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I was just in NYC all of last week and can say that 30% is being generous. I'd say closer to 40%.
I was just in NYC all of last week and can say that 30% is being generous. I'd say closer to 40%.
You know my favorite part of this post? The jounalistic rigor disayed in identifying multiple sources, confirming sources, etc.
Some guy told some guy. Really?
And, even if this true, it is the drop rate for declaring a phone defective.
Got a beef with AT&T fine but Jesus act like a report not the guy talking smack about somebody's mom.
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Exactly. If I went in to an AT&T store and got a sales guy to type out something that says, \"Dropped calls due to poorly developed iPhone firmware\", would that make the front page of the Consumerist?
Also, if it is such an AT&T network problem, how come the dropped call rate isn't 30% for all phone models that use the network? If that were the case, it would be a bigger story than, \"Some guy says AT&T drops a lot of iPhone calls\". I'm not saying that the network doesn't have problems, but the results of one retail troubleshooter does not necessarily reflect the entire reality of the situation.
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Let's all complain about a website but keep reading it anyway.
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@SlappyFrog: Yeah, I guess we're expecting a bit too much of a blog. Real journalism requires multiple sources, etc, etc. Not \"did you hear what that guy told that other guy in gym class\" reports.
@SlappyFrog: Ha ! I think your expectations are too high. Remember, this is a form of a blog; Consumerist cuts and pastes stuff from other websites to form an aggregation of stuff on a generalized 'consumer' theme. I use the word 'stuff' deliberately !
It surely aint investigative journalism.
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@SlappyFrog: It's not quite \"some guy told some guy\". The story is that someone who works for Apple wrote on a work order that 22% call drop rate is excellent.
@CompyPaq: It is one guy telling one guy, regardless of whether one is an employee of the Apple retail store.
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@SlappyFrog: Stop it. You're making us frogs look bad.
The guy telling a guy, in this case, happens to be someone actually trained to test this particular item, so, in essence, it's expert testimony. I think that sorta counts for something. Don't you? No, you'd rather rely on a paper that actually doesn't present data to say that there's a problem with eyewitnesses.
Ok, I can buy that, people aren't trained to really notice the average guy on the street walking by.
What I can't really follow you on is that the Apple guy is trained to test iPhones. It is his job. He tested it. It dropped calls. He made a statement. Why is this hard to follow?
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@CompyPaq: That's exactly what it is. Some kid at the Apple store scanned someone else's phone, and the results on that one particular phone yielded a 22% drop rate. Nowhere is there any written indication that this is \"excellent.\"
This is absolutely nothing more than \"some guy telling some guy.\"
@MostlyHarmless: And the recent scholarship about the reliability of eye witness testimony speaks directly to my point. An example: [agora.stanford.edu]
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If the FCC goes through with it's net neutrality, people are going to be streaming even more videos over their network, and it would be more worst then it is now.
That's what you get for having an iPhone, and now with MMS, it's gonna get worse.
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@unpolloloco: How about at&t spend some of that $30/mo everyone is paying them for the privilege of having an iPhone to actually upgrade their infrastructure. What a novel idea.
@cc82: You do realize the price is the same for a data plan for a Blackberry, right? Or a Palm, or any other smart phone. iPhone users aren't the only ones using data.
@cc82:
So novel that AT&T is spending $18 billion this year alone on infrastructure. Sure, it may be late, but it's getting done. If the shareholders would consent to taking a short-term hit on profitability to put that money into the network, it would be getting done much faster.
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Except that a 30% call drop rate only usable 2/3 of the time.
@Sneeje: [Sigh] Forgot that the sign for \"does not equals\" would be interpreted as HTML.
Except that a 30% call drop rate DNE only usable 2/3 of the time.
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@gStein: damn enter key
!=
works fine for me
unless you were trying for the \"greater than-less than\" method of negation... (which seems odd to me.)
@gStein: Ah yes, I did do the other one, and I have no good excuse as to why. Thanks for the reminder. Apparently 20 years of programming wasn't enough to make brain my correctly fire. ;)
@JPropaganda: Wait, there used to be a punchline \"there's no app for this.\" I swear this was a somewhat relevant link.
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The more things change, the more they remain the same. I dumped AT&T over eight years ago, because they were also dropping most of my calls in NYC.
Obviously, things have not changed much, since then.
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@mrsam: This. I was getting my calls dropped by AT&T years before it was hip.
/waiting for my contract to run out
//you couldn't pay me enough to get an iPhone
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I was once told by an AT&T technical support representative that three call drops per day (in Houston) is normal.
