Experts and analysts of all stripes are trying to explain what's wrong with the iPhone 3G, but their answers are frequently supported by bad science, outlandish claims, and pure speculation. Here's what's wrong in the reports, and why a simple firmware update is likely to solve the current issues.
While nobody has formally studied the problem, lots of iPhone 3G users are complaining that they can't find 3G service, can't maintain 3G service in areas where other 3G phones can, witness wildly fluctuating signal strength bars on the phone, or conversely can't use 3G because it consumes battery life too rapidly.
Many articles on the subject are referencing Apple's support forums, where some discussions have gotten so long that forum moderators have had to lock the original thread and create a new overflow discussion.
Clearly, there are real problems. How widespread and common those problems are is more difficult to pinpoint. Apple said it sold a million iPhone 3G units on its opening weekend, and Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster reported that each of the company's US retail stores are now selling an average of 95 iPhone 3G sales per day. He expects the company to sell 4.47 million this quarter. That indicates that well over two million iPhone 3G units have already been sold to users.
Even if the 3G issues were only affecting one percent of the phones sold, that would leave twenty thousand users with problems. If only a tenth of those users posted comments online, that would easily account for the two thousand messages on Apple's discussion boards.
Blame the provider?
In the US, AT&T has been fingered in the iPhone 3G's reception problems due to the telco's relatively new and limited service coverage of its 3G network. Even in urban areas where AT&T's service maps indicate there should be 3G service, the iPhone 3G frequently fails to find it or maintain a strong enough signal to complete a call.
Compared to Sprint and Verizon Wireless, which both have wider 3G service coverage in their more mature 3G EVDO networks, AT&T is building out its 3G network using UMTS, a worldwide standard. AT&T is also forced to use different radio frequencies than other UMTS providers, which results in less technical maturity for AT&T's 3G network than those overseas.
AT&T primarily uses the 1900MHz band in the US, but is working to expand its use of its 850MHz band, a lower frequency that allows radio signals to spread farther and penetrate walls easier. Europe uses the even higher 2100MHz band for 3G, but there is also more dense network coverage there.
While AT&T's network is still experiencing some growing pains, the iPhone 3G's reception issues are also being reported in other countries too, even in Europe where 3G UMTS networks have been built out for some time. In those locations, the iPhone's dual band 3G radio uses the standard UMTS frequencies, making it hard to blame AT&T for more than just its limited coverage.
Dropped calls by provider
An article on the iPhone 3G by BusinessWeek cited unnamed sources to report, "the problem is affecting 2% to 3% of iPhone traffic, the people say. That compares with a dropped-call rate of around 1% for all traffic for AT&T." A source for the dropped call rate at AT&T wasn't given.
Studies on dropped calls are difficult because users don't report their dropped calls, and providers would be challenged to know whether phones on their networks ended a call on purpose or not. Further, calls may be dropped for a number of reasons, from poor service coverage or intermittent signal interference to phone set problems to users walking into a elevator or bank vault.
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