iPhone 3G reception just fine say curious Swedes with engineering degrees

There's been a lot of discussion lately about iPhone 3G reception issues. Whether they exist or not is largely irrelevant in a world dominated by sound-bite driven perceptions. Nevertheless, some industrious Swedes decided to apply a little scientific method to the argument and found something interesting: the iPhone 3G performed just as well (or just as poorly, depending upon your mood) as a Nokia N73 and Sony Ericsson P1 when compared head-to-head in a mobile communications test chamber. The test was conducted by real-life antenna engineers just like those camera-fumbling souls contracted by the FCC. Of course, who's going to let a few facts stand in the way of contrary opinion and litigation, eh?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[lu1de @ Aug 25th 2008 5:44AM]

iPhone FTW!

[Muhammed @ Aug 25th 2008 7:31AM]

yeah right, it was the worst choice in my life to get it
now I actually look forward to trade it for an HTC touch pro, even if I have to pay any amount of money, I just want it out of my life.

[Izzy @ Aug 25th 2008 7:57AM]

Mine works fine (so far) but I have the same problem I did with my Dash on T-Mo. I'll be holding my phone with full bars, the phone never rings and I get a VM from someone who just called. WTF!

[Surur @ Aug 25th 2008 8:01AM]

Doesn't this mean that its Apple's crappy software which is responsible for the dropped calls and the inability to hold onto 3G connections?

[kccboy2004 @ Aug 25th 2008 8:10AM]

So this categorically proves that it is not the antenna that is responsible for the crappy reception. Therefore what is the real reason for iPhones having crappy reception.

I had been ready to put this down to Apple's suppliers, but I suppose Engadget, that you are saying that this is Apple's fault.

[CraigJ @ Aug 25th 2008 10:29AM]

@Surur

No. It means, if the test valid, that there is nothing wrong with the iPhone, at least nothing wrong with it that isn't wrong with other phones.

[Tonicboy @ Aug 25th 2008 12:08PM]

@Izzy

yeah that's seems to be AT&T BS. i get the same thing on my HTC Touch and my Treo 650 before that.

[Muhammed @ Aug 27th 2008 6:05PM]

why was my comment low-ranked?
Neither am I a windows-mobile fanboy nor apple, I was just expressing my thoughts.
and lets face it, the iPhone is a pretty cool gadget to own but its far - and I mean really far - from being practical, it's just my opinion, weather it gets low-ranked or not, Thank you.

[Mr Bunny @ Aug 25th 2008 5:49AM]

Those other phones reception must be quite poor as well. When I use the same SIM in my SE K850 or my friends Nokia N81 the 3G reception goes through the roof, but as soon as I pop it back in the iPhone it has to struggle just to get one bar. And considering I live in Gothenburg which has great coverage I find it a bit odd...

[j.d.ripper @ Aug 25th 2008 6:50AM]

Article says :
If you are in Gothenburg and have an iphone with a bad 3G connection, not just that there are few signal strength bars, but that calls are disconnected and downloads are interrupted, let us know. Maybe we can do some more turns in the test chamber.

Maybe you should drop and and have them run some tests with your phone.
Please do let us know the results.

[zephxiii @ Aug 25th 2008 7:24AM]

Testing a perfectly fine iphone3g, does not represent all of the defective ones. So this article is sort of a blanket statement, giving those who actually have a defective one a false sense of "nothing can be wrong with mine then".

[potato @ Aug 25th 2008 10:59AM]

zeph: What people are claiming is that Apple's 3G chipset is systematically bad - both in design and firmware. This disproves that theory at the very least.

Now whether or not the manufacturing of said chipsets is defective is anyone's guess...

[zephxiii @ Aug 25th 2008 1:47PM]

I had never thought they were all bad, just a large batch of them, and that is definitely true from what i have researched.

[Fred @ Aug 25th 2008 5:55AM]

"Whether they exist or not is largely irrelevant in a world dominated by sound-bite driven perceptions."
"Of course, who's going to let a few facts stand in the way of contrary opinion and litigation, eh?"

