I don't understand why people are complaining about AT&T signals.

[kdarling]

The fact is, even back in 2008 Americans were sending more texts a day than they made phone calls. By 2009, the ratio had doubled.

So it's quite believable that many users, especially the younger ones, don't think of voice calls as a priority.

(In my neck of the woods, calls from iPhones are almost guaranteed to drop if the call goes over five minutes. People seem used / resigned to it.)

 

[robanga]

I have read a lot of non-scientific evidence on this on various blogs etc. and I think its all about network performance in the greater NYC and SF areas. Which btw is where most of the tech journalists reside.

AT&T recognized this and beefed up their networks in these areas but its hard to get permission and pay for new towers in densely populated areas.

In Oregon where I live, in Denver where i travel a lot, in Chicago as well I have never had an issue. Fast network that performs well.

In a real scientific test they actually beat the others in speed tests. (pcworld i believe?)

 

[mtnDewFTW]

Why carry around 2 devices when you can have it all in the iPhone?

But if the phone itself doesn't work, it's basically like having an iPod.

 

[hcho3]

But if the phone itself doesn't work, it's basically like having an iPod.

Ipod touch still has long way to go before it can be even compared to the iPhone 4. The screen is retina display on both devices, but it looks nicer on iPhone 4. Dunno why... But, it did at the apple store.

 

[gtmac]

Don't you get 30 days of time to return your phone? If you service is crap, then I assume you go to your work, school, vacation, club, gym and your ex-wives houses or wherever you go, wouldn't you have figured it out by 30 days? So, why in the world people are complaining? You had 30 days to test it. After 30 days, you decided to keep it knowing that AT&T service is not up to your expectations. But, you are still complaining about it.

I don't understand how can people complain about their home/work signals... You knew the signals were bad, so why in the world didn't you change the provider who gives you signals in 30 days?
If you say because of an iPhone, then you have a mental problem... seriously.
Primary reason for having a phone is to make calls. It's not to play angry birds or read emails. It's for making and receiving calls. This is why I absolutely have no pity for folks who say they get no signals at all at their houses or work. Obviously these places are where you will be almost everyday. So, why are you all complaining about again the choice you made?

We put up with crap service for the iPhone, that says a lot about the iPhone. I heard an AT&T rep saying iPhone customer retention was high they must be doing something right, well Apple is dragging their ass behind them.

I often feel stupid for keeping the iPhone when I am on my fourth or fifth dropped call in less than 10 minutes.

 

[Roofy.]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

I don't really care about making calls tbh

 

[Roofy.]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Yes it's the fact that they want to have an iPhone and no other phone so they don't want to switch because that would result in not having an iPhone.

There is so much the iPhone can do that they don't want to give it up to get better service. Thats why they keep pushing Apple to go on Verizon so there is options for people.

I get good AT&T service so I'm fine with my iPhone.

So it's just that people love the iPhone and don't want to have any other phone. They just continue complaining about the signal.

So, these are fanboys. I have no pity for these fanboys. These fanboys believe that Steve is a jesus and Apple is some sort of holy company. I hope they get more drop calls...

What the **** is wrong with wanting to stick with what you like?

I love how (other fanboys) automatically assume something is fanboyish

 

[goobot]

I had to stand outside to make calls, and with a LDR, calling my girlfriend for an hour in -10 was about as fun eating seeded grapes.

if you can get a signal out side your house but not in it, it is your house not the signal.

 

[macsrcool1234]

Ipod touch still has long way to go before it can be even compared to the iPhone 4. The screen is retina display on both devices, but it looks nicer on iPhone 4. Dunno why... But, it did at the apple store.

Your crappy arguments and terrible grammar make my eyes bleed. Why hasn't this thread been closed yet?

