Even though AT&T's already committed both
carrier and backhaul upgrades in an effort to buck the butt-of-the-joke trend it's been experiencing for the last couple years, there's some evidence that it's a recent trend in the way phone radios operate -- not a lack of overall capacity -- that should shoulder at least some of the blame for the issues. An O2 staffer (O2 carries the iPhone and has coincidentally experienced many of the same growing pains AT&T has in recent months) that reached out to
Ars Technica says that Apple's baby was one of the first widely popular phones to immediately drop data connections as soon as transfers were complete and re-establish them only when needed; that tactic saves battery power, but can overwhelm cell sites pretty easily if they're not configured to handle it -- even if there's plenty of spectrum and backhaul available. Other handsets now employ the same strategy, compounding the problem. This seems like an awfully odd thing to miss during carrier testing, but who knows -- we wouldn't put it past anyone to gladhand the iPhone through the toughest parts of the gauntlet.
posted February 24th 2010 2:06PM
@steel
No, data and voice are transferred on the same frequencies.
it is indeed "fast dormancy" that is cousing the Problems. The BB Bold has it, the iPhone has is and other models most probably do as well. The reason that this was not found in testing or with Blackberrys is that only if a number of phones sit in a cell and use data the effects will be seen which did not show up in normal testlab procedures. Only after the operators found out about it became part of the spec. When Apple and RIM disable it (which they will) all is well again
Why don't you just admit that the iPhone alone has a poor radio design. Don't blame smartphones, blame Apple
@Wesley Can you elaborate on this "poor radio design" statement? You are clearly an expert in cellular technology and not simply regurgitating someone else's remark.
@Wesley
I see... that's why the call drops occur only in the US? The iPhone has an unpatriotic anti-American flag-burning radio design?
@Wesley
My excellent service with the iPhone over a 3 year period says you are incorrect.
@Wesley I believe this characteristic is actually controlled by software, since Windows Mobile by default leaves the data connection open as long as possible, though a setting can be changed within the OS to automatically disconnect. Perhaps all that is needed is simple changes in the iPhone OS from apple to stop this.
Well, I read the Ars Technica article, and the O2 expert was not quite so knowledgeable. Probably a marketing guy who picked up some keywords when he had lunch with some engineers who actually knew what they were talking about. ;-)
I work in the wireless telco business. For those of you wondering, it is called a GPRS session (in the GSM world anyway) and yes, the iPhone does it differently but it's not the first one to do so.
If I recall correctly, the very early GPRS phones, Motorolas, Treo's and Samsungs were doing the same thing. I'm talking 2001 here.
Windows phones went the other way, they establish a session when first data transmission is required by any app and then stay on as long as the user manually disconnects or the network forces a timeout (usually 24 hours).
In the early days, billing for wireless packet switched data varied in every country and some of them charged for the _duration_ spent online, not data volume. In that scenario, it was the user's own interest to terminate the GPRS session as soon as transfer was complete. This is why a lot of people got pissed when Windows Mobile came out and it wouldn't automatically kill the session. I'm talking about Winmo 2002/2003... ish
HOWEVER - for any Push service to work, the GPRS session MUST be maintained (that includes the iPhone) and is usually reset by the operator a few times a day.
It needs to be reset for many reasons but mainly because each GPRS session is one billing record and billing systems don't like dealing with records that stretch over multiple days.
@GregV8 Finally, something Windows Mobile does better than the competition! I have no problems with battery leaving the data connected for hours or even days at a time; it might make a small impact but I can't notice it.
ahh.. I always wondered why data sessions were broken up into fragments on my bill instead of days. Good post. Also that would mean that the g1 tries to maintain a connection as long as possible for push operations, and doesn't bog the network as much?
I don't care what anyone says, theres a problem with iPhones antenna. Its very poor compared with other smart phones out there. I should know, I've had every generation of the iPhone. I'm with O2, and where I work their coverage is absolutely appalling! I tested a Palm Pre and my 3GS (both on O2) to see if there'd be any difference in terms of coverage and signal quality, and guess what, my iPhone was running on GPRS, while the Palm Pre had about 2 to 3 bars of 3G signal strength.
On top of that, watching a YouTube video on a 3GS even with full 3G reception is a complete joke when compared to a Palm Pre. For some reason the Palm Pre seems to get full bandwidth and high video quality when it comes to watching video on the web. The iPhone on the other hand seems to be restricted to low quality video. Called O2 to find out what the reason was and they had no clue.
