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New to the 3G Experience....

TheSpaz

TheSpaz

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jun 20, 2005
7,032
1
Well, I just got 3G in my area and I've never used 3G before in my life until Monday.
Here's my stupid question:

I have to walk through part of the warehouse to get to the time clock and I get no 3G reception in the warehouse, so it switches to EDGE. However, when I get outside, I KNOW I can get 5 bars of 3G easily, but the iPhone takes FOREVER to switch to 3G. I'll get in my car and start driving down the road... still EDGE, keep driving, still EDGE... drive some more... finally I give up and turn on airplane mode and then back off again and 3G shows up full strength again... is it supposed to take a long time to switch from EDGE to 3G when you leave an EDGE area into a 3G area?

By the way... I upgraded to 2.2 on Friday and didn't get 3G until Monday, so I do not know how 3G responds on 2.1. I don't know whether to blame 2.2 or just accept that it's the way the iPhone works.
 
that is the way that both of my iphones have been. also does the same thing when i drive in and out of 3G coverage. sometimes when i try to use the internet during one of these episodes, the phone will almost immediately switch back to 3G.
 
mlemonds said:
that is the way that both of my iphones have been. also does the same thing when i drive in and out of 3G coverage. sometimes when i try to use the internet during one of these episodes, the phone will almost immediately switch back to 3G.
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Looking at your signature: You have a backup for your iPhone backup?
 
This is a power saving measure. It doesn't check for 3G as often since it has to fire up the 3G chip every time it does so.

That being said, I sometimes have what you described (2-3 minutes) and I often have it come back on within 15 seconds.

I THINK the difference is that when I have a good EDGE signal it only checks every few minutes, but when I have no signal (like if I was in an elevator) it checks more frequently, trying to get a signal back.

So I've seen it take a long time and sometimes a short time. I'm guessing you have very good EDGE in your warehouse so the phone says "ok, this is good" and puts the 3G chip in "slow-check" mode.
 
TheSpaz said:
Looking at your signature: You have a backup for your iPhone backup?
Click to expand...

depends on the situation...

i keep the 2G iphone around in case something happens to my 3g and i have the sony for times that i do not want to carry a big glass screen around such as at work sometimes (not an iphone friendly environment), ice center for hockey games, amusement parks.
 
I've noticed too that it takes awhile to go from Edge to 3G. Since you don't get it inside the warehouse, I feel bad for you because it's not going to connect to the 3G network quickly unless you prompt it. That's definitely an inconvience.

Bryan
 
Bryan Bowler said:
I've noticed too that it takes awhile to go from Edge to 3G. Since you don't get it inside the warehouse, I feel bad for you because it's not going to connect to the 3G network quickly unless you prompt it. That's definitely an inconvience.

Bryan
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Here's what I think I'm going to do to make my life a little easier: I can turn 3G off while I'm at work and then turn it back on when I leave.
 
It just happened again. I left an area that only had EDGE, and I waited and waited and I figured 3G was out for now and loaded some web pages on EDGE, and it still didn't come back, so I toggled 3G again and finally 3G showed up. Ugh!!! This is annoying. Why doesn't it switch?
 
Well, if you wanted the phone to be checking for a 3G signal constantly, then the battery would drain a lot quicker. And IMO for me, i don't really care if it's in EDGE. I have 5 bars of 3G everywhere, and if i go on my iPhone and it starts in EDGE, it will change over soon enough.

I think you're being kinda picky. That can be a good thing though. ;)
 
nickspohn said:
Well, if you wanted the phone to be checking for a 3G signal constantly, then the battery would drain a lot quicker.
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Question is. How am I supposed to know how long to wait before I just give up and switch it manually?
 
TheSpaz said:
Question is. How am I supposed to know how long to wait before I just give up and switch it manually?
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Ignore it. Don't look if you have a signal, and if it doesn't switch on it's own, leave it, unless you've been browsing for a while and want to browse for a longer time.
 
Can someone please tell me what's going on? My iPhone will not switch to 3G on it's own after it switches to EDGE. I wait forever for it to switch and it makes me manually toggle it to force it to see the 3G network. I thought the iPhone was supposed to switch on it's own. Ugh.
 
