iPhone 3G signal and reception complaints pour in

Posted by olivernward
16 July 2008 @ 11am

i live in central London in an area with supposed FULL coverage. not only does the 3g reception go in and out, it rarely gets above 2 bars. AND not only this, the signal strength is so poor that even edge craps out, and i get downgraded further.
i spoke to a rep of O2 and they said they had had similar complaints from other new iPhone users. i spoke to somebody else in the signals dept who basically said the coverage was completely fine and no outages or issues had been reported at all.
i now only turn on 3g out of morbid curiosity and nothing else.
so what we have essentially here folks is a dodgy product.

Posted by s_kdesign
16 July 2008 @ 12pm

You think you have it bad. I live in Japan and I have no choice but to keep 3G on all of the time. Whereas in my house for example my old Nokia3G phone has full signal, My new iPhone has 1 bar constantly goes in and out of no service. This is bad for 2 reasons. 1. The obvious, no signal no calls.
2. (Not only does having to keep 3G on all the time drain the battery)Low signal forces it to drain the battery even more as it is struggling to get more signal.

When I am outside, I have not yet seen the signal bar go to full strength. I have never made it past 3 bars.

What can be done about this???

Posted by sithel
16 July 2008 @ 12pm

I have the old iPhone, and have had many signal problems since upgrading to 2.0. Perhaps this isn’t a hardware problem of either the phone or the network.

Posted by kilburni
16 July 2008 @ 1pm

Okay…the complaints that compare EDGE and 3G signal strength are invalid. It’s different technology. I’ve also been told (by an AT&T rep, for what its worth) that the iPhone 3G is designed to receive its cellular signal from the nearest tower to you, whether it be 3G or EDGE technology. That said, I’ve had a few of these problems myself, specifically in my house. Turning off 3G seems to fix this but who wants to turn off a service that they pay an extra 15 dollars per month for?

I’m also having a lot of trouble with my wifi connection, especially in comparison with my old iPhone…any suggestions on that front?

Posted by templetonrl
16 July 2008 @ 1pm

I have the first Iphone and was always at 5 bars while in my house. I upgraded to version 2 software and I only have 2 bars….. I called Apple, they were no help. I asked about going back to Iphone v1 software and was told that was no longer available. First hung up for 2 days on the Itunes software upgrade. Then Monday had to restore Iphone, it took 2 more days to get music and photos synced(no music or photos for the 2 days). And still only 2 bars of signal strength! I am disgusted with Apple! Looked at Vista laptops yesterday as well as the Instinct from Sprint. I am selling my black Macbook and my Iphone on Ebay. Going back to something without the excess baggage and damage that Apple has become. By the way Safari is unable to open Ebay pages half the time and relisting items page shows up in HTML rather then plain text. Apple sucks!

Posted by jmcminn1076
16 July 2008 @ 1pm

I’ve personally found edge and wifi to be just fine. With 3G, it depends on where I am. I live in San Jose, CA, and it seems to be a feast or famine sort of thing, despite AT&Ts all blue coverage map. Examples:

I get 5 bars for 3G:

* most of downtown San Jose
* Pruneyard/Campbell
* along El Camino Real in Sunnyvale

I get almost no 3G signal:

* home (just north east of Pruneyard, where I get 5 bars)
* work (near moffet field)
* areas of south San Jose

The thing that seems odd, is that if it were completely a hardware issue, I’d expect to have problems more or less everywhere. I mean, when I have 5 bars, the 3G is good… it doesn’t drop or stutter, and the data is fast. I am just finding the places that I get good 3G signal to be less than impressive. I am wondering if Apple did something with the software (perhaps as an attempt to save battery) that is causing it to have problems in areas with “middle of the road” signal strength.

Posted by Shevek
16 July 2008 @ 2pm

Same problem here, in Camden Town, London, UK. Signal gets dropped in my house which is a bummer. Go stand outside my front door and signal is good.

Posted by w4rmk
16 July 2008 @ 4pm

I am having the same issues here in Denver, Colorado. Edge connection is consistently better than 3G and when the 3G signal strength drops to zero the iPhone drops the call rather than switching to Edge (which has good signal). So Apple’s Edge/3G switching code is not working as it should. I’m sure we will see a firmware update to address the switching coming soon. In the meantime I leave my phone on Edge and only turn on 3G when I want to surf or use some data services.

