Apple Genius says dropped AT&T calls in NYC 'consistent' - Page 2

I just feel sorry for the USA market period, you make the most money for Apple in terms of iPhone sales and you are getting screwed by the carrier.

Do not know the deal with AT&T and Apple. But Apple need to get rid of exclusivity and allow some other carrier to compete with AT&T or my US colleagues will continue to be provided this sub-standard service.

22-30% dropped calls in NYC, damn I may have 5% at most with Vodafone in Mumbai (I should probably take into consideration the usage compared to each city).

Competition will drive AT&T to fix the issues faster.

Again a 3G issue. See I hear many 3G problems in NYC with dropped calls. Don't know - just saying.

The SITUATION is messed up in the first place. The Genius was only trying to help.

If you look at the work authorization and the date of purchase, the guy is out of warranty. In the end his only option through the Genius Bar would have been to purchase an out of warranty replacement for $200.

But the Genius tried to help him (which many people do not grasp or wish to look past). He didn't necessarily give that guy that option as the only thing they could do. They marked the person's warranty status as CR (Customer relations/Appeasement) and put in his case notes what they observed so AT&T can remedy the situation. If not, then at least the warranty status was temporarily changed. If AT&T shows there's nothing wrong with the network and says that 22% IS a high amount of dropped calls, then a Genius can replace it under that CR.

The guy in this situation failed to grasp that the Genius was only trying to help. As such, he's an ungrateful a-hole who does not deserve a free replacement.

Just proves we really need to see the iPhone on T-Mobile & Verizon. Then people can choose the device they want on the network they want and we can truely see if it is the network or the iPhone.

That being said my 2G iPhone works great on T-Mobile and I've had maybe one dropped called in the 6 months of so i've had the iPhone.

Ouch. Everyone loves a NYC snob.

That person stated:
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my point is-If the signal is weak don't blame the concrete, etc. Blame the transmitter, tower and the provider.

With your name ending in NJ you must have felt that for quite some time?

Not sure how many others post here are from Oklahoma but it's not just NYC it's OKC too and the surrounding areas. Now we are no NYC by any means and it's pretty much flat out here but man it can be a hit and miss when it comes to coverage. Go about 5 miles from the interstate (East or West) and you may or may not get a 3G signal. Granted we feel like the step child in the AT&T network but it really surprises me that in a state with less than 3 million folks that this is such an issue. This goes for the University of Oklahoma's campus too. If you can find a hot spot, that's your best bet and most of my friends that have an iPhone use skype to call each other when on the campus or if they are at home. From what I've been through these past few months and from posts like these, nothing has really changed from sea to shining sea. Not happy paying for a service that is attached to an outstanding device.

That's data revenue, not data transfers.

Here's a hypothetical - say ATT has this phone that induces users to use a ton of data compared to other phones. Verizon on the other hand, say, might just have millions and millions of people sending all text emails back and forth on their Blackberrys. Each phone generates about $30 per month in revenue, so whichever service has more devices will be higher on your chart. But if iPhone users use 10x the revenue than a typical BB emailer, then that $30 million in revenues that the 10 million ATT iphone users pay results in usage that would take 100 million BB users sending emails.

You're so smart!

My name is Camero, and I'm from NJ.

What a dummy.

No....this chart only shows data revenue. It has been stated before that a typical iPhone user consumes about 10 times the bandwidth of a typical smart phone user. Given this chart, it appears that AT&T is handling about 10 times the traffic.

When/if Verizon gets the iPhone, do I really want to jump over there and experience their growing pains (like I did with AT&T)? Hmmmmm.

That is using data revenue as a basis, not actual data usage.

Well I'd guess I'd be angry too if I was named that and from there. So sorry.

I can't believe a whole thread is posted based on one Genius incident.
Hey, did I ever tell you about the time this here Genius.........!

Apple will do whatever makes them the most money. If AT&T offers them a sweet enough deal, they will extend the agreement.