Interesting how Engadget is suddenly this critical of public perception, cheap soundbytes, shoddy journalism and populair opinion versus fact. I've never seen them express these concerns while, for instance, ripping on other products, or when placing large Mac versus PC ads on their pages.

[giuliop @ Aug 25th 2008 6:06AM]

Spot-on.

[Bazza @ Aug 25th 2008 6:34AM]

Indeed.

Cant remember the last time some Swedes pulled out the stops to defend another product from the "opinions and soundbites" brigade.

Nice double standards Engadget authors involved.

[Argot @ Aug 25th 2008 6:49AM]

"Phfft! Facts. You can use them to prove anything." -- Homer Simpson

[Gus @ Aug 25th 2008 10:44AM]

Wow Fred, who pissed in your Cheerios everyday... having a quick look at your history of posting a vast majority of them are bashing 1) Engadget 2) Apple 3) other Engadgeters.

Do you really have to take so much time and bash this much to make yourself feel superior to others?

[Zak @ Aug 25th 2008 11:56AM]

Fred's just being an idiot again, like usual. Notice how he skips the whole issue at hand, namely that the iPhone does in fact have reception comparable to other 3G phones, and instead chooses to rip on Engadget for posting their opinion on their own blog. And what does being interested in fact have to do with ad placement? I mean are you just that stupid, or are you grasping at things to bitch about?

[steven @ Aug 25th 2008 5:10PM]

Zak's just being an Apple fanboy who ignores the problems with the iPhone 3G, as usual.

[Fred @ Aug 26th 2008 4:35AM]

@Gus: I have to wonder about the kind of person who would take the time to browse through the entire post history of people he disagrees with on the internet. Maybe we -both- have problems.

@Zak: I don't care about iPhone reception, nor do I know anything about it, so why would I address that issue? Apparently you feel otherwise, but I find it pretty moronic to talk about stuff one doesn't care or know about.

[endGame @ Aug 25th 2008 5:58AM]

Testing in a controlled environment doesn't really tell you jack about using it in real life situation, other than giving it a thumbs up (or down) on paper. IMO "good reception" is to make it reliable in a place that may not be as reliable, not throwing it in a tin can and say "oh yes this is teh win."

[Rich @ Aug 25th 2008 6:55AM]

Absolutely. A lot of dropped connection problems can occur when on the boundary of two cells or whilst moving between two cells. Laboratory testing like this can't test either of these two scenarios.

[eddy @ Aug 25th 2008 9:09AM]

I was wondering the same things about this supposed "test environment". Did the test environment actually travel more than 10 feet in any direction to experience the usual variance in signals one can get when doing something as simple as walking around the house?

From what I can see in the article, things "moved around" within the chamber, but that chamber can't be much more than 2' x 2' x 3' - definitely not a good "moving around" indicator. Even just within a house, one talking on a cell moves around more than that. I'm not even going to get into traveling around a metropolitan area on foot or by car.

For example, I have some crappy VHF microphones here at work. They'll work beautifully in certain locations, but in others, they pick up insane amounts of static. So if I just test the mics in an area in which they happen to work just fine, does that mean I've concluded that they'll work fine in all cases, everywhere? Of course not.

I don't have to have an engineering degree to know that the tests these "curious Swedes" carried out can't come even close to mirroring real world functionality.

[Zak @ Aug 25th 2008 12:06PM]

All three of you fail the comprehension test. The test wasn't specifically about mirroring real world usability, it was about testing the iPhone's reception RELATIVE to other phones. It doesn't matter which tests they ran as long as the tests were exactly the same for each phone. And since it was a reception test I'm assuming they would have tested it in conditions with less than perfect reception... why do the tests at all otherwise? Again, the point was to test the iPhone's reception relative to the other phones to establish a baseline.

As it turns out the iPhone's reception was as good as the other phones' reception in the same conditions. That's why this test was useful.

[bjsguess @ Aug 25th 2008 12:23PM]

@ Zak

This tested the relative signal strength between the three devices in one location. Just because the three were similar IN THAT CHAMBER does not mean that all three will remain similar in every environment.

