Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Some Customers with iPhone 3G Connection Issues

One of the huge advantages of 3G is that you can talk and access data at the same time. You can't do that with EDGE. My data usage is dropping in and out, if I get a call at this time, I'm screwed - that shouldn't happen. If I leave it on EDGE because I need my calls, I can't just fire it up for data, I need to switch back to 3G and then worry about my calls. I like to go for a walk while listening to music or NPR over 3G through the Tuner.app (great!) but I keep getting disconnected. I'm in a big city with full 3G coverage. I have a sneaky feeling Apple throttled the 3G radio down to save battery. But of course they're more secretive than the Pentagon.
 
It makes you wonder if Apple knew that 3G was a bunch of marketing garbage the whole time and that's why they didn't want to put it into the first iPhone.

They had no choice with the iPhone 3G because if they ignored it again, there probably would have been riots. I think Apple decided to give into what the public wanted and look what happened.

I might be giving them too much credit here, but it seems more plausible every day as I see more and more people complain about 3G issues.
 
Am afraid we are early adopters and will continue to be frustrated about this or that issue for some more time to come.

I'm in London, on O2. Haven't really experienced dropped calls, but then again, I don't talk a lot on the phone.

3G reception is spotty, though, which is really surprising given that I am in the largest metropolis of Europe. And then there are these odd cases where the 3G sign just disappears and will not come back until I reboot the phone.

My favorite pet peeve: Syncing is a mess. The frequent backup takes ages. Application updates spew out cryptic, Windows-like error messages. Then, there are those puzzling moments where an already-installed application is installed again or will try to copy itself repeatedly back to iTunes.

Also, have had several occasions where iTunes became unresponsive and had to force-quit.

Today, ran into a new problem: iPhoto kept insisting there were no pictures on the phone although I had bunch of newly-taken photos. Ended up emailing the pictures back to myself!

Last but not least, the Appstore will suck some more time until the offers mature and become more diverse.

Frustrating. Whatever.

Just hang on tight. 🙂
 
Chciago - iPhone 3G and Moto Razr

Funny I came across this post this AM. This past weekend I was visiting Chicago and had the same issues with my iPhone 3G. Calls dropped, text messaging wouldn't send or receive (some messages took over three hours to deliver) and no internet connection at all. At first I thought it was my iPhone but after meeting up with friends later Saturday afternoon I find EVERYONE, regardless of the phone model, had the same problems of dropped calls, bad text messaging and no internet. The one thing we did have in-common? 3G!!!
 
FuuFuu said:
seriously i don't think this topic is worth to be in the front page. like no other phones don't get dropped calls every so often, dropped internet connections? its only something to blab about.
Click to expand...
so true specially where I am in Canada. Ive always had spotty cel service in the mid-west. now that Im using the iPhone, its just more things to consider e.g. wifi, 3G and apps. almost forgetting about the phone all together.
we have one of the worse coverages in Canada and we cant do anything about it other than not go with the phone 🙁
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (white): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5B108 Safari/525.20)

nakile said:
It makes you wonder if Apple knew that 3G was a bunch of marketing garbage the whole time and that's why they didn't want to put it into the first iPhone.

They had no choice with the iPhone 3G because if they ignored it again, there probably would have been riots. I think Apple decided to give into what the public wanted and look what happened.

I might be giving them too much credit here, but it seems more plausible every day as I see more and more people complain about 3G issues.
Click to expand...

Umm, ok. Nevermind the fact that in order to do a true global launch, the iPhone HAD to be 3G, as many countries do not operate GPRS/EDGE networks. 😉

My 3G reception is fine here in Tokyo - comparable to other phones I've owned. No dropped calls so far, either. Of course I suffer from the ALoD (Apple Logo of Death) on a regular basis, but that's a different software bug altogether.
 
haha...this isnt an apple issue...its AT&T. Every phone i ever had with AT&T has dropped my calls.

Not much help going to apple help page.

Oh..by the way...AT&T wont help either. You just gotta live with it.

I got use to having my calls hang up after 7:10 minutes into the call. I kid you not. Every call in my house 7:10 minutes into it.
 
