Incoming calls problem - Data transfer the culprit!!

[pango1in]

All

I'm new to these forums. I am a Mac user and an iPhone owner in the UK. I love my iPhone dearly, it is an exceptional device. My initial plan was to wait until the Rev C iPhone came out before upgrading.

Ever since I've had the phone, my wife has mentioned problems getting through to me. At first I thought that it was because O2 was still installing the EDGE network and had teething problems. However, recently my wife tried to get through to me several times in the space of 10 minutes while I was on the train and using my iPhone, each time going to voicemail. I was greeted with the following words when I got home: "What's the point in having a £300 phone that you pay an expensive tarrif for, when I can't %$£# get through to you!?!"

This made me start to search around the internet for a solution. I found this:

http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2007/07/27/iphones-in-some-situations-cant-take-incoming-calls-while-on-edge

There are scant few other articles on the subject, each refering back to this original one above.

I subsequently called O2 and Apple. Apple initially blamed O2 and O2 blamed Apple. I did a test with the call centre representative. I downloaded a webpage, he called me to see if he could get through. He couldn't. It turns out that:

Any time I'm downloading data, web or email, incoming calls go straight to answerphone.

Given the sluggishness of the EDGE networks (even more so whilst moving, I travel to work on the train with no WiFi), I'm usually downloading more than I'm reading websites, meaning that the "Phone" part is pretty much useless during that time. This is a problem to me.

So, I tried to explore the possibility of switching from NOM2 to NOM1. O2's response was NOM-what? (this was their data experts). After wasting a couple of hours going through the same tests over and over again (ok so they're only doing their job) I reached a conclusion!

In short, the network was working as intended (?!?!?!?). All GPRS phones (EDGE included) suffer this problem, except none but the iPhone is designed for such elegant web browsing, so others are less likely to notice it. There was nothing they could do, but they thanked me for my valuable feedback… Apparently, I was the first person to report such a problem. Am I?

I'm not sure what I'm hoping to accomplish with this post. I'm pretty annoyed, so it's partly to vent: at the time it took them to come to a conclusion and that they couldn't offer a solution. I really love my iPhone, but this has tainted the rose tinted spectacles. I will now resent having to upgrade to a 3G iPhone (3G doesn't suffer from this problem as the data and voice streams are separate) but if I want the phone to act as I expect, I'll have to pay. Also I wanted to let people know about this under publicised problem.

For information: O2's terms and conditions do not specifically state that this could happen, only Apple's state that it may happen. I can confirm that it does happen and happens all the time to me.

Any other suggestions? (please try not to flame me toooooo much…)

Thanks,

 

[kr9ab]

Interesting as I've been experiencing the same problem. Personally, I try not to use voicemail ever since being advised to so do by a (then) Cellnet engineer. I was told that the network, when busy, would "bump" those connections where the recipient had voicemail enabled, in preference to those recipients who didn't use the voicemail service. Makes sense, I guess, though, of course, they always get the revenue from the call made to retrieve that voicemail.....

At the time we tried it with two phones, one with voicemail enabled and the other without. We then placed ten calls to each phone. The phone without voicemail scored 10/10, the phone with, only 5/10.

With the iPhone I'm often being told that so an so couldn't get through to me - at least now I know why! Thanks.

 

[bstpierre]

That problem has been mentioned numerous times in all the posts discussing whether it is worthwhile to get the 3G iPhone when it comes out.