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iPhone cause of no service & not AT&T?

K

kane4fire

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 1, 2008
36
0
I have almost no service half the time in my home with my iPhone (usually because the dumb thing switches to the edge towers which has no signal but the 3G will have some). So I decided I would do a quick test of things for a day and just keep mental notes.

I tested my old Motorola Slvr in the same areas where my iphone shows 1 bar for a full day and come to find that the Slvr has 3 bars or more in those same areas. Also, where I used to drop calls constantly, the voice was crystal clear on both ends and no dropped calls at all.

I did the same test but shorter with my friends phones with AT&T service with a Samsung A237, Pantech Matrix Pro, and Blackberry Curve. Not only did they all show similar bars as my Slvr, but the data remained on 3G for the phone capable and again NO DROPPED CALLS.

I pull the SIM out of the Slvr and back into the iPhone and sure enough the first call I made, I ended up dropping the call almost immediately because of no service.

I've had this same issue with the 2G iphone (though not as bad as the 3GS) and the only conclusion I can come to is that though everyone wants to blame AT&T for the crap service, I really think it's the iPhone itself. The only thing I can blame AT&T for is lack of MMS and the rape that they charge me every month.

Does anyone else have similar experience or tried the same experiment?
 
Yes, my wife's Razr always has full bars and my iPhone 3GS flips out like a ninja constantly. I didn't have service for 5 hours last night at the Rockies game and people all around me where tapping and calling away. Makes me wonder if my phone has some issues.
 
I got same issue. All other phones in my house work great. iPhone reception sucks. Did a full restore still sucks. I am a beta tester and put 3.1b3 on it and it only got worse! I know it's not ATT. Apple might be good at ipods and macs but they suck at phones...
 
My Nokia N75 (work phone) consistently gets better reception than my iPhone (personal).
Both are are 3G and both are on AT&T.

I think it's a combination of poor antennae design and signal handling in the software with the iPhone.
Reboots, restores and even a replacement and it's still the same.
Can't blame this particular issue on AT&T.
 
You may also want to try getting a new sim card. I had issues with my 3g dropping calls but my 3gs worked fine. Turned out it was a bad sim.
 
This could be a problem with individual iPhones. I had similar problems with a 3G, but my 3GS is a-okay. That was the only thing in the environment that changed, unless AT&T was working on its network.
 
It's pretty much known by now that the iPhone has a notoriously weak antenna and/or baseband. A lot of things people blame ATT for are actually a fault of the iPhone. It's a shame after all this time that Apple can't at least make the most important part of the iPhone it's strongest point.
 
I've noticed, over the past few weeks, a huge degradation in call reception and cell strength. I'm getting several dropped calls a day, hangs, calls that go straight to voicemail, etc. Really annoying especially when you are in sales and live and die by your phone.

Not sure if it is the fault of ATT, Apple, or a combination of both, but it is getting unbearable.
 
Has anyone noticed that most people who complain about the iPhone's reception are comparing it to Nokia phones? Perhaps it's not that the iPhone is particularly bad, but that Nokias are particularly good?

Anyway, I'm not here to argue with anyone. All I'm saying is that, from my own experience, my iPhone 3GS gets better reception in marginal areas than my previous Samsung and LG phones. I was making calls and browsing the web this afternoon in a spot where I couldn't even get a signal with my Samsung 737 two weeks ago. YMMV.
 
Mikey B said:
I've noticed, over the past few weeks, a huge degradation in call reception and cell strength. I'm getting several dropped calls a day, hangs, calls that go straight to voicemail, etc. Really annoying especially when you are in sales and live and die by your phone.

Not sure if it is the fault of ATT, Apple, or a combination of both, but it is getting unbearable.
Click to expand...

This has absolutely been the case for me as well. The iPhone reception went from bad to worse; I'm on AT&T and my friends who are on AT&T all get better reception. I think part of it is the iPhone physical design, the way the OS checks/maintains reception (probably to save battery life), switching between Edge and 3G, etc.

Lots of people are going to deny it because they haven't done the comparisons, not to mention that Apple users are very defensive about Apple in general. Also, people don't like to spend 300 dollars and then rip on the purchase.