Same Problem

This has been an ongoing problem with my phone since day one. I went from a razor with full signal in my house to the Iphone 3G with one, maybe if I am lucky, two bars. I have been sitting on my porch, not moving and the phone just drops the call. Then it takes several redial attempts to get the call back. If I do switch 3G off I have three to four bars. This is very annoying when I have to change settings just to talk on my phone in my house (no quick setting on the front page). There should be a smooth transition between the 3G and Edge. After buying two Iphones (one for me and the wife) and paying over $100 in monthly service for both this is poor service. ATT is charging a premium of $30 a month per phone for 3G which doesn't operate properly. They need to take care of their customers. 😡😡😡
 
I'm glad this is finally getting some mainstream attention. I ended up returning my iPhone 3G because of the poor reception and dropped calls. Like the quote from the article, my experience in San Francisco has been "less than satisfactory".
 
Funny that this article just came up. I just got off the phone with AT&T and after a 5 week investigation into my complaints of zero to low service with the 3G in Los Angeles, no matter where I am, on both my wifes phone and my own, they basically told me I was **** out of luck.

They said that they investigated this and that basically their towers currently in the area that I live and work, are not up to par. Ok, this is in the middle of Burbank. Both my home and work show "BEST COVERAGE" on ATT's 3G coverage map, but that is not the case according to the people at ATT that I spoke with. The coverage map does not really show true 3G coverage.

I complained that I am paying a premium now, on 2 phones, for the 3G service that I cannot use. I was told, that I was incorrect, the $10 add on for the 3G plan is for the data package, which is for both 2G and 3G. I called ******** on her and that line of reasoning, saying the $10 upgrade in price was for the 3G network, and it doesnt work, at least for me, in most of Los Angeles. I get zero to low bars (2 at the most) and could never make or receive calls most of the time, the rest of the time the calls were dropped. I called in about it right away, but I am screwed. I should have stayed with the original iphone. Slow edge, but at least it worked and I got what I was paying for.
 
Same here

I'm having the same poor reception issues that others are experiencing. I get decent 2G reception, but awful 3G reception in the exact same place. The iPhone often switches over to EDGE (3-5 bars) after struggling with getting maybe 1 bar of 3G.

The iPhone's 3G reception is really unacceptable.
 
well, it sounds to me like it's just something that happens with every phone model. you have some bad apples in the bunch
 
I get good reception and great 3G signal most of the time. But even with lots of bars, I'll have extremely long wait times after hitting 'call' or tapping the number before it starts actually ringing...sometimes 15 seconds plus. Often I'll get 'call failed' right off the bat several times in a row, or drop calls with perfect signal before during and after the drop. Switching to EDGE fixes it... but very disappointing. The other night I couldn't get a call out for 30 minutes without switching to EDGE.
 
Same thing in Sweden

The same thing has been reported in Sweden. People have to turn 3G off and use Edge for data. It was said somewhere that the antenna is too small and reception is therefore too weak.
 
Nothing New

I have an original iPhone and it's the worst cell phone I've ever owned. It drops more calls and has terrible reception than any Nokia or Sony phone I owned in the past. What's really frustrating is when I drop a call and I won't let me redial for minutes. I can still have full bars while the iPhone just hangs.

I had hoped the plastic back on the iPhone 3G would fix things, but from sounds of these articles it hasn't.
 
in sweden we have more or less narrowed the bad phones down to a "batch problem". That is, only phones created between a 2-3 week period seem to be affected, and not even all those...

I have no problem at all with mine, even better reception than my measurement phone at work.

I must also add that the bars on the iPhone are totally misleading, they are a bit too harsh. With barely one bar i still managed to get a download rate of 690 kbps...
 
My experience today

After having some reception issues today, I did a search to see if anyone else has come across this issue and was pretty surprised to find how widespread this was. I drove from a suburb of Atlanta in to Downtown and NEVER got more than two bars. While waiting for my food during lunch, I decided to browse the internet some on my phone and was extremely surprised to find I had the NO SERVICE icon. IN DOWNTOWN ATLANTA!!!! I pulled up the coverage map from AT&T's website ( http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/ ) and typed in the zip for where I was (30307) and found there was supposed to be coverage in almost ALL of Atlanta, not to mention inside all of the perimeter. I even went to the middle of a huge parking lot in the middle of the city to see what my reception was...I got half a bar, sometimes 2. I have no idea what the problem is, but I switched out my SIM to an old free Sony Ericsson phone with 3g and never had less than 4 bars inside and nothing less than full outside. I also spent a few days in an area of GA that does not have 3G yet, so while I was there, I went to turn it off in an attempt to save battery power. When entering my 3G area again, I turned on the feature and had "NO SERVICE" icon again for about 15 minutes, in an area where I know there is service and at the very least edge. I hope there is a firmware fix for this coming soon.
 
