iPhone Reception in Houston

[j-a-x]

I just got an iPhone here in Houston, Texas.
I used to have Nokia 6682 with T-Mobile and the reception was fine. I never had a dropped call or encountered an area in side the city with poor reception.

Now with my iPhone, I can hardly use it inside my house, and I've been walking on a street downtown and had a call drop due to poor signal strnegth.

Now what I want to know is, is this problem because the iPhone has poor reception compared to my Nokia, or is it because AT&T's network in Houston sucks compared to T-Mobile's network??

 

[nickspohn]

http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/

Check that out. If you are in a area where it says you have coverage on that map, call and complain.

Or, you could just have a bad signal receiver in your phone (but it got worse overtime)

Try to find someone you know with AT&T and ask them how it is, and see if their phone works by where you are at. If it's at 5 bars, then it's your iPhone, and you can get it replaced.

Houston is such a busy area, i don't see why signal would be bad in or around the city.

Good luck!

 

[j-a-x]

Hmm.. well the reception is the dark orange color "BEST" throughout all of inner-loop Houston with no gaps on that map, so it it looks like there should be perfect coverage everywhere.

I notice that the worst reception by far is indoors - both in my lab at Rice University, and in my apartment. My Nokia/T-Mobile combo used to always get a signal indoors or out.

Maybe if I go to an Apple store I can compare the signal strength of my iPhone with a demo.. that might be a good test. I hope my phone is not damaged.

I have heard that the iPhone generally has good reception, which is why I thought it was probably a problem with AT&T's network.

Maybe when the developer kit comes out, somebody will write an app that will let me plot the signal strength as I walk around my neighborhood that would be an easy way to test it out.

I can definitely say I've had more dropped calls - not less with AT&T compared to T-Mobile, despite their commercials.

 

[calvy]

From the wikipedia page, I see that Tmobile mostly uses a 1900 MHZ GSM network. I assume this is the case in Houston. Could the iphone be using AT&T's 850Mhz network and thus getting poor reception in buildings? I know 850Mhz is good for traversing buildings, but not necessarily getting inside a building.

Ironically, I work for AT&T in a data center, and cannot get AT&T wireless service unless I'm near a window. Anyone with Verizon or Sprint is fine though.

 

[j-a-x]

Interesting, thanks for the insight.

Strangely, I get the worst reception right here at my desk at home, about 3 feet from a window. It improves if I move the phone within inches of the window, but that's kind of annoying.

 

[johnnyxhuynh]

I was using the T-Mobile G1 since the beginning of the year and had 75% of my calls dropped. I just got the iPhone yesterday and will give it about a week to see if I'll get better reception...

 

[english06]

I just got an iPhone here in Houston, Texas.
I used to have Nokia 6682 with T-Mobile and the reception was fine. I never had a dropped call or encountered an area in side the city with poor reception.

Now with my iPhone, I can hardly use it inside my house, and I've been walking on a street downtown and had a call drop due to poor signal strnegth.

Now what I want to know is, is this problem because the iPhone has poor reception compared to my Nokia, or is it because AT&T's network in Houston sucks compared to T-Mobile's network??

The past couple of times I've been to Houston I have had outstanding service. I have absolutlely zero complaints there and if I were you I would definitely check on your iPhone "receiver" itself.