Posted by warpAFX
16 July 2008 @ 5pm

Sorry to say this, but I’m glad that the folks who downloaded the 2.0 software are having the same problems. That means software fix rather than hardware disaster. Hopefully this will be fixed soon because it’s a real pain. And it will become a huge embarrassment for Apple if they don’t act immediately. I’m in the heart of Philadelphia and I’ll be sitting somewhere with 3G and then it just drops out completely. Insane.

Posted by chrispy_dotmac
16 July 2008 @ 11pm

For the past week (or so) my network access has been terrible (in Denver also). I can go from 4 bars to 1 bar to no signal in my house whereas before I was a constant 3 bars for a few days straight until I’d have to reboot to get my signal back (common practice from what I’m told). Now I’m rebooting daily. Oh yeah, this isn’t a 3G problem or a 2.0 problem as I have a less than a month old original iPhone (replacement) still running 1.1.4. When the 3G buzz dies down I’m taking the phone in to see what Apple thinks but I can see the AT$T network is just bogged down. I’d be torqued if I was a new 3G owner and had to pay and extra $15 a month and I was getting crappy reception.

Posted by Tripod_x
17 July 2008 @ 12am

I have a 2G phone, signal strength in and around Hamburg, Germany right after I updated to 2.0 was frighteningly bad. I got “No Service” for first time ever.
I cautiously can report that it seems to be getting better, however I too am also at 1 to 2 bars inside my house quite often. I can only guess that wifi is getting in the way of the phone radio somehow. Dunno… This is where the rubber meets the road for Apple though, hope they perform. (and that they do something mucho pronto about the Contacts app).

Posted by karabumm
17 July 2008 @ 2am

Does anybody know where the anntenna is exactly located? On the first gen iPhone, signal reception was majorly improved when the hand wasn’t over the bottom 20% (the plastic part) where all the anntennas were placed in.

If we knew where the antenna is in the new iPhone (potentially everywhere, since the whole back is now plastic), we could prevent touching this part and check whether it improves reception.

Posted by mjr9999
17 July 2008 @ 4am

Top of hill in Boston MA and 1-2 bars with 3G. I’ll give it 2 weeks for a fix and then i’m returning this overrated piece of junk!

I’ld love to blame ATT but it doesn’t sound like it’s there crummy network this time. Love the concept of paying a 10% restocking fee for poorly designed technology.

I feel bad for any loser who waited in line for this thing for hours on end.

Posted by eyemumforfun
17 July 2008 @ 7am

Sad to say, here in Philadelphia, PA I have the same issue! Spoke with Apple support last night and they recommended having my at&t account re-provisioned. I have not tried it yet but I will. I am desperate for great reception, and to shut my friends up who laugh at me, for waiting in line so long for what is now appearing to be a paperweight that sometimes gets good reception for phone calls.

Posted by ransom12
17 July 2008 @ 9am

Prime example that AT&T lies about their coverage. Once again the iPhone is an excellent phone on a bad network.

Posted by mgarc1125
17 July 2008 @ 9am

First off, I have the old iPhone upgraded to 2.0 and I have encountered no problems with service here in Atlanta. I get 5 bars almost everywhere just as I did before.

As for my friends who have upgraded to 3g, (I’m kinda using them as guinea pigs before I upgrade) they are getting horrible 3g coverage here. When they switch back to edge they get full service but on 3g they get 1 or no bars at all. It’s sad, we did a speedtest the first day between the old and the new iPhone and the old iphone loaded up the Apple home page 10 seconds faster than the 3g did.

Posted by stteve
17 July 2008 @ 11am

As one user noted here, I too would like to blame this reception problem squarely on AT&T. I’ve never had good service on AT&T (past and present) here in Chicago. I bought into the hype and purchased and 3g iPhone to basically find it useless because of poor reception.

The phone is awesome and all the other features work well; however, the ultimate goal of the iPHONE is to be PHONE and with this incredibly poor reception I can’t make or receive phone calls at least 50% of the time.