People just really like the iPhone. I know I do.
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@tbax929 is back from the beach: Probably a localized AT&T issue. We use AT&T at work because they were the only ones we could get a decent and fairly reliable signal with at work.
If this is in NYC, does the prevalence of all the buildings have anything to do with it? Do they interfere with the signal?
@Red-headed bookworm: I hadn't thought about building interference. AT&T has always been spotty in my experience (NY/NJ and Chicago) -- the fun part complaining at an AT&T store only to be told that you have defective equipment, because there could not possibly be anything defective about their network.
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I've got to be in the minority for almost everything on here...lol I'm happy with my Comcast service and have AT&T for my cell phone and haven't had any major problems with it for the 7.5 years I've had them. Any small problems I had (billing error or plan changes or questions), were usually resolved with one phone call and within 30 minutes or so. I wouldn't have any other cell phone company as I get excellent coverage in my area and haven't had a dropped call in over 2 years.
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@Eat A Peach: I have Sprint and I live in NYC and I rarely have issues with dropped calls. Wow the last time I got disconnected was because my friend lost service in his apt (tmobile). Why would AT&T be dropping so many calls?
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@Eat A Peach: But do you have an iPhone? If you have an older 2g phone, you're not dealing with a) more complex OS on the phone, b) more contention for 3g service, c) (in some markets) only having the higher-frequency band available that is more susceptible to interference from objects in the line-of-sight such as walls.
@Eat A Peach: You know how it is, though... The angry customers bitch nonstop. The 75% of people who don't have significant numbers of dropped calls don't go around writing blog posts and writing Consumerist to say \"HEY, I DIDN'T DROP A CALL TODAY!\"
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@West Coast Secessionist: I dropped four calls in a row last night, and one today already. I had 50-60 dropped calls in September, and I only make about 5 calls per day.
Didn't AT&T ads used to say the network with the fewest dropped calls????
I think I might average 1-2 drops a week on Nextel with my Blackberry, and that's in known \"All Carrier\" Dead Zones, and even some of the known spots have gotten better lately.
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@pmcpa4: I love how now they're \"more bars in more places.\" Sure, I have five bars, but I still can't get a !@#$% call or text out.
This actually happened at a convention; I get the feeling it was traffic from all the people and all the cellular credit card machines. Still, I never had that problem on Sprint.
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@pmcpa4:
I've used various Blackberries for years and have never had a call drop. I'm on Sprint.
I've been considering an iPhone, but the prospect of dropped calls is a little scary to me. Cool apps and all that crap is great, but the main premise for having a phone (at least for me) is the ability to, you know, make phone calls.
@tbax929 is back from the beach: I was thinking about you when I read this - I was wondering if you lived in NYC - I wonder what the iPhone drop rate is wherever you are.
Or where I am. Not that I'm thinking of the iPhone. I am faaaar too clumsy for this.
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I seriously can't remember the last time my VZW phone dropped a call. In about one of every 20 attempts, the initial connection doesn't go through, but I don't really consider that a drop.
It's a shame that you cant cancel avoiding ETFs based on the crappiness of AT&T's network.
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@zacox: Same here, I live in a renovated old mill (now loft apartments), with the thick brick walls and the amazing amount of steel surrounding me, my VZW phone doesn't drop calls even when I climb in the elevator. Verizon has been good to me for 5 yrs, and as long as there service continues to absolutely stellar I see absolutely no reason to leave them.
I can confirm. I have constant dropped calls and no service on my iPhone.
As much as I hear about AT&T service being sucky in New York, how is data service there? Related question...I recently bought an iPhone for use here in Stillwater, OK (college town, I go to Oklahoma State University)...and I'm quite disappointed with the data service. When I bought the phone I was well aware that I'd be getting EDGE service only here, as opposed to the 3G service in Oklahoma City/Tulsa areas (which works absolutely great).
Most of the time I can get no more than 30-60kbps max here...and this is primarily on campus or in nearby areas, which is where I'd imagine that they would have decent coverage! (And these are areas where I get 5 bars and usually do not have problems with call quality.) To me this is a bit unacceptable considering that AT&T advertises speeds of 75-135kbps, and that I recall getting EDGE speeds of 150-200kbps on the last smartphone that I used a data plan on.
Anyone have any experience dealing with AT&T on matters like these? I figure I'm probably screwed (outside of switching to another provider) but was just curious if any other Consumerist readers have had similar issues.
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I live in L.A. and while I'm not a big phone user (maybe 2-3 hours per week), I almost never get dropped calls. Of course, I have a 1st gen iPhone, so I'm not on the 3G network, which probably has a lot to do with it. My Edge network data rate is fine too.