I had a similar situation the other day. I'm in a fully covered 3G area and while at home I placed my phone on a table and noticed it cycling between bars/service. It would start at 4 bars (Edge), 10 seconds later go to 1 bar, then about 10 more seconds later go to NO SERVICE. About 3 or 4 minutes would pass service would restore then it would start all over again. Then the next day I realized it would happen in certain areas while driving through my neighborhood.

I noticed this after the recent 2.0.1 update. So I called Apple and they eventually connected to an AT&T tech. The tech said it definitely sounded like an issue with sim and to get it replaced.

That said, it doesn't seem to be cycling between service any more. I haven't replaced the sim. And now when I'm at home I switch it over to EDGE and then get constant 4 to 5 bars. This is definitely attributed to 3G, possibly that the phone detects a faint 3G signal and attempts to establish a connection, then drops it.
 
ATT 3G is suprisingly good. Been running it on several devices (RAZR, N75) for a year now. Works fine, everywhere.

Phone models do vary in reception. iPhone is sounding like one with issues.

People DO talk about phones other than iPhone. I have run across maybe 3-dozen S60 websites (smartphone software, mostly for Nokia). There are several competing forums for Sprint, the number 3 U.S. carrier. They all talk about signal a lot. This, while being unscientific, sounds like something notable, not just C|net looking for a story.
 
it's definitely not ATT. It's the iPhone.

I'm from Germany - we simply don't have ATT, but a very mature 3G network. I have the very same issues here with the iPhone 3G - it's incredibly frustrating.

And, other than stated in the opening article: the thread on apple discussions is already the second one. the first one was actually closed because so many people had posted it became too long to load!!

This is an issue, it's real, and apple better tackle this. the iPhone's got a lovely browser, the display is incredible, it's just an incredible joy to use it - as long as you don't touch the phone. for me, this is a beta version of a future iPod touch (with basic phone capabilities).
 
3g to Edge

My phone is having this issue and I'm finding that the drop calls occur when the 3g signal is week and switches to Edge. I'm not sure if this is specific to the iphone or not but the "fewest dropped calls" is a bunch of BS....😱
 
Been dealing with this too...

Just thought I would share the same frustration as the others. I too have the worst reception on this phone. I switched from Verizon (not sure why) to have an iphone and at this point all I did add frustration.

Phone has been exchanged, sim card replace - same ol' story.

The worst part is my wife keeps laughing at me cause she had a POS phone on Verizon and ALWAYS has coverage.

BTW - Tampa, Florida.
 
gibbz said:
While the "wonderful" coverage map AT&T provides indicates that I should be well covered for 3G (Norman, OK), I get 1-3 bars routinely, with the signal strength around -90 to -100. Strength can fluctuate drastically within a range of a few feet. My calls will drop when the phone is trying to hand off to Edge. I have no issues with Edge only. The main thing annoying me is that I am paying a $10 premium a month compared with my first gen iPhone for the 3G service. The only thing lacking is the reliable 3G service.
Click to expand...

What he said! Same problems here in Austin, TX. It's getting old fast. I really miss my 2.5G iPhone, which I could've kept for all the good the "added bennies" of the new one is doing me.
 
My 3G reception is spotty and inconsistent at best most places I go in Chicago (live in Lincoln Square, work in River North). I keep it on EDGE most of the time, and still don't seem to have good reception compared to friends with other AT&T phones. Bah
 
True that it might be the AT&T network in the US.

The only problem with that theory is there are a number of people in Canada, and Europe having the same issues. Those areas are not AT&T. That would point to the iPhone hardware itself.

Wait until a class action suit happens and then Apple will respond.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back