WIFI unbelievably Fast - 3G nothing - Not Good

C

cc999

macrumors 6502
My WIFI speed test runs consistently at 3341 kbps. This is fantastic. When in 3G I cannot even get a web page to load. Since 2.02 I get nothing in 3G. Is it my phone or are we all in the same boat? I tried the Airplane mode on/off. Did not work. Also tried a hard reset, no 3G connection to the internet. When I turn off the 3G Edge works. Edge get 108-120 KPbs on the speed test. Is this a problem with my phone or software related. In 2.01 3G was at least working. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Charlie C
 
cc999 said:
My WIFI speed test runs consistently at 3341 kbps. This is fantastic. When in 3G I cannot even get a web page to load. Since 2.02 I get nothing in 3G. Is it my phone or are we all in the same boat? I tried the Airplane mode on/off. Did not work. Also tried a hard reset, no 3G connection to the internet. When I turn off the 3G Edge works. Edge get 108-120 KPbs on the speed test. Is this a problem with my phone or software related. In 2.01 3G was at least working. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Charlie C
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Same with me, I rarely get anything to load using 3G. It sucks. I ended up just turning 3G off.
 
3G is amazingly fast for a cellular network. When I used to connect my PDA to my laptop, I would get DSL speeds on my laptop.

If you have 1 or 2 bars, the speed will slow down a bit. 4 or more bars will give you the fastest speed possible.

WiFi will always be as fast as your home/office/location internet connection. So this is not a good comparison.
 
Wirelessly posted (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)

I'm having problems with 3G as well. I get 4-5bars at home and work, but the Internet either fails to load or takes forever. We're paying more per month for 3G but I end up using edge more often. I called AT&T tonight and they said they're having problems with 3G in New England. They offered to credit me $10...
 
ok then

Is it safe to say this is NOT a hardware issue? I was wondering if phones just purchased were better or not? Anyone with a new phone just purchased having the same type of 3G problems?????
 
cc999 said:
When in 3G I cannot even get a web page to load./QUOTE]

You didn't mention if this occurs in all locations, but if you have repeatable results you should give AT&T a call. Personally, I would forget that it used to work and report your current issues. Despite AT&T's monitoring, individual towers can have issues and customer reports can start the ball rolling. They do have a lot of folks that drive around with their magic meters and test signal strength. One of our offices was in a dead zone and AT&T modified the "aim" of the closest tower and put more signal into our building. I sit about 20 feet from an indoor AT&T antenna so I never had the issue. :D

AT&T's first level support often makes you think it is your issue and will proabably ask many questions about you, your locations, and if you know of anyone else with the problem (and their phone number). If you have another 3G phone a head to head comparison will help (assume the other works). ;)

Good luck!
Click to expand...
 
My feeling is that it is the network. For me 3G is intermittent, even in areas where there is a good 3G signal my phone goes between 3G and edge.
 
Please do this

All that reply please indicate date you received your iphone 3G. I am trying to determine if this is some sort of chip issue with the first batch of iphone 3G's....
 
week 30 here 3g working perfectly. Had a week 28 but had to trade it in for a crack issue and 3g worked with that one also. I'm in south east Florida.
 
bmwpowere36m3 said:
Wirelessly posted (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)

I'm having problems with 3G as well. I get 4-5bars at home and work, but the Internet either fails to load or takes forever. We're paying more per month for 3G but I end up using edge more often. I called AT&T tonight and they said they're having problems with 3G in New England. They offered to credit me $10...
Click to expand...

Where in NE do you live? I live in Massachusetts and its working decently, but kinda slow
 
Why is the 3G being to messed up.

My friends have matching iPhones and they say they don't use 3g for stuff like that.
 
Mr. Friday said:
Why is the 3G being to messed up.

My friends have matching iPhones and they say they don't use 3g for stuff like that.
Click to expand...

i never use wifi anymore. 3G is either close enough to or beats a lot of WIFI hotspots around me. the Ann Arbor/Ypsi area has been blessed by the 3G gods i guess.
 
cc999 said:
My WIFI speed test runs consistently at 3341 kbps. This is fantastic. When in 3G I cannot even get a web page to load. Since 2.02 I get nothing in 3G. Is it my phone or are we all in the same boat? I tried the Airplane mode on/off. Did not work. Also tried a hard reset, no 3G connection to the internet. When I turn off the 3G Edge works. Edge get 108-120 KPbs on the speed test. Is this a problem with my phone or software related. In 2.01 3G was at least working. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Charlie C
Click to expand...

did you call ATT to see if it is the network problem and it'll be fixed?
 
