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Mac LOVER, a little disappointed in iphone, need help understanding it.

Why are you disappointed in the iPhone? Network coverage is your problem. And seems like there isnt much in your area cause both CDMA and GSM signals are really struggling. If you gotta deal with 1 bar all the time and have a hit and miss chance of commnication then that would suck no matter what phone you use.
 
wow.. people REALLY seem to hate when you say you are disappointed in a iphone, you would think it was their child.. i say i was disappointed and need to learn more about it.. I WANT TO BE IMPRESSED.. but right now at home i am not.. and the iphone and att right now go hand in hand because stupid apple had to have a freaking contract with the poopiest carrier.. ANYWAYS.. enough mindless ranting..

Ok, then i gave you a street name that didn't exist.. Umm.. Coe Road, East Haven Ct should come up.. soundview could have been ave, street, ect.. i dunno for sure.. but Coe is def. road.. my home address, which i dont want to give out, def. came up in a SOLID, GOOD orange area..

i'm going to read through some of those websites you gave me and see what the reviews say
 
lindsayanng said:
wow.. people REALLY seem to hate when you say you are disappointed in a iphone, you would think it was their child.. i say i was disappointed and need to learn more about it.. I WANT TO BE IMPRESSED.. but right now at home i am not.. and the iphone and att right now go hand in hand because stupid apple had to have a freaking contract with the poopiest carrier.. ANYWAYS.. enough mindless ranting..

Ok, then i gave you a street name that didn't exist.. Umm.. Coe Road, East Haven Ct should come up.. soundview could have been ave, street, ect.. i dunno for sure.. but Coe is def. road.. my home address, which i dont want to give out, def. came up in a SOLID, GOOD orange area..

i'm going to read through some of those websites you gave me and see what the reviews say
Click to expand...

Please use punctuation.
 
Thats because you're blaming a cellphone and not the real problem the network coverage. You want to be impressed take your phone and go towards more populated/rural areas away from the woods/sea. That would be for any network.
 
the annoying thing is that i am NOT in the woods, and i am right near the biggest city in Connecticut.. heck, east haven is a CITY!! I am annoyed not only at the service, but the fact that the PHONE shows there are service bars when they are not..
 
Maybe if theres enough complains from you and other people around that area they'll actually do something and fix the problem. Call them up and see what they say. I dont know how much celltowers cost to companys but Im sure they'd wont want to lose customers cause of bad signal to populated areas.
 
You may also be located in a valley or in a dip in the terrain, which will cause your ability to receive or make calls to be limited and sporadic. You might want to utilize your WiFi to help with SMS, but you're definitely in need of some sort of signal booster (and it's not cheap) or you might be giving up your iPhone within the 14-day grace period. Go to ATT.com and take a close look at the coverage map for your area, 'cause I'm in the same boat with 1-3 bars but I'm able to keep my iPhone in the dock and utilize my BT while the iPhone stays in the same spot of my house while maintaining a constant 3 bars. :(
 
That sucks you're having problems. I'm not trying to rub it in of course, but when I often find my iPhone is at 1 or 2 bars on the outskirts of town, and I really don't have any problems. You should still be able to use your phone in that case. I'd contact Apple maybe, there must be a store somewhere near East Haven and tell them what's happening. There could be a problem with the radio in your iPhone.
 
Applejuiced said:
Thats because you're blaming a cellphone and not the real problem the network coverage. You want to be impressed take your phone and go towards more populated/rural areas away from the woods/sea. That would be for any network.
Click to expand...

Have you ever been to East Haven? It's hardly the boonies. We're talking about one of the most populated regions of the country!
 
lindsayanng said:
Ok, then i gave you a street name that didn't exist.. Umm.. Coe Road, East Haven Ct should come up.. soundview could have been ave, street, ect.. i dunno for sure.. but Coe is def. road.. my home address, which i dont want to give out, def. came up in a SOLID, GOOD orange area..
Click to expand...

Do you actually know where you live? There is no Coe Rd in East Haven. It's Coe Avenue and, if you look, there's a section of mapped low signal area within 2000 ft. Like I said, do not take a coverage map as gospel for street level mapping. It's all a mathematical rendering. Nobody stood in front of your house measuring signal levels. You could very well be within the low signal area.
 
