poor 3G reception

[cycler15]

When I had the old iPhone, I constantly got 3-4 bars of service inside my house. Now with the 3G iPhone, I get 1 bar of service and lots of dropped call in my house. I turned off 3G and with the Edge network, i get my 3-4 bars of service.

I thought the iPHone was supposed to switch automatically to Edge when poor 3G reception is encountered? Although it's definitely a pain in the ### to switch back and forth, I'm glad I was able to manually turn 3G off inside my house.

Plus I live in Los Angeles where supposedly all of LA is covered by 3G.

I'm beginning to get ####ed at AT&T for marketing 3G when it's not even readily available in a major city. I drive around LA and see it switch from 3G to Edge all the time.

[azcoyote]

I was so close to getting the black 16GB iPhone 3G yesterday. The Apple Store I went to sold out of the black 16GB just a few people in front of me in line. Now that I've been reading about all the issues people are having with dropped calls and flaky 3G reception, I'm kinda glad I didn't get the phone yesterday. It seems to be a problem with the iPhone as it's happening in other countries, not just the US and AT&T network. Other 3G phones on AT&T don't seem to be having the reception issues that the iPhone is having, another indicator that it's the phone and not the network.
I'm thinking I'll probably hold off getting the new iPhone until these issues are resolved. I wonder why there isn't that much talk on this board about the 3G reception issues? Not so on other message boards and websites (links below). I really do hope Apple can fix these issues through firmware upgrades as I want one of these phones BADLY. To me it's a dealkiller if it can't work reliably as a phone without dropping calls frequently.

http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1397833&page=41&pp=15
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1602608&tstart=0
http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/17/poll-hows-your-iphone-3g-reception/
http://www.gearlog.com/2008/07/iphone_3g_reception_problems_a.php

[Surf Monkey]

It's simple, people: ATT's 3G network is brand new. It's still under construction. It isn't as if they just flip a switch somewhere and their entire infrastructure becomes 3G. They have to build new transmitters, erect new towers and so forth. The fact that you got good EDGE reception in any particular location has NOTHING to do with whether you'll get good 3G reception in the same places. BUT, the one thing we DO know is that ATT isn't putting any more money into EDGE build out. 3G coverage will get better and more reliable as time goes on. EDGE will eventually go away. So, stop blaming Apple when the issue is network coverage. ANY 3G phone is going to have problems on the very edge of the coverage areas.

[phhaattyy]

It's simple, people: ATT's 3G network is brand new. It's still under construction. It isn't as if they just flip a switch somewhere and their entire infrastructure becomes 3G. They have to build new transmitters, erect new towers and so forth. The fact that you got good EDGE reception in any particular location has NOTHING to do with whether you'll get good 3G reception in the same places. BUT, the one thing we DO know is that ATT isn't putting any more money into EDGE build out. 3G coverage will get better and more reliable as time goes on. EDGE will eventually go away. So, stop blaming Apple when the issue is network coverage. ANY 3G phone is going to have problems on the very edge of the coverage areas.
Not entirely true....

Case in point:

I currently have a Nokia 95-3 3G phone running on the ATT network (iPhone arriving today!) My buddy has a new 16GB iPhone 3G. Standing in the same spot next to each other the Nokia gets a consistently full signal (7 Bars), his 3G iPhone gets 1 or 2 bars depending on how he turns his body. If he turns 3G off he gets a consistent, full signal.

It does indeed have something to do with the phone as documented not only here in the U.S. but abroad as well by a great many users (check out many online blogs, etc)

I might add that his call reception is still good and it doesn't seem to drop any calls, but the signal strength is definitely affected.

[cycler15]

Yes, I realize that the 3G coverage will only get better with time. I'm not really worried, just annoyed that I have to turn off 3G in my house to get better reception. Plus I thought the iPhone was supposed to automatically switch to EDGE when poor 3G reception was detected. It doesn't seem to be doing that very well.

I'd be interested to see if the issue is due to the iPhone hardware. Do other AT&T phones with 3G capabilities getter better 3G reception in the same area than the iPhone. That seems to be the case for some people. If so, then the issue is with Apple as well.

[Surf Monkey]

Yes, I realize that the 3G coverage will only get better with time. I'm not really worried, just annoyed that I have to turn off 3G in my house to get better reception. Plus I thought the iPhone was supposed to automatically switch to EDGE when poor 3G reception was detected. It doesn't seem to be doing that very well.

I'm in the same boat. I have to turn off 3G in my house to get good reception. But it's really not much of an issue since I just use my Wi-Fi for network bandwidth when I'm at home.

I do agree with you though that it could flip over to EDGE more readily. I've seen it do that, but only when the 3G signal completely drops. It doesn't flip over when reception is just very poor. That's probably intentional, since they don't want the network flipping back and forth all the time.

Personally, I just consider the glass half full. I only turn on 3G when I need data and I'm away from my home network. I don't find the call quality and reliability enough of an improvement to warrant trying to run 3G all the time. And as an added bonus, better battery life!

[cycler15]

I'm in the same boat. I have to turn off 3G in my house to get good reception. But it's really not much of an issue since I just use my Wi-Fi network for network bandwidth when I'm at home.

I do agree with you though that it could flip over to EDGE more readily. I've seen it do that, but only when the 3G signal completely drops. It doesn't flip over when reception is just very poor. That's probably intentional, since they don't want the network flipping back and forth all the time.

Personally, I just consider the glass half full. I only turn on 3G when I need data and I'm away from my home network. I don't find the call quality and reliability enough of an improvement to warrant trying to run 3G all the time. And as an added bonus, better battery life!

I'm the same as you. I turn off 3G since I have wi-fi at home and only turn on 3G when I want to use the internet.

Does this mean I should be happy? Heck no. I'm paying $10 more per month (actually $15 more since I had to add the $5 text messaging plan) and I can't even utilize the full benefit of 3G. I hope the poor 3G reception is a software issue and not a hardware issue. At least we have 1 year warranties so I can always exchange later once things settle down and they come to the source of the issue.

[Surf Monkey]

I'm the same as you. I turn off 3G since I have wi-fi at home and only turn on 3G when I want to use the internet.

Does this mean I should be happy? Heck no. I'm paying $10 more per month (actually $15 more since I had to add the $5 text messaging plan) and I can't even utilize the full benefit of 3G. I hope the poor 3G reception is a software issue and not a hardware issue. At least we have 1 year warranties so I can always exchange later once things settle down and they come to the source of the issue.


You can use the full benefit of 3G. You don't need a 3G connection when you're at home and inside your own Wi-Fi hotspot. If you only turn it on when you're out and about, you'll still get the same benefits. There's no sense in running it when you're really not going to use it.