Does it matter that my EDGE signal is better than the 3G signal? Is that why it won't switch automatically? I haven't actually tested how long it takes to switch if it ever does.
 
cellocello said:
Ya, I know it is. I'm just razzing ya - :p

I'm sure it's fine. Although, anecdotedly, mine seems to switch over in seconds, not minutes.
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Are you running 2.1 or 2.2? I upgraded to 2.2. I don't get very many bars of 3G right here, but if I go in the bathroom, it switches to edge. Now I'm back in the living room and I have 5 bars of edge and it's been about 8 minutes now and it hasn't switched over to 3G yet. Do you think this is a new feature/bug in 2.2? I've never used 3G on any other firmware.
 
I'm on 2.2.

But it's hard to compare cause I think Toronto (Canada) is oozing with 3G. I never go down to Edge, unless I'm in the subway or something - then it goes through all the bars, then Edge, then No Service.

Maybe you'll need to ask someone in your town?
 
Okay... new info...

I just restored my iPhone to a factory default 2.2 and drove to where I only get EDGE and then drove back home again. Once again, it didn't change back over to 3G even after 15 minutes. I got tired of waiting, so I toggled Airplane mode and 3G came back. Here's my new theory. After reading a thread about Cincinnati experiencing the same type of problem back in September, where you could drive into 3G and it wouldn't switch over unless you manually switched it... well they fixed it and it was AT&T's fault with a setting that they had on their towers. I bet since my 3G is pretty new, they're not letting the phones automatically connect to it to reduce some of the load because 3G isn't totally finished being upgraded here... there are still some towns without it that are going to have it soon. So, I guess I'm gonna restore my old settings back and just see how things go. I really don't think it's the iPhone's fault... I think it's just some bugs in the new 3G towers. Anyone wanna back this up?
 
Today I went to the Maine Mall in Portland and I had to drive through Rochester to get there... naturally, the iPhone switched to EDGE and when I got into Maine, it AUTOMATICALLY switched to 3G. This makes me think there's something wrong with the New Hampshire network of not letting 3G auto-connect.

I found a similar problem happening a while back here and they determined that it was an AT&T issue with their network, and AT&T came out and fixed it for them. I think I am going to notify my AT&T store about this problem and see if they can get started on fixing the issue.

I no longer think it's the iPhone because it worked correctly in Maine.
 
putting wayyy too much thought/effort into this... itll work itself out, give it time if it just launched there im sure theres a few bugs to work out.
 
cWeems said:
putting wayyy too much thought/effort into this... itll work itself out, give it time if it just launched there im sure theres a few bugs to work out.
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No, I'm fine, it was just an observation. I am greatful we have 3G now. I still might just inform them incase they do not know already. I'm sure it will be fine. I was just glad to find out that my iPhone was okay. I'm on my 4th one and I do not want a 5th.
 
TheSpaz said:
No, I'm fine, it was just an observation. I am greatful we have 3G now. I still might just inform them incase they do not know already. I'm sure it will be fine.
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They probably already know. With every new 3G deployment it takes a couple of months (sometimes as long as six months in heavy population centers) of shakedown time and tweaking for the 3G network to get any measure of robustness. The 3G air interface is an entirely different beast from EDGE, and antenna configurations have to be changed significantly as a result. Inevitably there are going to be growing pains, and I suspect that AT&T is intentionally favoring its EDGE network in your area while those kinks are worked out.
 
scaredpoet said:
They probably already know. With every new 3G deployment it takes a couple of months (sometimes as long as six months in heavy population centers) of shakedown time and tweaking for the 3G network to get any measure of robustness. The 3G air interface is an entirely different beast from EDGE, and antenna configurations have to be changed significantly as a result. Inevitably there are going to be growing pains, and I suspect that AT&T is intentionally favoring its EDGE network in your area while those kinks are worked out.
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I suppose that makes sense, but 3G has been running great here, it just doesn't switch over automatically. It worked well driving into Maine and that network is just as new as New Hampshire's because they were both turned on at the same time.
 
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