 

[TheMacBookPro]

AT&T service in my area (central Florida) is solid. I have no problems surfing the web or streaming movies and TV shows to the iPhone from Netflix over the 3G network. BTW, I was using BellSouth/AT&T for quite a while before the first iPhone came out, so I didn't chose AT&T because of the iPhone. I bought my first iPhone because I really liked what I could do on the iPod Touch. FWIW, I actually did switch to Verizon a few years ago because of a deal they offered me on the then-latest Motorola razr. I switched back to BellSouth within 2 weeks because the Verizon service in the area at that time was poor, and because Verizon had crippled the Bluetooth on their razr to such an extent that it was useless to me.

As for reading ebooks, I'm an older person and my eyesight isn't that great any more. However, I have no trouble whatever reading ebooks on the iPhone. I use eReader for most of my reading on the iPhone rather that iBooks. This app allows changes in fonts, font size, line spacing, and page background, making it easy to set up ebooks to best suit your vision.

Yes, the iPhone is easy to use. I have no idea what you mean by "open-ness."

I meant open-ness = ease to modify the internal filestructure.

You probably would have a better time reading on say the Droid X or another phone with a 4+ inch screen simply b/c of the lower pixel density and increased screen real estate.

Based on the comments I frequently read on these forums, it sounds like you're one of the few people who are actually happy with ATT

@all who say data>voice. Fine, but wouldn't you still need signal to get data on the go? Sure there's WiFi in some places but when I pay that much for data I expect to be able to use it wherever I go.

 

[Geckotek]

Don't you get 30 days of time to return your phone? If you service is crap, then I assume you go to your work, school, vacation, club, gym and your ex-wives houses or wherever you go, wouldn't you have figured it out by 30 days? So, why in the world people are complaining? You had 30 days to test it. After 30 days, you decided to keep it knowing that AT&T service is not up to your expectations. But, you are still complaining about it.

I don't understand how can people complain about their home/work signals... You knew the signals were bad, so why in the world didn't you change the provider who gives you signals in 30 days?
If you say because of an iPhone, then you have a mental problem... seriously.
Primary reason for having a phone is to make calls. It's not to play angry birds or read emails. It's for making and receiving calls. This is why I absolutely have no pity for folks who say they get no signals at all at their houses or work. Obviously these places are where you will be almost everyday. So, why are you all complaining about again the choice you made?

If the only situation you can think of running into signal issues is the first 30 days, then you must be the one with the mental problem. A 2 year contract is plenty of time for lots of things to change. Jobs change, homes move, reception degrades.

Stop trolling.

 

[mtnDewFTW]

Ipod touch still has long way to go before it can be even compared to the iPhone 4. The screen is retina display on both devices, but it looks nicer on iPhone 4. Dunno why... But, it did at the apple store.

...are you being serious right now?

 

[mgamber]

*yawn*

Really? Someone on macrumors trying to stir s**t about nothing? How original.

 

[Fuchal]

Fanboy, meet troll.

 

[kdarling]

I have read a lot of non-scientific evidence on this on various blogs etc. and I think its all about network performance in the greater NYC and SF areas. Which btw is where most of the tech journalists reside.

AT&T recognized this and beefed up their networks in these areas but its hard to get permission and pay for new towers in densely populated areas.

The "three years to get a new tower permit" excuse is a clever bunch of handwaving when talking about heavily cell-sited places like NYC and SF.

While it might (or not) be true that it could take that long to get a new tower, it's meaningless as there's NO NEED for new towers. There already are hundreds of jointly used locations on top of all the best buildings. They just need to man up and lease space from them.

AT&T has gone on record that their site planning was not the best before, but they're improving their tools.

Heck, just turning on 850MHz in NYC and SF caused a 30% increase in traffic because now people could get signals inside buildings where it couldn't penetrate before... and this put extra pressure on their backhaul.

 

[DeBaryFL]

You probably would have a better time reading on say the Droid X or another phone with a 4+ inch screen simply b/c of the lower pixel density and increased screen real estate.