This is the same reason you'll so rarely see a bad review for a really big TV. A bad review by a purchaser is basically the purchaser saying they made a mistake, and people don't like to spend a lot of money and do that. They'd rather live in denial.
 
I live in Denver, Colorado and these last few months, I have had the worst service ever with AT&T. I've had AT&T for over 15 years and it really sucks right now. I'm on a family plan with 3 iphones and 1 samsung and we are all having problems with dropped calls and reception issues. Its crazy!!! All my friends that have iphones are complaining too. Whats going on? I have called AT&T and they blame Apple. Go to Apple and they blame AT&T. I think its AT&T because it started getting worse around June. Anyway, just my 2 cents!
 
eurogreek said:
I live in Denver, Colorado and these last few months, I have had the worst service ever with AT&T. I've had AT&T for over 15 years and it really sucks right now. I'm on a family plan with 3 iphones and 1 samsung and we are all having problems with dropped calls and reception issues. Its crazy!!! All my friends that have iphones are complaining too. Whats going on? I have called AT&T and they blame Apple. Go to Apple and they blame AT&T. I think its AT&T because it started getting worse around June. Anyway, just my 2 cents!
Click to expand...

I'm in Denver with a family plan too. EXACT same experience here.
 
eurogreek said:
I live in Denver, Colorado and these last few months, I have had the worst service ever with AT&T. I've had AT&T for over 15 years and it really sucks right now. I'm on a family plan with 3 iphones and 1 samsung and we are all having problems with dropped calls and reception issues. Its crazy!!! All my friends that have iphones are complaining too. Whats going on? I have called AT&T and they blame Apple. Go to Apple and they blame AT&T. I think its AT&T because it started getting worse around June. Anyway, just my 2 cents!
Click to expand...
I am having the exact same problem!! I always had great reception with AT&T but lately it just sucks! I recently killed my 3GS and since switched to a cingular 8525 and it gets much better reception then the iPhone but still sucks compared to what it was last year!!
:confused:
 
raven77 said:
I am having the exact same problem!! I always had great reception with AT&T but lately it just sucks! I recently killed my 3GS and since switched to a cingular 8525 and it gets much better reception then the iPhone but still sucks compared to what it was last year!!
:confused:
Click to expand...

I'll really think it is a combination of the overall iPhone design, individual device defects and AT&T's network being strained by all the additional iPhone data intensive traffic. Personally, from the times I have compared the reception of the four different device types my family has (LG Shine, Samsung, BB Pearl and iPhone 3GS) with AT&T I have not seen much difference between them. They typically have 3-5 bars inside our home and are usually within a bar of each other.
 
I've already gotten my first replaced because of poor reception, and the second isn't much better. Today I had to reset it because it was showing 0 bars with 3G beside them. I restarted twice and finally I got 5 bars.
 
Ive had the similar issue the last couple of days and finally I had apple give me a replacement no questions asked. i went in and showed them directly and the phone said "no service" they just nodded and gave me a replacement. my issue was i would not get any reception in places that i used to like my HOME! and inside anywhere, even in my car i would get no service and even if im outside the reception bar would go haywire, from no service to edge, to 1bar of 3g to back
 
Well, consider me the opposite... my old Cingular 8525 would get 1 or no bars at work, run the battery down from 90 to 20 percent trying to connect, then when I would walk outside, it would not reconnect until I toggled airplane mode off and on. I finally started putting it into airplane mode, and leaving it in the car. My iPhone on the other hand stays on standby, getting push emails and txts (I'm not sure what until I leave work cause I cannot check, but I feel it vibrating) until I leave, and it drops like 10-15 percent of battery life during my 8 hour shift. Before you say the 8525 is old, so the battery is trash, I replaced it about 6 months ago, cause well it was old and wouldn't hold a charge since I had the phone for almost 3, yes count 'em 3 years. The iPhone gets bars where the 8525 never did, and doesn't drop calls where the 8525 did.

So, once again, it is not all iPhones

Chef Jay
 
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