Bad Connection Inside the iPhone?

Much attention has been focused of late on the external antenna design of the Apple iPhone 4 as a cause of signal attenuation (weak signal). Much attention also has been paid to AT&T's wireless network in at least some locations--New York and San Francisco, for example--as regions where bandwidth problems are worse.

But Wired magazine also claims that software issues related to the iPhone's baseband radio, might also be playing a part in the "dropped call" problem. Wired magazine says Apple sources confirm that the software running the iPhone’s main radio, known as the baseband, was "full of bugs" and contributed to the much-decried dropped calls.

What’s more, Apple had chosen to source the radio from Infineon, whose hardware was used widely in Europe but rarely in the United States, where cell towers are placed farther apart and reception is therefore less forgiving. The suggestion is that the radio has not be tweaked for different tower spacing, at least not well enough.

In truth the relationship between smartphone manufacturers and service providers likely has grown more complex. Handset vendors want maximum feature richness so the devices become indispensable. But carriers obviously would rather that the consumer bond be with the network, not the device.

Also handset suppliers want their devices to be used. To the extent that such use put additional demand on the networks, wireless providers might prefer that wireless data services did become essential, but not terribly network-taxing in terms of bandwidth consumption.

It's hard to tell, anecdotally, whether users typically blame AT&T or Apple for reception problems, but most might agree that AT&T has gotten the blame, up to this point. Perhaps the view will be a bit more balanced now.

Bad Connection: Inside the iPhone Network Meltdown