I was just at Lighthouse Point in East Haven yesterday and made and received calls on my iPhone without any problem. I didn't look at how many bars I had, but the calls were crystal clear. I did notice that when I used the "find me" feature in Google Maps, it thought I was across the water in West Haven, so maybe that is the cell tower I was getting my signal from.
 
condor said:
I was just at Lighthouse Point in East Haven yesterday and made and received calls on my iPhone without any problem. I didn't look at how many bars I had, but the calls were crystal clear. I did notice that when I used the "find me" feature in Google Maps, it thought I was across the water in West Haven, so maybe that is the cell tower I was getting my signal from.
Click to expand...

That is exactly what it was indicating and brings up a very good point. Now that we know where you were and where the cell tower was the original poster needs to do exactly the same thing. That could provide a great deal of information about the call attempts.
 
avaloncourt said:
That is exactly what it was indicating and brings up a very good point. Now that we know where you were and where the cell tower was the original poster needs to do exactly the same thing. That could provide a great deal of information about the call attempts.
Click to expand...

That isn't how it works. It is why we call it Cellular Triangulation. Using just 1 cell tower would always just show where that cell tower is located it. If you have 2, it will put you right in the middle. If there are 3 cell towers (thus triangulation) it gives the most accurate. It isn't always going to be right, because you could have 2 towers close together and 1 a lot farther away from you. It doesn't know how far you are from the cell tower either.


As for the poster, I'm sad to say but you don't need to rant at us. Your title alone says that you're disappointed in the iPhone, when it's a network issue you are having trouble with.

There are only 3 things to do to fix this IMO.
1) Call AT&T, and say that your address has coverage on their map, and complain and see what they do.
2) Get a cell booster, but those can vary.
3) Move.
 
nickspohn said:
That isn't how it works. It is why we call it Cellular Triangulation. Using just 1 cell tower would always just show where that cell tower is located it. If you have 2, it will put you right in the middle. If there are 3 cell towers (thus triangulation) it gives the most accurate. It isn't always going to be right, because you could have 2 towers close together and 1 a lot farther away from you. It doesn't know how far you are from the cell tower either.
Click to expand...

Doesn't it also take WiFi AP into account as well? Or is that just when you're on WiFi only. I thought it took cell tower triangulation and wifi spots into consideration.
 
Mikey B said:
Doesn't it also take WiFi AP into account as well? Or is that just when you're on WiFi only. I thought it took cell tower triangulation and wifi spots into consideration.
Click to expand...

Nope. Only Skyhook WiFi networks. The router has to be registered on Skyhooks website, which is easy to do, but that is probably a very small number (like 3%) of all wireless networks in the US. I think it's useless.
 
avaloncourt said:
Do you actually know where you live? There is no Coe Rd in East Haven. It's Coe Avenue and, if you look, there's a section of mapped low signal area within 2000 ft. Like I said, do not take a coverage map as gospel for street level mapping. It's all a mathematical rendering. Nobody stood in front of your house measuring signal levels. You could very well be within the low signal area.
Click to expand...

hah, actually i dont really know where i live, we JUST moved here.. Although lighthouse point is not that far..

and again, my issues isnt ONLY with the coverage.. my issue is that MY PHONE tells me that i have bars but still will not make a call.. and my title also suggests that i might be disappointed because i do not yet understand the phone.. that is why i came here

anyways.. i just wanted to know if there was some setting that would make it look ONLY for ATT towers, or go to the closest one, and WHY WHY WHY does my iphone do NOTHING when there are 1-2 bars.. iknow its not alot, but i would atleast expect to be able to send a text..
 
Gsm

I work on developing the GSM Protocol Stack for cellphones, and I can tell you how towers (carriers) are chosen. First off the SIM which your cell phone is carrying has information on the preferred network to camp on to (in this case AT&T), another thing is that it also takes into account the strength (db levels) of the signal (highest signal has higher priority of course), so there is no point in just making your phone select AT&T towers since if the phone finds a suitable (enough strength) AT&T cell, it will camp on it and ask for services to it, it might not be finding a AT&T cell, does the phone show at&t as the carrier? or any other?, I understand why you are complaining on the phone because if it shows bars it means it has a tower in range so you can make phone calls, unless it is a forbidden carrier which will only allow you to make emergency calls.