I live in Chicago and downtown in the Loop (business district), the phone works well in 3g, but when I’m at home still inside Chicago (the Uptown/Rogers Park area) the phone reception is aweful. I also tested the phone in the Lakeview area where it also went in and out of coverage.

It’s odd. The phone can go from 3 or 4 bars to “no service” and bounce back and forth all day. I was driving up Lake Shore Drive (a major road in the city) and I dropped a call 3 times!

Unfortunately this phone is going back. I agree with the sentiment that we shouldn’t have to pay a 10% restocking fee for a phone and/or network that is POORLY designed.

WARNING: Do NOT buy the iPhone until this problem is fixed!

Posted by voodoogmr
17 July 2008 @ 11am

I was having the same issues with my iPhone 3G. I went to the AT&T store and told them about it. They asked me for some street names where the signal was dropping out and they submitted a support ticket. Within a few hours, I had 2 bars (which is good for my backwoods area). This is EDGE though, which is all we have near our house. Have had a consistent signal ever since Saturday. In fact, I can rarely get any cell signals at my house from any carrier. But now, I get 2 bars on my iPhone. I’m quite happy with it.

Have 3G coverage at my office. Signal is full-scale most everywhere I go, at least around the east side of the county (I’m near Memphis, TN).

Oh, and I had a Samsung Instinct before I switched to the iPhone. If you want to see erratic signal drop-outs, get one of those. I told Sprint about it and all they said was to wait for them to release some signal booster soon and pay an additional $15/month for that. Yeah right.

Posted by swisskiltbear
17 July 2008 @ 11am

“Once again the iPhone is an excellent phone on a bad network.”

I beg to differ! The iPhone seems to be a very crappy 3G phone even on good networks.

Here at home in Bern, Switzerland, My Nokia 6280 has a maximum 3G signal on Orange, while the iPhone has two bars at best, mostly one bar, which isn’t enough to place or receive calls and it stubbornly won’t step down to 2G.

As far as phone functionality goes, the iPhone is all but useless on the Swiss Orange network. I have returned it after an afternoon of use, having no or bad signal for the entire afternoon with the iPhone not stepping down to 2G, at the same time, my work mobile, the Nokia consistently showed maximum 3G signal strength or 3 of four bars at worst.

I have never seen more than 2 bars of 3G signal strength on the iPhone 3G.

3G reception of the iPhone and mode switching (or rather not switching) are the worst I have seen here from any 3G phone.

Posted by mderosa22
17 July 2008 @ 1pm

I live in the Silicon Valley about 5 minutes away from the Apple Headquarters in Cupertino….and I guarentee this problem is #1 on the minds of Apple iPhone engineers, I rarely get more than 2 bars the only time I get 3 is when I have it plugged into its charger and its usually only for a few seconds. It is consistently at 2 bars and drops to one pretty often.

1 possible idea as to why this is the case would to be due to the high demand for 3G and influx of new 3G users due to the iPhone 3G insane number of sales! ATT is sooo happy!!!

second idea is that the iPhone’s battery is drained dramatically when on 3G so the weaker the 3G the less the power used by the phone….not sure if there is any truth to that but just an thought I had after using my iphone 3G for the past week.

Possible Solutions:

Turn off 3G! unless you are surfing the web or doing something where you need 3G speeds just switch it off and use the Edge until you need the 3G speeds, you dont need your phone to receive calls in 3G speed or listen to music and use any of the games and many of the applications. And the EDGE in most areas will be 3 bars or higher.

I am sure Apple is working to fix this issue…..they dont want 1 or 2 bars either!!

Posted by gookymofo
17 July 2008 @ 2pm

that is totally weird that so many people are having these issues with reception. i live in San Francisco and since i’ve bought the iPhone 3G, i do NOT have any of these issues. my reception is constantly full (5 bars) and sometimes dips in the known “dead spots” to 2 bars or so.

i did, however, have one issue on Monday when i switched to 3G and it went back to EDGE. all i did was reboot the iPhone and it picked up 3G fine. since then, it’s been going back and forth fine AND with full signals. i tried it in Fremont at my parents (Warm Springs district) and i got 3 bars and 3G data was still smokin’ fast.

i bet it has something to do with the iPhone 2.0 software and firmware. Apple is actually testing out the 2.0.1 firmware at the moment, so i wouldn’t be surprised if this will fix a lot of reception issues. at&t has excellent coverage (especially with the 2G EDGE), so it must be the software that’s causing that issue.

also, i have the first gen iPhone that i had upgraded to 2.0 before the iPhone launch and it got PERFECT full signal and never had any issues.

to the ones that are having these reception issues (be it 3G or first gen), i’m sorry for your troubles. Apple is learning the Microsoft way of pushing out fixes, so please be patient and your experience with the iPhone and at&t will be better, i promise.

