Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Wireless, iPhone
Techie Swedes prove iPhone 3G reception is "normal"
Blogger Thomas Ricker over at our sibling site Engadget posted an interesting blurb early this morning. Curious about whether or not iPhone 3G is as bad as urban legend seems to make it out to be, engineers at Bluetest in Gothenburg, Sweden, tested it against a Nokia N73 and a Sony Ericsson P1. The results? Although the P1 was slightly better at receiving signals and the N73 a little bit better at sending signals, the difference between these two popular 3G phones and the iPhone 3G was negligible. The degreed antenna engineer performing the tests pronounced the 3G's capabilities as "completely normal."
This testing equipment is similar to that used by the FCC and mobile phone manufacturers to make sure that their phones are able to properly send and receive signals without interfering with other devices. These tests only tested the iPhone 3G hardware. There are other factors involved as well, including the device firmware and software.
I personally haven't found the iPhone 3G's reception to be any better or worse than my original iPhone. How about you? Leave a comment!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Kurt Tappe said 10:38AM on 8-25-2008
My repeated dropped calls and need to manually turn off 3G when reception is weak so the iPhone will use EDGE is not "urban legend". Given that their country is saturated with cell phone coverage, I wonder if these guys bothered testing in areas (like, say, the whole United States) where coverage is spotty. And before you say spotty coverage is an AT&T problem, it's up to the iPhone to not show 2 or 3 bars when the coverage is not capable of sustaining a phone call.
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Johan said 10:53AM on 8-25-2008
Kurt, if you look at the picture that joins the article i don't think the test was going outside and look how many bars pop-up in the signal bar. I thinks the room they use can block out external signals (i don't know the English term for this sorry, i'm Dutch speaking).
So they can manipulate the incoming signal strength.
Anyway, i don't own a iPhone 3g so can't comment using my own experience.
prospervic said 10:42AM on 8-25-2008
I concur. My iPhone 3G performs way better than my previous T-Mobile MDA. I only experience problems in low signal areas of (particularly lower Manhattan, which was a pain on T-Mobile as well) indicating that the fault lies with AT&T. Maybe the complaints are coming from former Verizon customers who are used to the (reportedly) more consistent CDMA network.
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bkim said 1:26PM on 8-25-2008
I switched from Verizon to AT&T so I could get an iPhone 3G. AT&T is a joke compared to Verizon--at least in Chicago. It was _rare_ that I would not get a good Verizon signal with EVDO. The call quality was great. Dropped calls were extremely rare. Now, it's rare that I get a decent signal (EDGE or 3G) with AT&T, no matter where I am. I can't even make a phone call from inside my friend house (in a densely populated, urban area).
Here's a short list of places where I get no signal with AT&T but where I used to get a good signal with Verizon: Elevators at home and at work, parking garage at home, anywhere in my friend's house, Lake Shore Drive around Illinois Street...
I find it a little disturbing that my phone doesn't work at all inside elevators after reading this New Yorker article about a guy that was trapped in an elevator for 41 hours: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_paumgarten
totoro said 10:46AM on 8-25-2008
My iPhone 3G is performing as well, if not better than my iPhone EDGE. No dropped calls, decent coverage in our area (SF Bay Area), and much improved speed (far more than 2x).
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Sammy said 10:53AM on 8-25-2008
I have never noticed problems with the iPhone except when driving - this is when it becomes painfully obvious that the iPhone does not fare well when switching towers. Most every dropped call is when driving when the iPhone is attempting to switch towers.
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Dan said 11:02AM on 8-25-2008
That's a problem caused by the GSM standard, not the iPhone.
Chris said 10:53AM on 8-25-2008
I have never had a problem with iPhone (original & 3G) reception aside from obvious areas. We had a car wreck earlier this year in a valley in a very rural area of Indiana, we had to walk to the top of a hill to get reception on both our iPhone (original) and my wife's Nokia. There is a section of road near our house that is a valley, running between two wooded areas, which has always killed phone calls regardless of the phone. Yep, our iPhones don't work there either. Aside from that I'd be hard pressed to tell you of an abnormal call drop with the iPhone.
