"An immature chipset solution from Infineon Technologies AG may be at the root of reported connection problems with Apple, Inc.'s 3G iPhone, Nomura analyst Richard Windsor said in a note to clients Tuesday," Aude Lagorce reports for MarketWatch.
"He said some iPhone users are having trouble getting a 3G connection and hanging on to it. Hiccups reportedly include a high incidence of dropped calls, switching onto the slower EDGE network while the device is stationary and loss of reception while in good coverage," Lagorce reports.
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Stacey Higginbotham reports for GigaOM, "Windsor writes that the problem isn’t likely to be solved with firmware updates, which means Apple could have to replace the chips so users get the performance they were promised."
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Ryan Kim reports for The San Francisco Chronicle, "Stephen Yarbrough has a love-hate relationship with his new Apple iPhone 3G: He calls it the best gadget he's ever had but also the worst mobile phone."
Kim reports, "Yarbrough's complaints stem from spotty phone reception owing to the phone's 3G wireless technology. He said that when the phone is set to ride on the faster 3G network, the signal often fluctuates and drops calls even though it should be able to revert to a slower wireless technology called EDGE."
Kim reports, "He has taken to turning off his phone's 3G connection when making phone calls and relying on the EDGE technology to maintain his conversations. Yarbrough upgraded his phone's software last week, but the problems continued, he said."
"Mark Siegel, an AT&T spokesman, said Apple and AT&T are working to ensure that users have a great experience with the iPhone 3G, which he said has not been a source of tremendous complaints," Kim reports. "He said that while customer concerns are being investigated, it's hard to know if they are widespread or the product of individual circumstances."
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Tom Krazit and Marguerite Reardon report for CNET, "Widespread complaints about the iPhone 3G's reception have spread across the Internet in the month since Apple and AT&T released the successor to the original iPhone. The companies insist that nothing is wrong, but the complaints have been mounting through e-mails, water-cooler discussions, and message boards on Apple's own Web site: iPhone 3G users are having trouble connecting, and staying connected, to the 3G networks in their areas."
Krazit and Reardon report, "Repeated attempts over the past week to get Apple and AT&T to even acknowledge the uproar--if not the issues specifically--proved pointless. Apple didn't even attempt to answer the questions, deferring inquiries to AT&T, which declared that there were absolutely no widespread problems with the iPhone 3G on its network. 'What we're seeing is that the iPhone 3G is performing very well,' said Mark Siegel, a spokesman for AT&T. 'I'm not denying that people are having problems. But we have to deal with these on a case-by-case basis.'"
Krazit and Reardon report, "It's always difficult to determine the scope of an issue posted on Internet message boards--whether or not a loud minority is blowing up a relatively minor problem into something more."
"Network coverage isn't the only possible cause of all these problems," Krazit and Reardon report. "Users of other mobile phones on AT&T's 3G network are not reporting the same kinds of issues, and iPhone 3G users in the U.K. and Australia, among other places, are reporting similar issues."
"It's possible that a software problem is responsible for some of the issues. If true, that would actually be good news for iPhone 3G owners, since Apple would be able to correct the issue in a subsequent update," Krazit and Reardon report. "But at this stage, while it's easy to theorize, it's almost impossible to know for sure what might be causing the problems..."
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