Data service is very very bad in the financial district in new york, where I work, and reception is spotty. I usually don't receive any email during the day, until around 3pm when all of a sudden I'll receive all my emails from the day at once. I can't browse the internet at all. I've missed a number of calls that I wasn't even aware I missed, despite my phone saying I had a full signal. I drop a call pretty much every day, sometimes it takes 5 tries to place a call. It's very frustrating.
@quoo: This is my experience in downtown Chicago, too, since 3.1 came out. My signal flips back and forth between 3G and Edge all day, and browsing/anything requiring data can take eons, if it works at all. I get a smattering of missed calls/texts when I get out to the suburbs in the evening. All the other iPhone users in my office are having similar problems. One started calling AT&T daily to complain, only to be told it's a \"localized issue\" that they're \"working on.\" After about 6 days of complaining, they gave him a credit on his bill, but no idea as to when/if we'll get back to pre-3.1 levels.
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Wait a second, you mean the iPhone isn't perfect in every way?! Ohhhh nooooez!
It's got nothing to do with the iPhone. I have had an iPhone on Rogers since the 3G came out and I have yet to have a single dropped called. I use it as my one and only phone, no landline at all, and I have -- never -- had a problem. This whole dropped call business is entirely AT&T's fault.
I get 5 bars 3G all over the GTA and haven't had a single dropped call. My data is always blazing fast and I can't complain at all. Sure Rogers rapes their customers with their pricing, but the service itself is second to none in Canada, and also the US it seems...
It still kills me how a superior phone is sitting on a bad network. iPhone should have been CDMA from the get go.
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@remington870_20ga: Um, there are two issues with your comment:
A.) Stating that the iPhone is superior. This is probably poor word choice as it is a good phone, but we cannot say it is superior to anything since you don't state what you're comparing it to.
B.) GSM is in more of the world than CDMA. It was probably a better decision for worldwide penetration to be GSM, rather than CDMA*.
*I assume that you are referencing the old rumor that they offered it to Verizon first and Verizon turned them down. Though that wouldn't be surprising based on Verizon's phone offerings, it is hasn't really been substantiated by either Verizon or Apple.
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@Nigromancer: Actually, if I'm not mistaken, Apple turned down Verizon, due to their draconian requirements of controlling every aspect of the iPhone and its software.
I do agree, though, that GSM was the right way to go. There's a world outside the US, and it's a lot easier to develop one device that works anywhere (which is why the G in GSM stands for Global).
As for the superior comment and rebuttal, I won't touch that one with a 10-foot clown pole. Both sides seem to be baiting the Great Flame War, and I'm a pacifist on this one. (Full disclosure: I own an iPhone, and worked at Option-Shift-K for a good while).
I have the odd problem that when i try to use my iPhone 3GS within a meter of my Airport router, I can hear people crystal clear, but they can't hear me at all. If I walk a few feet away, the problem goes away.
As for VZW and Sprint working better, of course they do! Verizon has been more aggressive about getting signal repeaters INSIDE buildings so there are fewer deadzones. Sprint has a relatively small coverage area and so can cover the area with antennae intensively.
The transition over the next few years to LTE is going to be messy for all us though, regardless of carrier. An yes, this does mean new phones for all of us.
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I was on Madison Ave yesterday and couldn't get a call through for the life of me. AT&T and Apple need to figure this out. They are both at fault.
Sounds like it's time for a class-action. Who's with me?
@Wireless Joe: Exactly! I think AT&T dropping 30% of calls would be real news, not the kind of news that involves \"Some dude said...\"
This story is extremely suspect. I can't see any way the AT&T network is dropping 30% of only iPhone calls. They'd me dropping a third of everyone's calls, and that would be highly noticable.
Seems low. Pretty much any call I have on my iphone in NYC ends before I hang up.
I found a simple fix to dropped iphone calls in NYC: Use a payphone. The apps rock though!
And Apple fanboys continued to upgrade to their third iPhone in as many years.
You can knock Apple all you want, but you have to give them credit for finding a bunch of rich morons for customers...
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I just want my iphone to stop going into \"coma mode.\" 3.1 is really buggy.
@jeblis: Since I upgraded to 3.1 my iPhone has been almost useless. Apps crashing, data barely works... it's not been very reliable. Had no issues with 3.0.
@jeblis: Turning off app notifications seems to have fixed it for me. I could barely go a few hours without it crashing out on me. Now it hasn't crashed in days.