-kpluck

The MicroCell isn't going to do a damned thing for dropped calls that aren't at home or work where you have your own MiicroCell with less than 5 users. Once you go out in public, you are still destined for the craptastic service. At least in the areas I have problems, AT&T needs to provide picocells that round out their own infrastructure (light-pole mounts in shopping districts would work most places) rather than relying on Macro Cell towers and femtocell subscriber stations.

All the MicroCell really does is help AT&T monetize other people's infrastructure where people use cable internet, or help stave off wireline subscriber losses.

Physics is physics... and with that, it's physics that dictate that different radio frequencies penetrate solid objects with different effectivess. The lower the frequency the better the penetration. So while it will be higly dependent on the number and location of the cell towers, it also depends on what frequencies your carrier is using in your area. I believe I recall ATT making the statement that they were going to begin to move more of their areas to a lower frequency band where possible because of this. Perhaps NY is an area where they don't have that option? Is so, they'd need more towers than a carrier on a lower frequency (such as Verizon) to provide the same coverage.

Yes, I used to have Verizon and had fantastic service (but really cruddy phones). I would say that my dropped call rate on Verizon was under 1%. But AT&T is having the problems it's having due to the success of the iPhone and the high levels of data and internet usage by iPhone users. I suspect (but can't prove) that if Apple developed a CDMA version of the iPhone for Verizon, they'd probably quickly have the same service level problems.

I would say 80% of my AT&T iPhone calls get dropped. And in spite of AT&T claiming that they're improving the network, I would say things have gotten worse in the last month or two.

Verizon worked perfectly in my apartment, with AT&T I have to stand by a window.

I can almost never get my iPhone to work at all anywhere on 5th Avenue in midtown.

But even though I think Verizon would have the same problems, I'd switch back in a minute if the iPhone (or a new model) would work on Verizon.

Even when I had Verizon, one thing I noticed was that my battery life in New York City was always far worse than when I was out of town. I always attributed this to the difficulty of finding a cell tower in the skyscraper canyons of New York City. I was always amazed that I rarely had to charge my phone when I was out of town.

Verizon don't have half a million phones constantly downloading and uploading large amounts of data. I think even Verizon would creak under the strain.

30% is probably about right. I'd say one in for or so calls is dropped for me.

i have a sprint BB curve and a 3GS in NYC. with Sprint my major issue is voice quality.\\

there are cell towers everywhere you look here. the problem is the buildings and the fact that a lot are built so the cell signal doesn't penetrate. and the tall buildings cause canyon effects.

on the west side where i work a few days a week there has been a huge improvement in the last month. and i was in the hilton on 53rd street last week for a conference and my iphone worked perfectly inside the building

Every crackberry here in NY is usually Verizon- I'm sure they use their share.
But whatever AT&T is to blame not iPhone.

Ever since the MMS carrier update, I've had a weird problem. I get five bars 3G at work, but only 2-3 bars EDGE at home. I work at one end of downtown, and live at the other end -- a grand total of about 14 blocks distance. I used to get five bars 3G in both places.

This is really annoying. I'm getting way more dropped calls and much slower data service at home now. Anyone else experienced anything like this?

it's all about user to tower density ratios. bigger cities typically mean more people so more users per tower and not always more places to put towers. especially in an even spread.


possibly just as many. and just as much getting screwed on rates, lousy customer service etc.


be careful the words and tone you put in someone's mouth. he said it was normal for the area. and likely has stacks of service records to back it up.