I'll bet that these guys hear from some local iPhone users that are having reception problems. Wouldn't be surprised at all if there is additional testing with different results posted.

[Zak @ Aug 25th 2008 12:59PM]

bjsguess: And if they do hear from local users complaining of iPhone reception problems, who's to say other 3G phones aren't having the exact same reception problems in that area? Wasn't that the point of this test? Until we have some proof proving otherwise, this test is the definitive answer for the cause of the iPhone-related reception issues; namely, it's the carrier and not the iPhone itself.

[Kiran @ Aug 25th 2008 6:05AM]

Am I the only one who read the name of the author as "Eva Green" ?

[w00t @ Aug 25th 2008 6:24AM]

Personally I think the main cause for complaint is the iPhone 3G has made a lot of users realise just how poor their carriers 3G coverage actually is - they just don't realise it's the carrier not the phone.

A major cause for confusion is that in an area with strong GSM (2G) signal but only mediocre UMTS (3G) signal the phone will connect to the 3G signal (That will still perform better than the stronger 2G one - especially for data). So the user used to getting full bars in that area on a 2G only phone will think their phone is getting a weaker signal than normal.

There are problems here however... the phone might get a good enough 3G signal to switch to 3G from 2G, then lose it as the phone is moved out of 3G coverage causing a possible dropout/dropped call, even though the whole area is well covered by 2G. Again, this is not unique to the iPhone and is caused by spotty 3G coverage and up to the carrier to improve coverage. If you live in an area with spotty 3G coverage - turn 3G off until you need it.

Another thing to keep in mind is everyone judges their signal on how many 'bars' are displayed. Bars displayed share a very loose relationship with the actual signal strength, for example a signal at -90dB (medium strength) might be displayed as 4 bars on one handset and 2 on another, despite being the same strength on both phones.

[Rich @ Aug 25th 2008 6:56AM]

That would make sense if the problems were limited to North America. However, problems have also been seen in Europe - where 3G is ubiquitous and most users already have a 3G phone.

[SteveK @ Aug 25th 2008 7:25AM]

w00t, I think your comment is right on, in looking at the AT&T 3G buildout it was in many places timed to coincide with iPhone 3G's rollout, thus not being a mature 3G network yet. How about Apple coming forward with this info? Maybe they dont at risk of making their U.S. carrier partner look bad.

[jakem @ Aug 25th 2008 8:23AM]

@W00t: This doesn't explain the people who are get a weak signal on their iPhone but get a strong signal on an alternative 3G phone in the same location.

@SteveK: You can't guarantee a perfect 3G signal in Europe either. Here in London I'll occaionally drop down to GPRS or UMTS because I can't get a good HSDPA signal.

[Jai @ Aug 25th 2008 10:34AM]

I live smack bang in the middle of London, and so far I have had perfect 3G coverage every where I've been. :)

[Grandalf @ Aug 25th 2008 11:23AM]

Sweden has 98.5% 3G coverage (population wise) and most major cities have full HSDPA coverage and many of those with data rates as high as 7.2mbit. The user complaining about bad reception with his iPhone 3G in Gothenburg, are located in one of these "superplaces" with Gothenburg being the second largest city in Sweden. From personal experience using HI3G as my operator, there is NEVER a moment in gothenburg or a 50 km radius, where I do not have full 3G coverage on both my Nokia 6110 and my HSDPA broadband modem. 3.6mbit connection and super download rates as far out as 100 km's from gothenburg center, and within the center a constant 7.2mbit connection and extremely good download rates.... ofcause... I expect the user to be using Telia as the operator as those are currently the only reseller of iPhone in Sweden, but I hardly believe their coverage can be much if any, worse.

[Jack @ Aug 26th 2008 2:26PM]

I thought it was supposed to be "more bars in more places"?

[webterractive @ Aug 25th 2008 6:34AM]

I think it has lots to do with the network than the phone. Here in Canada Rogers 3G is spotty to the point where the phone switches to Edge because of weak 3G network.

