iPhone signal issues?

Here's my update: so I got my Sprint phone. The HTC Hero. It's a great little phone, but a little slow. Anyway, I tried it out and, much to my dismay, the service wasn't great. I mean, I had service and could make a call (which is more than I can say for AT&T), but the quality on my end and the other end was poor. So I just canceled my Sprint plan in the 30-day trial. It was great to have the option to try the phone and service, basically for free, but it didn't work out in the end. The iPhone has been a little better lately, only in that I can get service in my bedroom near my window. I still have no service in the rest of my apartment. I'm going to contact this Carson Proctor guy that ckbknyc mentioned. I know that AT&T has always sucked, but it's been especially worse the past month or so. I don't understand how they can be aware that there's an 88% failure rate in our area and still charge us what they do for the service.

I'll take that discount! I had tried switching to Edge. It helped a little bit, but I still had no service whatsoever most of the time.

This article scared me: http://gizmodo.com/5488261/time-warners-plan-to-make-att-suck-less-in-ny-anyway

My AT&T service is pretty much non-existent and my Time Warner Internet works only about 50% of the time. I can't imagine what will happen if/when these two companies get together.

Verizon definitely is the best carrier in NY, but you have to pay a lot for them. And considering I barely use my phone, I'm looking to pay less, not more, for something that shouldn't be so difficult to provide.

I love the iPhone. I HATE AT&T. I'm on 15th and 7th. I can usually not make calls in my apt, but I can on my wife's phone, which is odd, since it's the SAME phone! WTF!

She was on the phone with cust service and AT&T told her the iPhone is just no good and to get a different phone with AT&T. Yeah right. They also told her to get off 3G. But they don't tell you that in their commercials!

We're coming close to the end of the contract and thinking Verizon. The Google Nexus One (not at verizon yet, but maybe June) looks a LOT like the iPhone, in terms of physically, and what it does. We'l likely switch.

Personally, I can't believe there's not a class action law suit. Can't we do ANYTHING? We pay a LOT for the service and get shit in return. WTF. Makes me feel helpless. Maybe I should stop making fun of people with landlines.

fucking att&t stupid fucks.

homeowner wrote: BTW, there is a new IPhone plan through AT&T which is $69 per month for phone service instead of $99. According to the women I spoke to at AT&T there is no difference in the plans themselves, so if you are on the more expensive plan, call and ask them to switch you.

Does switching require you to sign a new 2-year agreement? I'd be all for getting $30/month off my plan, but no way is it worth it if I have to risk being tied to these losers until 2012.

Stumbled on to this thread... I have no service at all and I'm on 8th Avenue in the SSlope. Been wasting my time with "customer service" Will call Friday armed with this new info.

Stumbled on to this thread... I have no service at all and I'm on 8th Avenue in the SSlope. Been wasting my time with "customer service" Will call Friday armed with this new info.

I e-mailed Carson a few days ago. He e-mailed me back a day later asking for my cell number and a landline number where I can be reached. Later that day, I got a call from Ryan (who works under Carson). The fact that an AT&T Customer Service person called me is astounding to me. And he was incredibly informative and helpful and is keeping a close eye on the situation. He told me that there were 2 towers down in my area (prospect ave between 8th and the park). Anyway, it was all rather technical, but I highly encourage everyone having an issue to contact Carson Proctor via his e-mail ([email protected]). It seems to be getting results.

Ryan JUST called me back. He told me he's been getting lots of e-mails from people in our area, so that's good. One cell tower is back up, but the one closest to my apartment is still down, but being worked on. He said they're replacing some hardware. Again, very technical, but reassuring that they're working on it and he told me he'll continue to call me until the problem is completely resolved. It's really incredible customer service, something I so wasn't expecting from AT&T.

Flexichick, they haven't mentioned a credit and I haven't asked for one. Once it's working again, I might bring it up. It sounds like they're expecting things to be back to "normal" by next week.

Just got my entire $86 bill dismissed (billing cycle from Jan 29 - Feb. 28th). The next one will likely be credited as well because they still have one tower that isn't fully functional.

I am pretty impressed because I was only expecting pro-rated credit (phone signal has been crappy, but internet is working) and because I have been getting proactive calls from Ryan every few days giving me status updates.

Customer service goes a long way. It's the way it should be, but it's so rare to find these days.

^ Lotto machine....my ass! Pretty crazy story. I did not hear that. I should say that my phone signal issues have improved greatly - I think 2 out of the 3 downed towers are back up. Internet has been much, much better. The worst problems were around the middle of February, but things have been improving steadily since then. Since my billing cycle runs through the 28th and that last tower is still not fixed, I will call for another credit when I get my next bill.

^ Ask Ryan to document the problem in a note to customer service. There were 4 notes from Ryan in my account. He was supposed to ask them to credit my account - that specific wording wasn't there, but since he had put in notes that this was a well-known issue dating back to early Feb., the agent did not blink at giving me the credit. It will save you the time and effort of having to justify and explain the problem.

I also use that iPhone app called "Mark the Spot" and keep sending in reports of dropped calls

If you read above, that's pretty much what everybody on here has been doing. To great effect too.
Not to get all philosophical, I think the mass pressure we've exerted on AT&T about service in our area, and more importantly on tech higher-ups who actually have a name, phone number and email address is exactly the kind of consumer advocacy Americans should demand and one of the benefits we enjoy in a marketplace with several competing options.
To AT&T's credit I'm pretty impressed they've allowed us access to this level of their operation and an actual person we can hold accountable. When I had similar problems with Sprint 8 years ago, I was restricted to the general 1-800 number and revolving cast of customer service "managers" in call centers mostly overseas. As a result I jumped ship.
The article from thestreet.com I posted makes a good point about Apple's role in all of this and AT&T's willingness to take the fall in return for an enormously lucrative contract.

I got credit too, but on Monday, I dropped a bunch of calls in a row. I agree that it got better and then worse again

Carnivore wrote: Luckily for you, a Verizon iPhone will soon be available, and you can ditch ATT.

In the meantime if you can't wait, the Droid is actually awesome.

Wait. Verizon doesn't have 3G service, right? I remember that my parents had to rent phones when they went to Germany last year because their own Verizon phones wouldn't work (and, yes, I asked them if it was just a matter of upgrading their phones. They told me that Verizon doesn't offer 3G at all.)

How soon are we talking for Verizon to carry the iPhone?