RSSWorldwide iPhone 3G problems may lie with the network
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published August 27, 2008, 11:02 AM
Although Apple's iPhone 3G is getting some plaudits in the world press, people are also complaining about wireless connectivity speeds, price, and other issues, depending in part on where they live.
In the US, iPhone 3G users with AT&T have reported average download speeds of about 990 Kbps, the same as for Softbank in Japan and Telia in Sweden. Canadian carrier Rogers Communications did much better with an average download speed of about 1,330 Kbps.
But users in many other countries continued to experience a range of different connection speeds, a phenomenon that Wired magazine attributed more to operators' networks than to the iPhone.
In an informal survey conducted by Wired, users in Germany and the Netherlands reported the fastest 3G download speeds -- of roughly 2,000 Kbps -- while users in Australia reported the slowest: about 759 Kbps.
Yet in San Francisco, 10 out of 30 participants reported speeds about equivalent to EDGE. The report theorized that, in major metro areas, 3G towers are getting overloaded. Also, US participants accounted for about 75% of zero data results, suggesting that many of them were dropped from AT&T's 3G network during speed tests.
Meanwhile, reports from French publications indicate that, in that country, wireless operator Orange might be artificially throttling iPhone 3G speeds.
Customers of Orange have been reporting download speeds as low as 350 to 450 Kbps. Yet the phone has shown itself to be capable of achieving much higher speeds when connected to other European networks, such as SFR in France, according to an account in iPhoneAtlas.
In Latin America, Telefonica last week launched the new phone in eight nations, and American Movil in ten. "Argentina, Uruguay and El Salvador have Latin America's highest wireless penetration rates, so products like the iPhone will help operators get new business from existing clients," according to an account in Latin Business Chronicle.
"However, despite the buzz around the iPhone specifically and 3G services in general, it will only be with a massive distribution of affordable third-generation phones that the 3G market will start taking off in Latin America, experts say. And that may not happen until 2010."
In India, where pricing now starts at $712 for an 8 GB model, other types of complaints are surfacing.
Indian wireless operator Airtel held a launch event at a local shopping mall last week and only "managed to sell over 25 pieces of the glorified mobile phone," says a report in iExpressIndia.
The Indian publication also quotes one user -- a high-tech marketing executive -- as saying that, "The cost of the phone is too high and, moreover, the phone is poor -- pretty low in features."
As the user then elaborated: "The first generation iPhone and the iPods have full metal bodies, but the second generation iPhone that has been launched in India has a plastic body and is prone to cracks and scratches. The battery life is low."
In the Philippines, a reviewer was impressed with certain features of the new phone, such as the Safari browser and the quality of video and audio playback. But he was not enthralled by the new phone's lack of a replaceable battery.
"Ah, this one is a big issue considering that the new iPhone has a 3G radio and GPS. The battery would last for a day but anything more than that is a miracle -- unless you turn off everything from Wi-Fi [to] Bluetooth, GPS [and] 3G," he wrote in the Manila Bulletin Online.
Gee.. att&t is a problem..there's a shocker.
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You guys didn't think these problems were Apple's fault? 3G problems and what people pay for the phone service is obviously not Apple's fault. Apple has created the most advanced and beautiful cell phone on earth and yet there are still people who complain about nothing.
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Dude I think you're in love with Steve Jobs, aren't you?
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"people are also complaining about wireless connectivity speeds, price, and other issues,"
They can complain about all those things except the price. You can't buy something then complain about the price. Prices of both phone and contracts were announced in advanced.
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This Wired survey is really off-the-mark. Why? Because it tests speed. People are complaining about connectivity, dropped calls, missed calls, on and on.
Also, a valid test would be to run an iPhone side by side in each location with several other 3G phones. If it performs poorer than the others, that points to the phone, not the network.
As I work in mobile phone software, we have several 3G phones from diff. manufacturers and several iPhones. The iPhone tests out worse when located within inches of the other phones (I can't go into details on the software, but suffice to say it stresses the data connection). All of them perform better than the iPhone - not just a little, a lot.
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The wrath of all of the Apple Fanboys is going to come down on you now!
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Interesting.
I wished technical in-depth reviews wouldn't slowly die out in favor of unboxing videos from bloggers setting up office in Starbucks...
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I just use reviewers as a template to see if the initial product is worth looking into. After that I look at what the user reviews say because they usually have the product longer and can tell you if it breaks or if it doesn't work under certain situations.
Look at bluetooth headsets. The jawbone gets great ratings from the reviewers but looking at the average user review it does pretty poor. Their are a lot of products that are the same way. Its not the reviewers fault, they have to review a number of things and can only spend a certain amount of time per product. They can't have a product for months to test everything out.
I don't know about the GSM network in other countries. The GSM network in the US is pretty lacking. Before Cingular went in with AT&T the network was better (and the customer service was better too...thats another subject). I don't know why now its not as good. I heard that that when Cingular bought AT&T they had to take down some of their towers, which doesn't make much sense. T-Mobiles network is pretty new. So we have an ok CDMA network and a mediocre GSM network. If we had only 1 network in the us (probably GSM because its in more countries around the world) the network would be better because we'd have 3-4 companies that would be on GSM with free roaming plans and a more wide spread network because of that. We can't expect to have a good cell phone network when we have 2 non-compatible technologies competing with each other.
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That side-by-side test has been done with the N95. It was found the Apple signal strength was as-good or better than the N95 when put in field-test mode (so you can see the actual signal strength in -dB, not 'bars').
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