Posted by RowdyBliss
17 July 2008 @ 5pm

I am a current AT&T customer doing research on the iPhone to see if it’s worth my time/trouble to get one, as I qualify for the reduced pricing. Beginning to think my prudence paid off…

Anyway - back to the point - I live in the Philadelphia area and currently have an LG phone that is on AT&T’s 3G network all the time, and I have never, EVER had any issues with connectivity. I’ve never dropped a call, downloads are easy and fast, and reception is as clear as a bell. This leads me to believe that the current iPhone 3G woes are not network-related but, rather, are phone-related and something that Apple must fix.

This makes me sad. I really wanted the new iPhone. Poop.

Posted by Jeffrey Hagedon
18 July 2008 @ 4am

3G is not ready for prime-time. Apple bit off more than it can chew and it’s hard to swallow!

Posted by Jeffrey Hagedon
18 July 2008 @ 5am

I, unfortunately, upgraded to the 3G, and experience all of the above complaints. I also experience random crashes while using various applications, primarily the third party apps from iTunes. This sometimes occurs three or more times per day. The phone reboots while in the middle of inputting text, or even while reading a web page! The new contact search feature is negated by the sluggishness of the touch screen. I have to wait sometimes seconds for it to respond. It takes seemingly forever to make a simple phone call while using the contact list.

My original 2G iPhone is still running 1.1.4 and works like a charm (albeit on Edge or Wifi). I do not intend to upgrade to 2.0 given all the issues. A “Jailbroken” first generation iPhone has almost all of the good attributes of the 3G, and none of the bad. Apple will surely have to address these problems soon, or will suffer a huge PR disaster. The shortage of iPhone supply for Apple and AT&T is a good thing. If all of the willing customers actually already had the phone, they would be overwhelmed with complaints and returns. Meanwhile, people are blindly standing in lines and placing “product fulfillment” orders with AT&T only to become disappointed when they finally get their hands on it.

Posted by UserWest
18 July 2008 @ 3pm

Ok. Same problem here in Arizona. What is going on with Apple and ATT? If this is on a mass scale then this should turn out to be a disaster for them. Come on Apple, you should know better. I might have to go back to Verizon. Has anyone had any success with an exchange?

Posted by lattmi
20 July 2008 @ 2am

Read the article and experience the same problems in Berlin, Germany. The fluctuating 3G reception in the middle of Berlin is a bad joke. The EDGE reception is great though.

Posted by stteve
20 July 2008 @ 4pm

I went to return my iPhone 3G which is rendered useless for 3G service because of this reception problem indicated by users Worldwide.

I must say returning the phone was the WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE experience EVER!

I went to the Apple Store at the Old Orchard Mall in Skokie. I was first helped by Matt who was unsure how to return an iPhone. I showed him the Cnet and PC Magazine article about poor iPhone 3G reception and I had printed all 100 pages from this message board. So he went to speak to his manager. He came back and told me I had to go through an Apple Genius, so I had to sign-up for a meeting with a Genius. It was 12:15pm today and the next opportunity was 4:30 today or sometime Monday afternoon. I signed up for 4:30pm.

I left the store with a friend and in discussion walked about 50 feet and then decided it was completely unacceptable that I would have to wait over 4 hours to return a defective product.

I returned to the store. I located Matt and kindly asked to speak to his manager. His manager, Michael, walked over and immediately started to tell me that it was policy and there was no exceptions. I tried to explain to him the problem I was having - even showing him the documentation - and he didn’t want to hear it. I expressed that I thought the need to wait for a Genius was a bit much to return a defective product and that I would be contacting Apple directly and possibily the Better Business Bureau. Michael, the manager said, “If that’s what you’d like to do, go right ahead.” My friend and I were both shocked at his response. I told him I guess I’d wait til 4:30pm, but asked if he could give me the name and number of his store manager and district manager. He said, I’ll only give you the 800-support number and stormed off to get a card to right it on.