[Anthony @ Aug 25th 2008 6:39AM]

see, the funny thing is that despite all these reports about dodgy 3G reception on the iPhone I've had literally zero connection issues on Telstra here in Australia.

I'm kind of wondering how many of these complaints are coming from people who have bad 3G reception regardless.

[James @ Aug 25th 2008 6:59AM]

Steve Jobs said the reception issue effects only 2% of the iPhones in distribution. Engadget enough with the attitude, just the facts please.

[MW @ Aug 25th 2008 7:22AM]

This is a global issue, and please, if anyone, even the most avid Apple fan believes SJ's 2% figure, they must be crazy.

Here in the UK, *everyone* i know (around 20 people) with the new model iPhone is suffering the sorts of reception/call reliability issues we thought we'd left behind years ago. I love this as an all-round device, but seriously, as a PHONE, it is a disaster. Something has gone seriously wrong here, and Apple is just being slow, lazy and frankly dishonest in not cleaning up its house.

Seriously, hop on over to Apple's forums... has anyone *ever* seen support threads running like the ones on these reception issues??? This is not a minor problem.

[Ryan Trevisol @ Aug 25th 2008 7:58AM]

Right, because Steve Jobs is an unbiased, transparent source of information about Apple products.

[Matt @ Aug 25th 2008 10:06AM]

I suppose that's possible, 2% means greater than 20 thousand defective units. I'm just assuming they sold 1 million, how many have they actually sold?

[akrosdbay @ Aug 25th 2008 12:09PM]

@MW

2% of 4-6 million iPhones is 80,000-120,000 phones. 2% of a lot is a lot. Also most of the complaints are from UK (o2) and optus in Australian which I think are know for not having the best networks.

[bjsguess @ Aug 25th 2008 12:28PM]

The iPhone issue rate is 2%. MobileMe works for almost everyone but a select few. Macs are better than PCs. Keep soaking it up iSheep.

[Ben @ Aug 25th 2008 7:01AM]

We are in the same boat :(

[Frun @ Aug 25th 2008 7:06AM]

The issue I have is not related to signal strength at all. Mine switches between 3G and 2G like a bastard, and that motion screws up my connectivity to email........ Hmmm. maybe I will try and disable 2G and see if that helps.

[Apreche @ Aug 25th 2008 7:12AM]

This is the price Apple pays for being so secretive. When you release a patch that says "bug fixes" people will speculate and make judgements based on their feelings and perceptions rather than actual fact. If people feel as if apps are crashing more often, or feel like reception is better/worse, or if weather just happens to decrease reception on patch-day, they will convert their gut instincts into "facts" to fill the void left by secrecy.

If Apple doesn't want people to report feelings as facts, they should be more open. If not more open with the platform, at least more open with information about it.

[zephxiii @ Aug 25th 2008 7:20AM]

Well duh, it's going to be fine if you are testing a non defective one.

[Kizorblade @ Aug 25th 2008 7:39AM]

Well no shit. Why would you use a defective one?

[zephxiii @ Aug 25th 2008 9:51AM]

Because what is the point of only testing a good one, and not comparing it to a defective one? If you tested both, that would give everyone a true sense of "There are a lot of bad ones, but there are a lot of good ones too." More lead to throw at Apple to get them to fix the ones that ARE bad.

[baaadandy @ Aug 25th 2008 7:35AM]

Finally! This article proves it ---- wait a minute, never mind this is a really stupid thing to post, Engadget. If you are going to target an article towards users in the US, which this is the US version I am reading AFAIK, maybe show a test comparing the iPhone to phones that A US CARRIER SELLS. I can't remember the last time I walked into an ATT store and picked up a N73 or P1. Oh, and maybe have the test take place on the carrier that sells it in the country that sells it. No, you're right Engadget, all of these people complaining about reception issues are MAKING IT UP. Most people that read this site are aware of the fact that 3G overseas beats the shit out of US HSDPA coverage-wise. NEXT.