In fact, I bet it is such service reports that made ATT actually do something about the problem. Since you can't take a phone apart they were likely just swapping phones and probably at a rate that was getting obscene. So they started actually thoroughly testing the phones before a swap and not just taking it on the customer's word that the phone is bad because of calls dropping. And discovered that a large number of folks in that area (and probably several others in NYC) were getting tons of dropped calls, at a rate of 25-30%. The hardware was fine, swapping to a new phone clearly wasn't helping because the customers were coming back over and over about getting a crap replacement phone. the software wasn't affecting it greatly, restoring did no good, swapping sims did no good etc. any and all of those should fix the problem if the problem was something on Apple's side. add to this also the lack of issues in other less dense areas of the country which should be seeing the same problems of the hardware had a major design flaw or even a bad batch (if you consider the batch amounts they must be doing to keep up with the demand)

so now they can make a strong case that the issue is ATT. And they have paper trails to back up their claims. which helps them to fight off these various law suits as well as remind ATT that the contract is coming up and if they want an extension the heads must could out of the butts and do something about it. Thus ATT suddenly pops up after months of issues and does something about service.



it is possible. if the phones are basically identical. but not all the 'smart' phones have the internet and such. so they might not be hitting that 3g tap.

also, remember this is Apple and by that they get tons of press and folks love to come on boards and stuff and call BS on the company very loudly cause of the whole "It's Apple, it just works" mantras. other companies don't have that kind of fan/anti-fan base. so even if there were problems, the response might not be as vocal.


i doubt he would say something like that if he couldn't back it up. Apple is loathe to have false info out there. Especially about the iphone and ATT. it's like they are sure one day some ATT spy will turn up to catch them saying something that is wrong.




Apple had a particular design they wanted to use and only two companies in the US could support it. ATT was the one that wanted to play ball. and probably assured Apple they could handle the load and would stay on top of the issue. They likely didn't expect the iphone to be as popular as it is. Double for when it switched to 3g. But Apple is stuck for now in this contract. as someone else noted, this would be a point against ATT for keeping that exclusive coverage. The problems of a single carrier are also why I think they won't just swap one carrier for another. I think they will unlock the phone and any carrier with the means to take the phone can have it. thus ATT and T-Mobile for now, Sprint and Verizon if they step up to the same plate for later versions and so on. buy it full price from Apple or the carriers can set their own rules about subsidies and sell them like that at their own stores. same game with any 'netbook' that Apple might create that has cell data built in.


of course ATT would say that. they sent the guy to Apple in the first place.


again, just as guilty of putting words in mouths. no where did the guy say anything nasty about the Genius or even Apple. he was just pointing out that he was told that 30% dropped calls is typical in the area due to ATT's crappy network. He never said that the Genius refused to help, did or did not replace the phone etc. In fact, the Genius made a clear statement the phone passed all tests so the problem has to be the network as was likely asked for by the customer so he could go back to ATT and chew them out and stop blaming the hardware. He could have actually thanked the Genius for being honest and frank with them and for giving him something in writing to leave with. We weren't there so we don't know.


again, it's a tower density issue. as in, you have not that many over a lot of space.

and like the folks in the big cities, you and yours should consider a law suit against ATT for having to pay things like data plans that you basically can't use.



yep.

LOL, wall to wall people, wouldn't be able to drive my car like I wanted to, higher cost of living, living in an apartment instead of a house of my own with a garage, listening to "the city" all the damn time instead of the peace of quiet of my neighborhood.

Sure, you can keep NYC. That being said, I know that some people are drawn to big cities and they can have at it

I live in midtown and don't think I have dropped 5 calls in 2.5 years with Sprint.

We're so happy for you. Seriously.

'Bye.

iPhone actually works pretty well in SF as long as 3G is turned off. Not ideal but sure beats having my calls dropped. The strange thing is I get a lot more bars than I used to when in 3G but have only a slight improvement in connectivity. Sometimes it will be unable to even connect the call with 5 bars. The other day I was unable to a send text after multiple tries until switching off 3G.

Unfortunately, they seem to have downgraded EDGE's data performance. Pages load a lot slower than before or sometimes not at all until I switch to 3G.

I think he's just making a point that there is more to 'location' than the strength of your 3G signal.

Needless to say, my 2¢, the iPhone is wonderful but AT&T is the devil dressed up like a big telecommunications corporation...

