Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone
Carriers blaming Apple for iPhone 3G slowness
As we've noted before, the iPhone 3G isn't as speedy as we'd like and sometimes has connections problems. Some folks have been blaming the carriers, like AT&T here in the States, but evidence is mounting that the problem may lie with the iPhone itself. GigaOm quotes an analyst at Nomura Securities who put the blame on "...an immature chipset and radio protocol stack" from maker Infineon.Meanwhile, CNET is reporting that T-Mobile in the Netherlands has a blog post (original Dutch) suggesting that the problem is "...a hardware / software specific issue of the iPhone itself," while a Vodafone spokeswoman in Australia told the Sydney Morning Herald that the problems were specific to the iPhone and not their network. Apparently, the problem was compounded by Apple's famous secrecy, with the iPhone 3G only released to some carriers for testing a day before it was released.
It's not that surprising that a new product would have growing pains. At the same time, it's hardly the case that the networks are as fast and extensive as we would hope. Hopefully, future firmware updates will improve the situation (if it's primarily a software issue). Otherwise, Apple may have to change the radio chip supplier for future iPhones to bring performance in line with other 3G smartphones.
[via Gizmodo]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Niklas said 7:17AM on 8-14-2008
So they are blaming Apple but they are not really blaming Apple because they are blaming Infineon but they blame Apple because... Apple was secret about which chip they used and never released information to any third parties which have nothing to do with the Infineon radio chip.
Did I understand that correctly?
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Justin said 10:40AM on 8-14-2008
Precisely.
alansky said 11:41AM on 8-14-2008
The whiners should really put a cork in it. AT&T's network was crap before the iPhone and it's crap now. Same for Verizon. Cell phone networks in the U.S. are ALL crap. Dropped calls and zero bars in the middle of a friggin' city are "business as usual" for users of America's mobile networks.
Andrew said 7:34AM on 8-14-2008
Interesting spelling of Sydney there...
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Taylor said 9:04AM on 8-14-2008
As an Australian, I'm offended that an American can be so ill-informed as to spell our busiest city with an I.
Josh said 12:34PM on 8-14-2008
If you're offended, please take a moment to get over yourself.
It's a typo.
Fritz Laurel said 1:04PM on 8-14-2008
Really, if you just called it "The Down Under Morning Herald" it would make it that much easier on the rest of us...
Tim said 7:37AM on 8-14-2008
Do you mean Sydney?
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tandemrepeat said 11:54AM on 8-14-2008
As an Australian, I could not care less about minor spelling errors.
Tony said 7:53AM on 8-14-2008
It aint *that* fast even over wifi... there's a limited CPU in there and Safari is no speed demon (I had a site try to do a CSS sideways scroll yesterday.. sure it looks cool on a PC but on the iphone it sort of went scroll..wait..scroll..wait..scroll..*crash* - btw. I blame the site owner not the iphone, as it was just superflous eye candy).
There's a limit to what you can expect a device of that size to do. OTOH streaming data using local speed tests I've peaked at 6.5Mb/sec over 3G which is pretty damned good (close to the theoretical max for the 7.2Mb network we have around here).
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Devon said 7:53AM on 8-14-2008
Utter crap. If that were true then you wouldn't be seeing the widely varying speeds on the different networks as reported by many iPhone users in different countries. One person on Digg reported 1Mbps in the Netherlands I think and others reporting 500Kbps wheras I get just over 100Kbps on Rogers in London Ontario.
If it was the phone then why is there such a huge differencein speed on all these networks?
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John said 8:03AM on 8-14-2008
Sidney.
Oh. My. God.
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Beau said 8:24AM on 8-14-2008
I hope whoever apelt that gets sacked.
Rich said 8:42AM on 8-14-2008
"to bring performance in line with other 3G smartphones."
What about the keynote demonstration comparing the iPhone 3G to another 3G smartphone? I mean, of course it wasn't "live," but it wasn't just made up, was it? I don't buy that it's (purely) an iPhone hardware/software issue.
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Drew said 8:51AM on 8-14-2008
AT&T and Apple better work together on this because at the end of the day they are equal partners in this product (at least in the US). I hope so lawyers are working on this because I am expecting my data plan to go down to the $20 month until they figure this out, and if required I expect Apple (if found to be a hardware issue) to replace my iPhone 3G with one that actually lives up to what they advertised.
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PS said 9:05AM on 8-14-2008
Lawyers can go F--K themselves.
Why is it that when ever there is a problem some nut job talks about lawyers, talk about a bunch of girly girls crying.
Boohoo my phone's not DHCSPM enabled and my download speeds not 12tbps
Matt said 8:57AM on 8-14-2008
Apples only advertises "twice as fast" in there commercials.
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PS said 9:05AM on 8-14-2008
I Love my iPhone, and my wife loves here iPhone.
I have no reception problems.
Maybe in some areas the iPhones 3G is not a strong as other phones. But I've got zero problems.
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Mike Puchol said 9:28AM on 8-14-2008
I tried to tip TUAW about the real source of the problem (notwithstanding that Apple may also have chipset problems), in that 3G networks use CDMA, which gives a total of 7.2Mbps download for ALL users on the same cell. It doesn't matter if you have the greatest of signals, or if you sit right under a mast - you will get your share of bandwidth out of the total, split evenly amongst all other users. And, if the operators prioritize voice over data, then your piece will be even smaller. EDGE on the other hand assigns slots PER USER, which means that nobody gets to take a chunk out of mine - the network may give me less, but it will be stable. I wrote a post on my blog about this issue: http://tinyurl.com/5tv3e4
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Jason said 9:28AM on 8-14-2008
Not sure if this has anything to do with the data being slow, but my iPhone 3G is really slow to pick up a signal. When I'm in a no signal area (which seems to happen a lot since switching to AT&T from Verizon) and I head into an area I know has signal (such as outside of a building), my iPhone will sometimes take a minute (yes 60 seconds) or more to catch a signal.
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