To check to which carrier belongs the closest towers to your house go to the Field Test Mode and in cell information you will have all the neighbor cells which your phone is monitoring, each entry at the end has a 3 digit number #:000 check each of this against this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_network_codes_in_the_United_States
(each network in the world is uniquely identified by the Mobile Country Code (MCC) and Mobile Network Code (MNC) but since you're in the US you only need to check MNC) and you will find to which carrier the tower belongs to (check if it's AT&T or not). Also in the network information check the values of RX levFull, RX levSub, RX QualFull, RX QualSub to know the strength of the current cell you're camping on. Anyway I hope you can solve your problem, any more information you need I am glad to help, although I cannot see anyone being able to help you but AT&T.

Edit: I'm Sorry the 3 numbers are the MCC which identifies the Country not the Network, the N before the 3 digit number is the one that identifies the Network. Sorry about that
 
nickspohn said:
That isn't how it works. It is why we call it Cellular Triangulation. Using just 1 cell tower would always just show where that cell tower is located it. If you have 2, it will put you right in the middle. If there are 3 cell towers (thus triangulation) it gives the most accurate.
Click to expand...

That's not how most cell location methods work. But it doesn't matter, because...

Google maps DOESN'T DO CELL TRIANGULATION. The others were correct: it simply gives the surveyed location of the cell tower your phone is currently linked to, along with a circle derived from the cell's power output.

As for the poster, I'm sad to say but you don't need to rant at us. Your title alone says that you're disappointed in the iPhone, when it's a network issue you are having trouble with.
Click to expand...

That's not how I read it. The poster was asking why there was nothing they could do, even when the phone showed one bar. In other words, why does the phone show a bar if it's not really able to do anything? It should show none.

There are only 3 things to do to fix this IMO.
1) Call AT&T, and say that your address has coverage on their map, and complain and see what they do.
2) Get a cell booster, but those can vary.
3) Move.
Click to expand...

True.
 
I just wanted to thank everyone who has helped me and actually answered my question at hand about why i have bars but no actual use of my phone.

anyways, i think i decided that first i am going to look at the test friend mode and make sure it is a carrier that i CAN use. That brings up another question though, what would a number code look like for a tower that my phone is NOT allowed to use.

If it seems that there is a tower that is usefull within reach of my house, then i am probably going to get THIS PRODUCT its a wireless repeater that is supposed to enhance the signal.. i just need to make sure there is a singal worth enhancing.. and LUCKILY bestbuy sells it which means if it doesnt work i can return it
 
Forbidden Networks

There's really no way to know which networks are forbidden for your phone since sometimes that list of networks is in the SIM and just AT&T knows, but I don't think that is the problem in this case. You should check the current network code and the neighbor codes, as well as the strength of each cell, typically the lower threshold for the RX level is -110 dBm any value lower than that (i.e. -120 dBm) will be no good for any services like calls or sms. Check only if any of the neighbor cells belong to AT&T (using MNC) and if they have a good signale strength (RX level greater than -110 dBm, again this depends on the phone but by standard is usually this), also check the values of C1 and C2, this should be greater than 0 for the carrier to be a suitable one, if there is a suitable AT&T cell, (edit)then this it COULD be an iPhone problem(edit), but also AT&T's (so there not exactly a way of knowing in this scenario) unless you use equipment to truly analyze it. are you able to do emergency calls?
 
When i get home, i will let you know what my report looks like and maybe you could help me analyze it because some of the stuff you said confuses me.. i also shoudl walk away from the cpu adn read it again because my eyes are going cross from setting up 2 new cpus at my office..

anyways, i contacted ATT about the cell coverage in my area, they said that there is a tower 2 1/2 miles from my house at the airport nearby. They said there is no reason i should have no service, except EVERYONE that comes to my house has no service. I really belive it is because all the phones try to skip across Long Island sound and go straight to their tower. On the older phones i would even get a note that said ROAMING when i was standing on my home town's beach.. So does that make sense, or would the triangulation make the disappear??

Or, is it because i am at the bottom of a hill.. its not a HUGE hill.. but if you walk across the street, you can get a full 3 bars of service, and you are still at the bottom of a hill..

They also did a reset type thing over the phone that i guess updates all of the towers on the network and all of a sudden there was 3 bars (woo hoo) and then they went away.. this makes me think more and more its the phone or the SIM card, which was what they said on the CS call.

it really feels like there is a bizarre force field around my house that is trying to destroy my cell coverage!!
 
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