3g

Well going on a trip to MASS today, this will take me thru PA, NY, Conn, and Rhode Island. I will report back the 3G reception in all states. My frustration was in Wilkes barre, PA. Full 3G very slow or no data connection. I believe its the service not the phone but not sure. My Iphone 16G Black iphone is flawless, no light leak, no finger smudges under glass, no cracks, Never crashes, all apps work perfectly, back ups less then 20 seconds on a Vista machine. I am afraid if I take it in and exchange I will have the same 3G problem and maybe others that we all are reading about. Big test today I will report back tonight. I have a week 27 fri.

Just need a verification of a just purchased phone wit hthis 3G problem.
 
SDAVE said:
3G is amazingly fast for a cellular network. When I used to connect my PDA to my laptop, I would get DSL speeds on my laptop.

If you have 1 or 2 bars, the speed will slow down a bit. 4 or more bars will give you the fastest speed possible.

WiFi will always be as fast as your home/office/location internet connection. So this is not a good comparison.
Click to expand...

I disagree, there is no relation between speeds and the bars. I live in the Netherlands and I can easily get full speeds with one bar and sometimes a bit slower with full bars.
 
Here is my experience so far.

Got my iphone end of the second week, right away, was getting 1-2 mbps pretty regularly on 3G with almost no 3G reception issues. Was as happy as a little girl. :) Being in a .5 Mbps wi-fi hot spot and getting 2-4 times the speed with my 3G was awfully cool. :)

Then after 2.0.1 that changed, started getting very inconsistant 3G reception and speeds, one second I'd get 1500K, the very next, in the same spot, 300K, it was all over the place, Id have 5 bars one second, 0-1 the next, sometimes it would switch to Edge even if I had a 3G signal. I wasn't that happy little girl anymore. :)

Then after seeing my 3G reception and speed all over the place for a while, along came 2.0.2, at first I didn't see improvement, then all of the sudden, I did, but, and this is totally subjective, I don't feel like it had anything to do with the update, rather it feels like the 3G in my area was worked on and improved. I'm in the Ft. Lauderdale area of FL by the way.

In any case while it is still somewhat inconsistant, overall, lately, Im pretty happy with it, usually have 3-5 bars, and even on 1-2 bars, I get decent speeds, in fact, my speed seems to have very little to do with how many bars I have and more to do with times of the day. There tend to be certain times of the day when the speeds are slower, I attribute that to limited bandwidth/lots of people using 3G.

Just did a DSLR test and got 1360K, can't complain. :)

I do want to say I feel very badly for those who aren't getting good 3G performance, frankly, I'd be majorly pissed as the faster 3G speed was pretty much the only reason I upgraded. Take away the good 3G, and you're left with a buggy Gen 1 that you're paying more to use.

One last thing, I was in St. Thomas this past weekend, first time Ive been in a non-3G area with my phone, so, I was left with Edge only for 4 days, it really felt like going back to dial up from DSL, it was painful. Funny how you get used to something. :) I love my 3G performance lately, but have no illusions that it can't just disappear tomorrow, Ive already seen it happen, it can happen again, so, I'm enjoying it while it lasts...
 
Fuchal said:
Same with me, I rarely get anything to load using 3G. It sucks. I ended up just turning 3G off.
Click to expand...

Smae here. aren't you glad we get to pay an extra $10/mo to turn it off? :rolleyes:

Seriously, I'm not sure what to do. I'm afraid if I try to return it I'll get one that cracks or light leaks. I think I'll wait a while, but for me 3G is useless on any data related task. If I turn it off no matter how many bars it has, and go over to edge, then at least things connect right away. 3G just spins and spins and rarely gets any data anywhere. I can not tell whether it is hardware or ATT network problems though.
 
cc999 said:
My WIFI speed test runs consistently at 3341 kbps. This is fantastic. When in 3G I cannot even get a web page to load. Since 2.02 I get nothing in 3G. Is it my phone or are we all in the same boat? I tried the Airplane mode on/off. Did not work. Also tried a hard reset, no 3G connection to the internet. When I turn off the 3G Edge works. Edge get 108-120 KPbs on the speed test. Is this a problem with my phone or software related. In 2.01 3G was at least working. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Charlie C
Click to expand...

All in the same boat?!?!?!


Are you asserting that 3G, the #1 feature of the iPhone 3G, currently does not work? :confused:


Are you completely out of your mind? Bring the phone to Apple forchristsake.
 
Reiger said:
I disagree, there is no relation between speeds and the bars. I live in the Netherlands and I can easily get full speeds with one bar and sometimes a bit slower with full bars.
Click to expand...

Well I was just stating from my opinion. I've had other 3G phones before and the less bars I had the slower it was...
 
2.51 Mbps (2509 Kbps) here with one bar of 3G according to TestMyiPhone. Something is definitely amiss with AT&T's service. It doesn't seem to require a strong 3G signal to get fast speeds. Quite happy with O2 here in London. Don't know about the rest of the UK.
 
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