Comments on: What’s the 3G Problem? Source Close to AT&T Says iPhone Tower Power Drain

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:17:56 +0000

All I know is this phone cost me $400. I expect it to work. Is that so much to freakin ask?

By: John C

John C — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:21:20 +0000

Denis I’m in the same boat AT&T is clueless, they built a tower in the woods on a water tower and guess what the tree’s grow and the tower didn’t, CLUELESS

By: Michael N.

Michael N. — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:13:05 +0000

Please join the facebook page dedicated to AT&T’s lousy iPhone service: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126827869791

By: denis, waterford, mi.

denis, waterford, mi. — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 22:04:54 +0000

Thinking about switching to verizon.

By: denis, waterford, mi.

denis, waterford, mi. — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 22:03:52 +0000

Me and wife had iphone since January. No problem till now. Cant call out or in and no texts or internet but only when i am at my house. I go one street over and i get connected. Very bad for me since i am in health care and need my phone 24/7. AT&T doesnt really know what to do. I dont know what to do . I thought that “DEAD ZONE ” was a joke but now i am in one, and i’m stuck in it with AT&T .

By: bruce

bruce — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:26:41 +0000

This isn’t just an iPhone problem. This is a problem with AT&T network and it being oversubscribed in general. The huge influx of yet another round of iPhone users and their associated HUGE volumes of data that they require are only helping to compound the problem. I am not an iPhone user or even a fan – I frankly feel that they are noting more than an expensive toy at this point in time, even with 3G and the half-baked Exchange integration – not a real business tool (no matter what the Apple commercials say). I use an HTC Tilt and within the past 4-6 weeks – not surprisingly just after the latest release of the new iPhones – I have been experiencing excessive numbers of dropped calls, slow data response, mysteriously incomplete calls, etc. This is VERY distressing since I am in sales and dropping/missing calls is a distinct problem. AT&T needs to address this issue by either fixing their network or by stopping the sales of products that are compounding the problems until they can fix their network. If I wasn’t tied into a 2-yr contract, I might even consider going back to Verizon or some other carrier.

By: haydn

haydn — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:25:45 +0000

I’ve found my problems go much deeper. Yes it drops out of 3G – permanently for the psat week but it will also drop from the edge network. After two visits to the store and an hour on the phone with customer service I’ve given my iPhone back. There have been about 6 days in the three weeks I’ve had it where I could get no coverage at all – that adds up to a lot of lost business as clients could not make contact with me. Apple should have stayed in computing becuase out thre in mobile services they are not up to it.

By: dennis

dennis — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:41:52 +0000

I can’t determine whether an arcane cellular networking explanation is true or not. What I do know is that a “bug fixes” patch that actually corrects an error in the cellular networking protocol in a way that patchers suffer and non-patchers continue to have an operational 3G connection is not a “bug fixes” patch. Lacking any known means of updating firmware remotely, Apple should have treated the situation as an EMERGENCY MANDATORY SERVICE RECALL. You can’t use the firmware update process to correct a critical error like that. There are plenty of users who not only didn’t update to 2.0.2 and now don’t have the reason to, but they will wait to update to 2.1 to see what happens then, as well. Those users have no reason to complete or participate in some zany scheme to cover up a critical firmware flaw. You’d have to be a fool to believe that someone in that situation really cares about the networking problems of other people, so to shift blame on them indirectly is ridiculous.

By: Alienware_51

Alienware_51 — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:09:00 +0000

Here’s some more info on cell shrinkage- The performance of CDMA cellular systems over the air is generally interference-limited. A phenomena arising from this is the effect of cell-breathing in 3G cellular systems. Cellbreathing is the expansion or contraction of the effective coverage of a cell in response to the number of active mobiles (MSs) in a network. If it is not well controlled, communication failure may result. With 3G offering different classes of services, planning and dimensioning of such high-quality radio networks thus requires extensive planning tools. Despite the progressive rolling out of 3G systems worldwide, the effects of cell-breathing are not well understood. In this work, a simulator is set up to study the effect of cell breathing. Simulation results show how the area where reliable coverage can be provided by a base station (BS) may varies as the density of MSs changes within it. Current work emphasizes on the downlink simulation with a single BS followed by a similar simulation involving 2 BS. The results demonstrate how cell-breathing may cause communications failure.

By: Alienware_51

Alienware_51 — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:03:27 +0000

There is such a thing called cell shrinkage, UMTS is based off of a CDMA backbone, and drawbacks are when a UMTS tower gets crowed with calls it will cut back the power that the tower puts out (cell shrinkage), so in result more dropped calls and fluctuating signal. It’s real. Ask a cell site engineer.