I have a Crackberry (on t-mobile) and let's be blunt, BB emails don't have nearly the same data use as Gmail, Yahoo etc, plus no one uses the BB Browser,because it's terrible (at least up to the 8xxx series) - you'd probably need 3 or 4 BBs to have the same data usage as a single iPhone.

I may be wrong, perhaps Verizon would do a LOT better, but I don't see people really hammering their network, because Verizon phones are usually naff and/or locked down anyway, by their shitty software.

Here in the Detroit area, iPhone 3G service is pretty damn good.

New York is a nightmare for cel phones of all networks.

Lots of tall buildings cause multi-path and weak signals which play havoc with cel reception.

I have a Palm Pre and had all sorts of issues in Manhattan on Sprint. Rock solid reception everywhere else including my home town of Miami. So it's not just an AT&T problem; it's a New York problem.

I hear Verizon is best in NYC, since it's the ILEC and they probably have the greatest investment there. But New York, especially Manhattan is a *nightmare* for cel reception.

This is gospel in NY. Verizon hands down is better than any carrier for reliability, anywhere in the state.

AT&T can blame their spectrum, their service, the iPhone, blah blah blah. The reality is, Verizon is better. I think a lot of the lost calls though, while driving or walking outdoors are still from the switch to Edge form 3G, or vice versa. Just a thought, but it seems like the reason a lot of mine are dropped.
Steel and concrete do not matter. In my house, service is spotty. This is a split level home, made of wood. Go out on the porch, signal and good service. Step in the front door, under the roof, and dropped call. Not good.

Verizon's iPhone plans will cost more money if they ever carry it. My wife's line after taxes is only about $10 cheaper than my 450 minute plan after taxes. She has the eNV Touch, on Verizon. 450 minutes and unlimited SMS/MMS. Unless they are gouging their customers to make up for infrastructure costs now, and then try to push cheaper data plans once they get everything up and running.

Personal anecdote - if such things don't interest you, read no further:

I think if one's calls are dropped consistently, in different locations and times, over a long period of time, then it's the same thing as taking a cross-section survey of multiple users. Identical equipment on the same network should have identical experience.

I've had about a 30 percent dropped call rate since I got my iPhone 3G last spring. Worst in NYC, where I live, but also bad in Portland Oregon, where I travel frequently. I just assumed that everyone here has the same problem due to call volume and the physics of tall buildings everyone is carping about. In Portland maybe it's the hills on the west side? Excuses, excuses...

Recently the phone froze up - didn't receive any calls for about 8 hours and I didn't realize it until I tried unsuccessfully 4 times to make a call (all the while getting internet just fine). Then powered-down, restarted and got 5 voicemails & texts all at once that had been sent over the previous several hours (and I missed a last-minute business appt. because of it). Then it happened again several days later. Called AT&T and the cordial representative had obviously dealt with my experience many times before - she said that the phone needs to power down and restart every few days "to receive service upgrades from the network" otherwise it will stop functioning as a phone. Nice to know, if it's true. She didn't even mention a possibility of the phone itself being the culprit.

But the fact is that CDMA phone calls and ev-do data are on 2 separate channels. Your data experience will suffer with all those verizon iphones, but you will still be able to maintain your phone calls.

Bingo.

AT&T has to improve their deployed spread spectrum solutions.

I'm the same. I live in a suburb-ish place with easy access to my nearest city, but without the pollution and equidistant from the countryside.

I've been all over the world, and never in my whole life have I ever come across people as rude as 99% of the NYCers I met. I'd hate to live there!

RUDE- who? Us? This is a great place to live - people tell it like it is. We have to, we all intermingle daily. No phony fake smiles when you really want to tell them off. We're pressed for time- we don't have time for all your outdated protocals. I wouldn't want to live antwhere else- at least in the US.

Well, just to give some balance, here in south Florida (Palm Beach, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami), I have never had a problem with dropped calls on either of my iPhones.

Who are those? The ones out on the 'left' coast?