iPhone Signal Strength Problems In the UK

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."

Ok. So?

[427_ci_505]

A company (don't know which one) has made / is serving a product that has some problems. These problems should be fixed soon, if the company (companies) knows what's good for it (them). In the meantime, nothing too terrible has happened as a result. This is newsworthy why?

different freqs?

[taniwha]

GSM in the US runs on a different frequency than most of the rest of the world - could be the phone is optimised for the US freqs ... there may be other stuff - I know when I visit the US my phone's battery lasts about 1/3 as long as elsewhere - don't know whether the US environment is noisier and needs the phones to shout louder or it's just not as efficient at that freq

Re:different freqs?

[Bert64]

The US is also much bigger, and therefore harder for cellphone operators to provide adequate coverage... One way of doing this is to boost the power.
The UK is much smaller, but quite hilly...
Cellphone coverage in the netherlands is very good because the country is small, densely populated and flat.

iphone is meh from a UK perspective.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, most people have "smartphones" (obnoxious term) that already outclass the iPhone in most areas (and no, not having buttons is not better if your life revolves around texting...). The iphone looks good in the american mobile phone market, but the american mobile phone market is a travesty.

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".

Related to unlocking?

[Durzel]

"thers have had to do a software restore back to version 1.1.2 of the iPhone software" is a telling statement, UK iPhones come with 1.1.2 out of the box - no one would need to do a software restore BACK to this version unless they had unlocked it (which currently requires downgrading the software to 1.1.1).

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?