iPhone Signal Strength Problems In the UK
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Nov 24, 2007 07:41 PM
from the no-bars-for-us-we're-british dept.
from the no-bars-for-us-we're-british dept.
An anonymous reader writes "British iPhone users, who bought the Apple phones when they went on sale in England on Nov. 9, are reporting persistent problems with signal strength on O2, the UK's only iPhone service provider. The complaints started only 2 days later. InfoWeek blogger Alex Wolfe says there's a debate as to whether O2 or the iPhone is at fault; it appears to be the handset, which is unusual since US users haven't reported similar problems. Some 02 customers report that getting a replacement phone fixes things; others have had to do a software restore back to version 1.1.2 of the iPhone software."
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signal strength (Score:4, Informative)
Re:signal strength (Score:4, Insightful)
As long as we're going with anecdotal evidence, I switched from a Razor to an iPhone a couple weeks ago and haven't noticed any signal strength issues.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:signal strength (Score:5, Insightful)
Because he was pointing out that anecdotal evidence is worthless.
Re:signal strength (Score:5, Insightful)
If we agree that anecdotal evidences are entirely worthless, what's Amazon, Newegg, Buy.com, etc, etc. doing putting up "Customer Reviews"? What about "Resellerratings"? Or even reports by Better Business Bureau, or Consumerist, or Consumer reports? Unless it's a designed-to-be-fair poll (which almost all online polls aren't) of statistically significant numbers (I usually go with 1000, because that gives nice 3% margin of error, assuming no other sources (such as sampling bias, wrong question wording, etc.) than random sampling error), it's little better than anecdotal evidences---a couple people lying, a company astroturfing will be enough to skew the results way over to the other side.
But, such quality results are hard to come by (I daresay even in clinical studies, let alone psychology survey, such quality is hard to obtain), so if you've ever listened to anyone you don't know personally (and somehow can trust his/her expertise), you have let an anecdotal evidence influence your judgment. Does that mean you are stupid? Well, not any more than me, the president (of U.S., of Canada, prime minister of U.K., anybody important, really), or the vast majority of rational population.
In fact, anyone dismissing an anecdotal evidence just because it's an anecdotal evidence (rather than, say, it can be shown to be false experimentally, or there is some logical fallacy) is simply repeating the folly of Descartes (of overt doubt). Except of course, unlike Descartes, he has absolutely no originality and a hindsight of several centuries, which should prevent all but utter fools from falling into such mistake.
No problems here... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not exactly in a major metropolitan area either, out here in a commuter town in the South West, but my signal strength hasn't really been a problem - I'm always able to make calls or connect via GPRS or EDGE, so I'm pretty much happy at the moment. I've travelled a bit as well in the past 2 weeks and I've yet to experience signal loss, even out in the country side.
Could we do away with iPhone this and Apple that? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Could we do away with iPhone this and Apple tha (Score:5, Insightful)
One small detail (Score:3, Insightful)
Is this really a frontpage story? (Score:5, Funny)
You would need at least 03 customers before this should make a headline.
England != UK (Score:5, Informative)
iphone is meh from a UK perspective. (Score:4, Interesting)
The iphone, while being exceptionally heavily marketed, has already been deemed uncool in the 18-30 age group. Seems to be mainly older people who buy it, more susceptible to the advertising that it's "hip".
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
My little sister (18) exact words on the matter were "why wo
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Related to unlocking? (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't it possible that if UK users are applying patches/firmwares intended for US iPhones (since that's where it would appear the jailbreaks/unlocks originate) then there may well be a difference in GSM configurations?
Also how many of these users bought their phones from the US? Does anyone know for certain whether or not there are NO hardware/software differences between US and UK iPhones?
Downgrading to 1.1.2 doesn't solve anything (Score:4, Informative)
Downgrading the main 1.1.2 firmware only changes the software - so you can reenable the
There's details in this thread:
http://www.hackint0sh.org/forum/showthread.php?t=16571 [hackint0sh.org]
In a nutshell, anyone downgrading their software to 1.1.2 or 1.1.1 or lower and who says they experiencing better cell phone reception is working under the placebo effect, because the firmware they are downgrading doesn't affect the radio at all. And no one knows how to downgrade the baseband firmware - or if they do, the technique isn't being publicized.