When he returned from the back office - apparently after talking to a manager that was more informed and more empowered than him - his tune had suddenly changed. He was immediately willing to take my return on the spot.

He fired up the AT&T computer and processed my cancellation and my return. They even waived the restocking fee and refuneded my MobileMe. As he was processing my cancellation immediately next to another poor guy buying a 3G, the guy leaned over and said “Dude, why are you returning your phone… please tell me before I spend the money.” As much as I wanted to tell him, I was nice and just said “I didn’t like it.” I really wanted to rail on the phone based on the HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE I received.

I’m a long-time Apple fan, but today they lost my allegiance. I was going to buy an iTouch to replace the iPhone, but I decided just to leave the store. I’m not sure I’ll ever buy an Apple product again based on Michael’s attitude at the Skokie Apple Store. I can deal with a product that might not be ready for market, but this guys attitude really soured me. If I do get an iTouch, it won’t be through that Apple store.

For those looking to get an iPhone 3G, I’d hold off.

Posted by senor1ca
24 July 2008 @ 4pm

Same exact problem. I am in Los Angeles, cell phone capital of the world. If there’s not service here, there’s not service anywhere. Just got the iPhone 3G. The lady that helped me in the Apple store explained that the 3G service should be turned off when you are not browsing the internet because it drains battery life faster. When I decided to do a comparison, I quickly learned that there WAS NO 3G network. 1 bar or a no service message. I have tried it in the car, the house, driving around…its like it doesn’t exist. The ONLY place it worked fine was in the Apple Store. I’ve had it on EDGE ever since.

I feel that, until this issue is resolved, Apple/AT&T should issue credits for the monthly fee for 3G, like they did when they slashed the price of the first iPhone right out of the gate.
I could have bought the last iPhone if this is what I was going to get.

Posted by rstrick41
25 July 2008 @ 9pm

I agree with everything I’ve read so far. I live just outside of Denver and although I am constantly being told that I have great 2G and 3G service at my house, I really haven’t been convinced. I was one of those “excited people” who stood in line (although I waited a few days) to get my new, updated toy. I have had the original iPhone for a year and have had a great experience with it…I have recommended it to everyone. So, when the 3G came out, I just KNEW that Apple had perfected the wonderful machine…NOT! I have never been so disappointed. My 3G has not worked more than a couple of minutes at a time and only in limited areas and then it drops and says “no service”. I thought it was supposed to automatically link on to EDGE? Instead, there have been many times when I look down at my phone and wonder just how long I’ve been without any reception at all…and I have kids I need to keep in contact with. Now, I keep it on 2G all the time and even in my house I get, at the most 2-3 bars and my old iPhone (which gave to my wife) always had 4 or 5. By the way, the original iPhone I gave her…even with the 2.0 software, still gets 4-5 bars in the house, my kids get 5’s in the house on their other cell phones, and old Dad, with his new toy, is lucky to get 2…”Apple…I hope you’re listening!!!!!!”

Posted by aralbalkan
28 July 2008 @ 6am

I just want to echo stteve’s sentiments, above. When I tried to return my defective new iPhone (to the Carphone Warehouse, in the UK), I got the worst customer service ever also.

Here’s my somewhat humorous write-up of the whole affair: iPhoned: a story of shiny new gadgets and lousy customer service (http://aralbalkan.com/1416). In hindsight, it was so ridiculous that it actually was funny — in that I-wish-it-happened-to-someone-else sort of way.

Posted by madpixl
13 August 2008 @ 6am

My i-phone 3g Could barely get a signal in New Haven Train Station on 3g. My home is in an area where ATT shows strong 3g and I haven’t seen it on my i-phone yet. I get no bars and dropped calls.

Posted by peatoire
7 September 2008 @ 1pm

+1. Terrible, No 3G. ALl I get is crappy GPRS not even EDGE. and I’m next to the motorway (M1) which has a very good 3G reception. I just hope it’s not too long before apple either get a fix or recall the phones. I can’t beleive it’s the service providers as there are just too many identical problems worldwide just with this one phone.