Apple Genius says 30 percent iPhone call drop rate is average in New York
By Donald Melanson 
posted September 30th 2009 12:29PM
posted September 30th 2009 12:29PM
To be sure, a certain number of dropped calls are to be expected when you're dealing with the wonders of cellular communication, but some phones do seem to fare worse then others when paired with certain carriers in particularly congested regions. Apparently fed up with such problems in New York, Gizmodo reader Manoj decided to stop by an Apple Store to see if something might be wrong with his iPhone -- this, after apparently being assured by AT&T that everything was all right on its end. After a few tests, the Apple Genius determined that Manoj's phone was dropping 22 percent of its calls, which turns out to actually be "excellent" compared to most iPhone users in the New York area, where a dropped call rate of 30 percent is said to be average -- according to the dude at the store, anyhow. The Genius further went on to confirm that the phone was indeed "fully functional," and that the problem is "consistent with the service provided by AT&T." So, nothing to worry about, folks -- everything is "normal."
[Thanks, Canis]
[Thanks, Canis]
Not meaning to slam the iPhone down (it's a good and flexible phone, yes) but here in Singapore under SingTel service, my friend on a 3GS gets random drop calls or no signal problems while I am on a Samsung Omnia never gets drops calls or zero bar problems.
Strange though when my friend restarts his phone then the problem goes away. Could be a phone part issue in that case I guess.
In Singapore, the 3G coverage is pretty solid even travelling underground on MRT ... usually no drop calls. Just my 2 cents.
No great big surprise to me -- AT&T GSM service was horrible years ago and the same remains today.
Sometimes I think that those reports are paid by Verizon. Seriously. They need to keep the fuss running. 30% of dropped calls is seriously wrong. I live in Bay Area and have many friends in NY, some of them use iphone. I never had dropped calls with them even during peak hours. At the same time, I use 3 phones: Tilt and iPhone on AT&T and Blackberry on Verizon. Blackberry drops calls at the same rate as iPhone. I don't give a blame. You also have to understand that all those smart phones tend to malfunction and it affects quality of calls. One of my friends was constantly complaining about his phone. We did an investigation. Restored his phone to factory defaults and then found the offending resident program that was practically killing the phone itself.
So take it easy and stop drinking Verizon kool-aid. It's not any better than AT&T. Their data network may be as not as busy as AT&T's now, but who cares, if they don't have any decent smart phone now? :)
The problem in NYC are multi pronged. First, the city is more 3 dimensional than any other city in North America. The higher you go in a building, the more cells the iPhone (or any Phone) sees. It is not always good to see more cells (towers in layman's terms). Why, because radio spectrum is limited. The # of operating channels has to be reused over and over at the towers. So seeing too many cells in a high rise building will cause interference (uncorrectable error rates in the data stream) and dropped calls. In Building cell systems have helped this by containing the signals into specific building, but has a long way to go. Greedy Land Lords with their astronomical rent terms don't help matters. Second - the more "stuff" Apple packs into a smaller and smaller space i.e.. iPhone, the less room there is for a decent radio chipset. And where did the external antenna go? It went inside the phone because of people freaking out over getting brain tumors. Which is not true by the way. Also in the price wars, and so everyone can have have a mobile phone, manufactures are buying cheaply made chips. Do you really think the manufacture is going to trim profits?? HAAA. Third, folks it's a two way radio with glossy coverings and a keypad. Don't put too much faith in mobile phones replacing landlines. Fourth, New York wireless engineers and techs are just not that good. On top of that they are overwhelmed with issues distracting from maintaining the network. I personally know this for a fact. They generally have the worst management. Most corrupt construction departments (aka the construction mafia). Things generally don't get fixed very fast when they break in the network.
My iPhone is dropping A LOT of calls! I am so pissed, I created a website to log dropped calls. Next time your phone drops a call, report it here!
http://www.mycalldropped.com
UGH!
Come on now, you only start rounding up after 5. Agreed it's "a bit higher" but you don't know how much that is.
I honestly think that its mostly the iPhone and not AT&T. Everyone around me that are non-iPhone users have no problems w/ their phones. They get they're texts on time, when they surf the web their phones don't lag, etc. etc. I just think that its a great device but as a phone, not so much. And I'm not tellin' you what I heard, I'm tellin' you what I know, as an iPhone owner...