If 30% is good enough for Apple in the App Store, it should be good enough for dropped calls on AT&T, right?

Old article, but I must point out that the dropped call issue has to do with ATTs coverage in New York, not an issue with Apple hardware.

I live in a MUCH smaller city than New York, no cell congestion here let me tell you. Never a dropped call, ever.

I live in West Los Angeles. Dropped calls have been increasing over the last couple of months to the point the phone was almost unusable. I hacked it and unlocked the phone. I am on T-Mobile right now. They were very helpful in supporting me with the switch. I have not dropped a call in two weeks. Not a phone issue, a carrier issue. All I lose is visual voicemail and 3G. Basic service is $30 cheaper with NO contract!!!

I was told it was 10%. They checked I was at 8% and still was issued a new phone. Guess I should count myself as fortunate

in minneapolis, I'd drop rate of 20 % ( per behavior scan s/w @ genius bar). I now have a swap and still hv the same issue for the call failed ...thing..never had a problem w T-mobile+BB.

The iPhone is a laptop, and for that its superb as it never leaves my side due to its usefulness. As a phone though, in the Columbus Ohio area, it absolutely stinks. I would say 3 of 5 calls are dropped, and some days its higher than that. I constantly get the "No Service" message and if I'm lucky, I'll get a single bar or too. I think I have a bad phone though, because other folks I know get dropped calls, but not the rate that I do. Its a month old 3GS.

I dropped Verizon and my crappy Samsung i760 for this. I really miss the reliability of Verizon, but sadly I can't go back since the iPhone is a perfect "laptop".

I vote to rename it to iByte

I have had all three generations of the iPhone here in San Francisco and none have worked reliably as phones. Because of this, I have kept my Verizon Razr phone, which is now at least 3 years old. I carry it and the iPhone, and have to pay over $150 per month for the Verizon service in order to have a reliable cell phone. Occasionally I will use the iPhone and almost invariably it will drop calls where I routinely get trouble-free coverage with the Razr, e.g., in Marin, SF, and on the Peninsula south of SF.

I'm sure AT&T has plenty of butt-covering legal boilerplate in their user agreements but I still think they should be sued for breach of implied warranty of merchantibility and whatever other causes of action a creative class-action law firm can drum up.

testing... testing

I should also add that if you are in NYC (or anywhere else) you NEED to call AT&T 1-800-331-0500 and report to them you are having problems. Customer Service needs to hear from you.

Too many people think that it just sucks and live with it, so AT&T Customer Service is not always aware of the problems in your area. The more people who complain the better it is for everyone.

The biggest problem with AT&T network (at least in NYC) is not the cell towers but the in-ground connections between the towers and the routers and switches. There is not enough bandwidth in the equipment to handle the volume of data (which includes voice).

This is why you can have 5 bars of service and have calls with poor quality (from over compression, not interferrence), dropped calls because the tower equipment stopped receiving the packets and thus drops the calls.

The problems with AT&T's network are not limited to the iPhone. My family has experienced many problems in the last few months with other brands of phones (LG, Sony) being used in NYC.

And the problems have been getting worse by the day since about April of 2009. My dropped call rate downtown can be has high as 70% yet there is nothing wrong with my phone or the towers that provide the service.

AT&T is also converting most of the NYC area cells to 850 mhz which will help signals penetrate buildings and even subway stations.

in 2007 when I got the original iPhone I had more failed and dropped calls the first weekend than I had in the previous FIVE YEARS with t-mobile travelling the country. since then it has only gotten worse with delayed texts, missing vmail or my phone not ringing when people call.