As far as reception, on T-Mobile in the US, my reception has generally been good. There's a bit of a funky "bug" that I've seen that if the reception is low or "no service" and you move into an area with service, it takes the phone a while to recognize this. So if you are in an underground tunnel and have no reception, then when you leave the tunnel it can take minutes for the iPhone to notice it has service again. This may be a "feature" since they are trying to save power or something, but it can be annoying to wait 3 minutes or more for the iPhone to decide it has service. There's also a rare odd effect that the phone will think it has all 5 bars, but will, in fact, have no service at all. Any time I have either of these issues, they correct themselves with time - or I can just power down the phone.
It's the antenna, not the software (Score:5, Informative)
iPhone disassembled:
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone/Communications-Board/105/8/Page-7/Communications-Board [ifixit.com]
One can see a small little cable going from the RF Module to the antenna. In almost 99% of the GSM phones on the market today, the antenna is right next to the RF Module. This is to minimize the RF losses between the RFIC and the antenna. By using a cable, significant losses are introduced into the system by both the cable and the miss-match at both ends of the cable. The antenna is also at the bottom of the phone and is more likely to be covered by the user's hand (further decreasing sensitivity); though there are quite a few phone on the market with antennas at the bottom--it is how they get around the SAR limits which are specified as the peak radiation a user receives next to their ear (the mouth area is not measured in the FCC/EU tests.
So, while from an anecdotal perspective, it appears the iPhone has random sensitivity issues; from an antenna engineer's perspective however, it is no surprise why the iPhone has lower performance than most phones (but would still have similar performance to other phones with poor antenna designs--of which there are several for different reasons than cable losses).
If you are interested in reading more technical reports about antenna performance in mobile phones, go to the following website:
http://antennas.astri.org/antennas_mirror [astri.org]
PDF Password = astriantennas
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The UK is much smaller, but quite hilly...
Cellphone coverage in the netherlands is very good because the co
Re:different freqs? (Score:5, Informative)
One difference is that in the US, the market is largely a profit-driven free-for-all, where the actors can choose to only put towers where it will be profitable to do so. That means the big cities, their suburbs, and the highways between them. In most of Europe, there's coverage requirements to get a license to operate (and consumers that historically have bought things based also on quality and not features-for-the-price alone).
Another difference is that in Europe there's not a near 100% lock-in for phones to a certain provider, like in the US. Most people in the US aren't even aware that phones don't have to be locked to a provider. Some have heard of unlocking of phone, but even of those, almost none know that you can get phones that weren't unlocked, but never locked in the first place.
In Europe, if a provider hasn't given a good enough service or coverage, you have historically been able to take your phone elsewhere and get a new plan for your existing phone. The lock-in of the iPhone to a single provider is going to be a lesson in how good the "old" system was, and make European users understand the terrible situation US users have, and why so few Americans have cell phones.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:different freqs? (Score:5, Informative)
It is probably caused by some combination of these two things:
1. Transmit power for 1800/1900 (probably what is in use in NZ) is half the wattage allowed for the 850 band in the U.S. The 850 MHz allows for significantly greater tower spacing at a cost in cell phone life. You can't get away with that in the 1900 MHz band because the signal doesn't carry as well. AT&T uses 850 heavily, for obvious reasons, though in California, you will likely find many 850 MHz towers at much closer spacing and at reduced power to minimize the cell's overall coverage footprint to reduce the collisions inherent in high density environments with limited spectrum. You shouldn't see your cell shouting at anywhere near maximum output, though, so I sort of doubt this has that much to do with the difference, though I suppose it might be a factor.
2. GSM phones can use different encodings depending on signal strength, available bandwidth, the preference of the tower, and the intersection of modes supported by both your phone and the tower. It is much more likely that the phone is operating in one of the lower power modes in NZ. Half rate codec draws significantly less power than the other codecs, and EFR draws slightly more. IIRC, in California, AT&T's towers prefer FR if the phone supports it, because the call quality sounds better and they have enough tower density to handle it. In NZ, they may be using HR, which by itself can make a huge difference in talk time because the cell phone is essentially "talking" to the tower during only half as many time slots.
Re:Clarification of the summary (Score:5, Funny)
"=" is an assignment; "==" is pronounced "is equal to". Say it! Say it and mean it!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sounds like (Score:5, Informative)
The issue isn't the operator.