it happens to her all the time, I am probably in an area with poor coverage.

I told her to look it up on the AT&T coverage map it shows "best coverage" all around my house and where I live, pretty much most of Long Island. To which she said "coverage is not at all guaranteed", I flipped a bird and said "what the fu*k does that even mean, so I can get an at&t phone and pay for the service and you can't even guarantee I get service in any location around the world, even if you advertise it" to which she responded "yup". And I said, that's just ridiculous, I might as well switch to a carrier such as sprint or verizion (my parents have one of each) and they get service in our household. And then she said "Go ahead and switch". I don't remember exactly what I said after that, but she followed with other dumb remarks, such as, it could just be what your house is made of, or do you live underground? I'm sure I live in a cave lady... But I really can't bash all the Customer service agents at AT&T, some are great and very helpful.

Never the less, I was very pissed and disappointed with how AT&T is handling itself. Never have I had such poor customer service. When I had nextel and complained about their crappy service, they were very apologetic and offered me free stuff, and even if I never mentioned dropping them, but even hinted at the possibility, they would offer me upgrades and the works just to keep me... AT&T is just hit or miss, when the network works, its great and super fast, but if your in a high traffic or any other area, its the pits... Which is why I think people on the forums have such a hard time understanding these complaints. I bet the reason for the big change in satisfaction surveys has to do with geographic location. When I was in any other state but NY the service worked when it said I had service, but even then I could have full service, travel 10ft and get No service to show up on the iPhone, very spotty at best.

I am definitely going to switch my entire family plan over to verizion when our contracts are up in a year, I really hope they get the iPhone, if not, droid here I come! But to the rest of the community, has this ever happened to anyone else but me? Should I call back AT&T, at this point I would be willing to buy the femtocell, my phone doesn't work in passive mode, only gets service when I am on it and unlocked.

EDIT:
I actually looked up the femtocell, which is now called microcell to make sure I wasn't going crazy and to see if it is available in my area (which it is), and I saw a video that I just find hilarious! If you go to the following link and click on "increased signal strength" in the interactive video that loads on AT&T website for the microcell, it starts to play a video that actually shows how crappy their service is, with the guy having to hang out of the window to make a call... WTF? AT&T should fire whoever makes their commercials...
Check it out: http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/why/3gmicrocell/

 

[Sticman]

it's not a sf bay area problem nearly as much as it is a san francisco problem..

Sorry ur SF AT&T service is lousy, but I disagree...AT&T is crappy in many parts of Santa Clara County (San Jose) as well.
And, I think its worse in NYC than in SF, based upon my personal experience.

 

[AJsAWiz]

Does everything but phone calls!

It's not just "newbies" that have excessive dropped calls on AT&T (and the iPhone in particular). If you really think it is, you haven't been paying attention to this board for the last three years.

I agree. I've been with AT&T since the original iPhone. Reception had been fine up until about a year ago. I, now, have the 3 GS and have had nothing but trouble, with dropped calls and weak inconsistent or non existent signals, for well over the past year or so. I've made multiple calls to AT&T to no avail. Some reps even refuse to acknowledge the problem. The bottom line is that my current contract ends in January 2011. So, I'll more than likely jump the iPhone ship and migrate to the Android then. It's a shame because . . . as David Letterman said . . . you can do everything on an iPhone but make and receive calls

Side note:
AT&T's customer service has been so bad I even dropped their home phone service and went to another provider.

 

[JnericMBP]

"check in" apps

Another fallout from terrible AT&T service is that in many shops and restaurants, at least in the San Francisco area, and especially Berkeley, you can't check in using location services like Foursquare or Facebook Places since there isn't adequate coverage- eg: no service, no signal etc.

That's bad for business.

Merchants too should press AT&T and local authorities for more towers and better connections.

I'd think that for the "check in" portion of those apps, that would be a good thing. I don't know about you but I don't want big brother knowing everywhere I go. Just a thought...

 

[AJsAWiz]

Craig Ferguson

Did a funny bit on the new iPod Touch announcement. He said it was like an iPhone except it doesn't make calls . . . then he said, oh that IS an iPhone!
Sad but true

Come on, Apple . . . open this thing up to other cell phone providers. Perhaps those (like me) getting terrible reception and dropped calls might get better phone service. AND maybe we'll see a drop in rates for everyone. Competition is good for the market

 

[Jumpin JW]

dropped calls from husbands phone

"He never experienced dropped calls until we started dating and he was talking to me "

My daughter's phone does the same thing!

 

[drapacioli]

Is it just certain phones that get dropped calls? I have AT&T and when I demoed the iPhone in store the only phone call I tried to make with it was a dropped call. But my current phone, the Samsung Captivate, I have never even had a low signal, let alone a dropped call.

 

[mangrove]

The happiest day of my life finally arrived-I switched to Verizon 2 days ago.

 

[AJsAWiz]

The happiest dat of

Great! Hope you come back and let us know how the service is and how it compares to AT&T. Which phone did you get?

Is it just certain phones that get dropped calls? I have AT&T and when I demoed the iPhone in store the only phone call I tried to make with it was a dropped call. But my current phone, the Samsung Captivate, I have never even had a low signal, let alone a dropped call.

You might have a point. I've been side by side with another person (also an AT&T subscriber) who has a Nokia. I have no or low bars and they have bars.

 

[drapacioli]

You might have a point. I've been side by side with another person (also an AT&T subscriber) who has a Nokia. I have no or low bars and they have bars.

It's just from my experience. I've been with AT&T for five years and had 4 cell phones throughout my contracts. Some phones, such as my LG Vu and Motorola RAZR had spotty reception, but my K1 and Captivate had almost no dropped calls except in the mountains where you can't expect cell reception to be high anyway.

Not to say I love AT&T or anything like that, they are expensive and the 3G signal is not always the best. However we can get our way with AT&T when phones break or problems occur because we have been with them for a while.

 

[mangrove]

The happiest dat of

Great! Hope you come back and let us know how the service is and how it compares to AT&T. Which phone did you get?

Since I have an iPad that is really all I need + Verizon. Everywhere I would go where people had no reception (me too with iPhone), I would ask what carrier they use-nearly 100% said AT&T. Then in those same instances/places I would ask people those who could talk freely on their phones what carrier they used and it was like 98 out of 100 said Verizon.

That's why I switched. Got a simple phone-Samsung Haven-2 phones for $60./month, but only 450 minutes (which I never exceeded with 2 iPhones) for around $165./month.

Sure hope the iPad is Verizon compatible soon too.

The upside to having 2 dead iPhones--now we have 2 wifi iPods so all the iPhone apps work on them.

 

[mattniles007]

I agree mangrove. I want an iPad that is Verizon compatible.

 

[AJsAWiz]

Great idea

Since I have an iPad that is really all I need + Verizon. Everywhere I would go where people had no reception (me too with iPhone), I would ask what carrier they use-nearly 100% said AT&T. Then in those same instances/places I would ask people those who could talk freely on their phones what carrier they used and it was like 98 out of 100 said Verizon.

That's why I switched. Got a simple phone-Samsung Haven-2 phones for $60./month, but only 450 minutes (which I never exceeded with 2 iPhones) for around $165./month.

Sure hope the iPad is Verizon compatible soon too.

The upside to having 2 dead iPhones--now we have 2 wifi iPods so all the iPhone apps work on them.

You made 2 good points. I have an iPad as well so I all I really would need is a phone to make and receive calls (since my iPhone has failed miserably in that respect). Like you, I'll probably use my iPhone as an iPod touch with WiFi! Thanks for the tip