I don't really understand that arguement against the iPhone. Yes, a larger screen would of course make reading RELATIVELY easier, but if I can read fine on the iPhone then why should I need anything else? I'm a high-tech-toy junkie and have owned a number of Pocket PCs, mostly iPAQs but others as well. Out of curiosity I just compared the same material (a digital issue of Analog SciFi magazine) on an old iPAQ HX 4705 with 4" screen and on my iPhone 4. Believe it or not, the text and pictures are sharper and easier to read on the iPhone.

Based on the comments I frequently read on these forums, it sounds like you're one of the few people who are actually happy with ATT

Is that possibly because it's only people who have problems who complain? There's another thread on here asking people how AT&T service is in their area. From the responses it looks like quite a few people are happy with their AT&T service.

Just to clear the record, I'm neither an AT&T nor an Apple "fanboy." I'm an older, retired guy who, as I said earlier, loves high-tech toys. I have the money to buy what I want, and if needed, to pay the cancellation fee to move to another provider at any time if I am unhappy with my current provider. Yes, I have played with Driods and other smartphones, but have found none that I like better than the iPhone -- if I had I would change in a heartbeat. Just ask my kids who, if I time it right, are going to inherit little money but drawers full of old Pocket PCs, cell phones, and tablet and laptop computers!

What it comes right down to is that it's really a personal choice. If you'd rather have a Droid or Windows Mobile Phone or whatever, then go for it. It's like I once told a fellow I worked with who was always trying to convert me to his religion, feel free to worship that doorknob (or cell phone in this case) if you want, I really don't care -- just don't tell me I have to do it.

 

[jav6454]

(In my neck of the woods, calls from iPhones are almost guaranteed to drop if the call goes over five minutes. People seem used / resigned to it.)

Not the case with me. 30+ minute calls when I get into conferencing and the other parties have an iPhone. No drops at all.

 

[asleep]

 

[zephxiii]

Yea, I've made a lot of long calls on my 3gs without problem.

 

[nooaah]

So, these are fanboys. I have no pity for these fanboys. These fanboys believe that Steve is a jesus and Apple is some sort of holy company. I hope they get more drop calls...

I think you need to look up the definition of a "fan boy" again, sir.

 

[kdarling]

Not the case with me. 30+ minute calls when I get into conferencing and the other parties have an iPhone. No drops at all.

Are you moving at the time? Or sitting in one location?

 

[SAD*FACED*CLOWN]

rhetorical questions

how come Cingular's network was never considered bad? most of AT&T's wireless infrastrcuture is the old cingular network....how come no one complained about AT&T until the iPhone 3G was about to be released? and how come non iPhone users never complain about AT&T signal problems?

 

[zephxiii]

how come Cingular's network was never considered bad? most of AT&T's wireless infrastrcuture is the old cingular network....how come no one complained about AT&T until the iPhone 3G was about to be released? and how come non iPhone users never complain about AT&T signal problems?

Well when the 3g came out, that put a whole new load on a network that was using a single 1900mhz channel, a fraction of their spectrum compared to what GSM was using (oh and possibly AMPS/TDMA as well at the time).

 

[Geckotek]

how come Cingular's network was never considered bad? most of AT&T's wireless infrastrcuture is the old cingular network....how come no one complained about AT&T until the iPhone 3G was about to be released? and how come non iPhone users never complain about AT&T signal problems?

I complained. I had tons of dropped calls w/ my Samsung A747 flip (a 3G phone). Held out hoping the iPhone 3G would be better (and that the 3G network would improve quickly). It did improve over time, but not quickly at all. I personally feel they ignored it for the first year.

 

[zephxiii]

I complained. I had tons of dropped calls w/ my Samsung A747 flip (a 3G phone). Held out hoping the iPhone 3G would be better (and that the 3G network would improve quickly). It did improve over time, but not quickly at all. I personally feel they ignored it for the first year.

Yep, the channel overlays weren't quick to roll out.