Temporary reception fix that works for me.

[bigtrip]

I apologize if this has been posted previously, but I have read a lot of threads on here and haven't seen it discussed. I live in an area of spotty 3G service and even with a bumper and a full body wrap, my dropped calls were exasperating. By turning off 3G and operating only on the edge network I haven't dropped a call in two weeks. I have wifi everywhere I use the phone the most so not having 3G isn't a problem for me. I do not accept this as a permanent solution, but at least for now I am able to use my phone. I know nothing of the technical details of what happens when you switch between a 3G tower and an edge tower, but it seems to me that this action could be improved with a "software fix" as previous phones that I have owned were able to compensate for the signals that are available in this area.

 

[Gav2k]

I can confirm that this does work. Tried it on all my local apple store ip4's. Lol

 

[Kenal0]

This would make sense as when the first 3G phone came out, the major crisis with that one was dropped calls and the solution was to turn off 3G as Edge was more robust. I am a believer there is most of the reception problems are with ATT and not so much the antenna issue at least in the Chicago area.

Kenal0

 

[err404]

This has always been the case. I used to disable 3G on my older iPhone. The reason that this works is that a seamless 3G to 2G hand-off can not be done on GSM. This will always result in a dropped call. Starting your call on the 2G tower prevents the cross protocol drop. This solution works well in the US, but is less useful in countries with more robust 3G rollouts.
2G typically runs at a lower frequency then 3G (not always) and is more resilient to interference.

 

[CubeHacker]

Its impossible to say whether this actually works or not unless you can see the actual dBm reading off your phone. Its simply possible that the 3G tower is much farther out compared to the 2G tower in your area, causing you to have overall stronger 2G signal.

 

[panzer06]

I too used to do this all the time. So far this new IP4 is better (3G works) and I've not had any dropped calls but I use a case.

Cheers,

 

[darngooddesign]

Sort of worked for me, but its irrelevant as I wasn't willing to give up 3G data just to have a working phone.