Really people, if you're iPhone (3G or not) is dropping calls left and right when your friend's Nokia/Blackberry/Treo/etc is working just fine then HAVE IT REPLACED BY APPLE. Seriously, it obviously isn't working correctly and while it's a bit of inconvenience to get it fixed/replaced wouldn't it be worth it to have a proper phone?!?
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Tracy said 9:51AM on 8-26-2008
I agree with your "replace the phone" comment, unless of course the friend's Blackberry/Nokia/Treo is on a different network :)
Brian said 10:55AM on 8-25-2008
My 3G iPhone is fine reception-wise. I have noticed that with the latest updates, it does grab onto an EDGE signal more often — those rare times I am actually outside 3G coverage (which is very rare for me)
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Chris Bradley said 10:56AM on 8-25-2008
I've never had any dropped call problems with either my 1st gen iPhone or my iPhone 3G in Louisville, KY.
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phlyingpenguin said 10:05PM on 8-25-2008
Agreed. My 3G does a lot better than I expected when I heard about the "problems" and such. I'd wager that the AT&T coverage is quite a bit spottier than Sprint (Q9c), but I have yet to have any unreasonable problems.
The only time I've seen the phone with no service was in the boonies of Southern Indiana. However, around the Louisville suburbs in S. Indy, the coverage is perfect.
The iPhone actually gets better reception than my CDMA Q9c got in the metal building that I work in. When it does finally lose 3G in the building, it switches to Edge quickly and without interruptions.
Tim said 11:16AM on 8-25-2008
My iPhone 3G works just as well as my previous 3G phones (HTC). Especially in major population centers, where the coverage is copious, but it does have problems where AT&T's 3G network is new, or spotty (duh).
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Bob said 11:11AM on 8-25-2008
The ability to make and sustain a call with the 3G has been about the same as my first iphone, voice quality seems quite a bit better. Primarily St. Louis area, though travel often.
These are only subjective observations - not measured!
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Bob said 11:15AM on 8-25-2008
Johan, I would assume that you are correct. They are like to be using an rf anechoic room.
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Bob said 11:19AM on 8-25-2008
For more info on anechoic rooms see this decent wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anechoic_chamber
Marzy said 11:43AM on 8-25-2008
I think cell reception in the states is crap from what I am hearing in aus 3g is newish only been around majorly for about 3 years. I get edge all over the city but 3g is hard, I'll get about one or two bars which enough still better than full reception of edge. But than again they only tested the hardware in that test so many there is fault with firmware I am looking forward for 2.1 because I have had to restore my phone 5 times because applications stop working. I would say that they are going to release a new one by the end of the month or hopfully early next month. If you made this far into my comment congrats LOL but I doubt any one will.
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jrobcet said 11:21AM on 8-25-2008
I've not had any trouble until the last couple days. Every call I was on was dropped at some point this weekend. But here is the interesting aspect of my issue: I live in a college town and the students returned late last week and this weekend. And until this weekend, I've not had any trouble at all.
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mark said 11:38AM on 8-25-2008
while the article ay prove there isn't a hardware problem, testing reception in a "sterile" black box is hardly real world. my phone is constantly switching from 3g to edge while I'm a work (high rise in downtown SF) which kills the battery very quickly, 75% down from full charge by the late afternoon (4ish). at home on the other hand, the charge only dropped by about 25% over the entire weekend. the phone works harder when there's more steel, concrete and other signals around. FYI according to ATT coverage maps, my house and office are covered by the strongest signal.
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Zak said 12:19PM on 8-25-2008
Mark, you missed the point. It's a comparative test to see how the iPhone's reception fares RELATIVE to other phones. It was done to see if the issues lie with the iPhone or with the network. This test seems to pretty conclusively show that any problems people are experiencing are because of the network, not the iPhone itself.