Great use for already scarce bandwidth: watching YouTube.
You'll understand if we don't cry for you as we struggle to make a GODDAMNED PHONE CALL.
lol At&t will drop your calls weather your driving or not
YOU + ARE = YOU'RE
I wonder when people will realize that the issue with AT&T and dropped called is not the network being used more with data from smart phones. 3G is NOT used for voice at all with AT&T. Voice on AT&T ONLY run on 2G. Their 3G is strickly for data only. Now this report about an issue with the radio makes more since then AT&T blaming their 3G being hit with data then what it was made for.
"Strickly"?
"Since"?
Oh, I forgot:
"Now this report about an issue with the radio makes more since then AT&T blaming their 3G being hit with data then what it was made for."
THAN. Makes more sense THAN AT&T blaming 3G for hitting their network for more data THAN it was made for.
@Information Central Dude, you response has nothing to do with what I said or what the this article is about.
With o2 in the UK and my signal is constantly bad wherever I go both data and network connections, friends with iPhone on other networks (orange & vodaphone) don't have the same problem. O2 (or anyone else for that matter) should not be able to sell phones that they do not have the network to support!!!
This doesn't even make sense. How could having LESS open connections on the tower overwhelm the tower ?
@KarateDad
Wanna have thousands of iPhones and smartphones reconnecting each time they want data?
Reconnecting to a network is not instant. It goes through a progress before a connection is made.
If you have a Blackberry, you can tell when it's in a contention select channel by the small (vs normal large) uplink arrow. Been that way since the 7100 at least. If you see that blinking, it's a coverage or channel issue.
This is what I've been saying all along. And it makes sense to me. Apple is brand new to the phone business so it would make sense that they would have faulty parts whereas someone like Nokia has been making phones for forever so their phones are very reliable. (in my opinion/experience)
Another example of the problem with engadget's stupid negative letter spacing. Modem smartphone radio design?
This is just ridiculous. How could At&t have not fucking realized this? I smell a lawsuit brewing.
@kojo87
That is ridiculous. Had AT&T actually listened to their customer's complaints and had their network engineers investigate this, they could have solved it earlier. It says something that it took an international carrier to identify this issue.
If people like yourself stopped blindly defending these guys, they'd have a reason to actual bother improving.
@kojo87
That is ridiculous. Had AT&T actually listened to their customer's complaints and had their network engineers investigate this, they could have solved it earlier. It says something that it took an international carrier to identify this issue.
If people like yourself stopped blindly defending these guys, they'd have a reason to actual bother improving.
Not true! It is simply not true that by closing the data connection when it is no longer used saves battery life, in fact if a phone does this agressively then there is a noticable battery drain. Data is only transferred over the radio interface (consuming power) while a webpage or email is loading. Not when you are reading it or composing a reply. If the phone disconnects when you are reading it, the reactivates it when you click through to another page then the connection must be established again. The overhead in establishing the channel is very minimal (encapsulated in the channel request message), but it is the CLOSING of the connection that is enterely unnecessary and wasteful of the device battery, and the network infrastructure. The proable reason that the engineers thought it was a good idea was they had no idea how GPRS or Packet data actually works, or more likely that their TCP or radio stack fails badly if the TCP sequence numbers exceed their window. This is actually a very common occurance on most Windows Mobile phones, especially if the device is moving between Routing Area Boundaries, or moving between 2G or 3G. There are a lot of out of sequence IP packets in this case and it topples most mobile IP stacks. You simply cannot have an IP window buffer long enough for the long, thin network that current cellular networks can provide. In all cases the connection has to be torn down and reestablished. I strongly suspect that in the case of the iPhone radio the radio stack actually crashes when this occurs, causing a great deal of teh other reported headaches that seem to aflict iPhone users. The radio is a very poor piece of work and really never should have been approved for any reputable cellular network.
This is all easiest to test on Windows Mobile where the registry controls the connection and longevity behaviour. The last time I was at a TSG GERAN standardisation meeting (admitedly several years ago) they were trying to get a bit set on the SIM card to control the disconnection behaviour. The networks should control if the phone drops the connection or keeps it active, they are the ones who know how their network is dimensioned and managed, not some snivelling engineer in the USA who has never seen a well managed network.