I, as so many others, have had some pretty major issues with reception my iPhone. This became so much more evident while I was in the Bay area last week. I already new that 3G coverage in and around the San Mateo area was not good but my experience at SFO was terrible.

At SFO I was grabbing a bite to eat while waiting for my flight and had placed my phone on the table. I sat there and watched it for about 2-3 minutes as it continuously looped from Edge to 3G to data roaming to No Service. All of this with me touching it only to revive the screen from sleeping. Seeing this caused me to understand why people are so frustrated. The words “Class Action Lawsuit” quickly sprang to my mind in thinkng about how widespread this issue may be.

Although I was having those crazy issues with my phone a chalked it up to a California funky infrastruture and quickly forgot about it since I was heading home to Austin. Historically my reception in Austin has been great, that is until yesterday.

Yesterday I am having lunch and have full 3G bars but cannot get a web page to load to save my life. I reboot the phone and same thing – full bars and no web pages will load. I hung my head in defeat and went back to work.

All of this leads up to the 2.0.2 update last night and thus my mad dash to install it.

From the get go I can see that things are more responsive and zippier. I did have the app crash issue but I have had that with the last 2 updates. To fix it all I need to do is download and install a new app and then all of them work (it us still a bug but that is a quick work around).

This morning it seems that the phone does not switch between Edge and 3G as quickly and will not sit there on 1 bar if 3G for ever. I am definitley getting more Edge coverage where 3G is weak. It seems that the phone is holding on and keeping a good signal longer. The AT&T network seems to be more stable here in Austin so this update seems like it is good for us. I have seen other folks report that things are worse for them so it seems that it just depends where you are located (like always).

All in all I still live my iPhone and it is the best phone I have ever had. I know these issues are just from this technology being so new. I remember my first dial-up and DSL services. They were terrible as well when they first came out but they stablized over time. I expect this to as well (Although I do remember a Class Action Lawsuit against AOL for over selling there service which caused people not to be able to get online :-p ).

At the time of writing this I am at the Starbucks in Round Rock at HWY 79 and Red Bud which is near Old Settlers Park. 3G here is a single bar but if I go outside I get full bars (the cell site is down the street). I work near the Arboretum (Braker and 183) and I get 3-4 bars inside of our office building. Traveling between these two locations on Mopac and I35 has the reception vary from 1-2 bars to full bars. I have not seen any dead spots that cause my phone to revert to Edge.

In mentioning I35 I wanted to note that while driving through San Antonio and up to Austin on I35 I had 3G coverage all the way. I listened to Pandora uninterupted the entire time (which was awesome). I have not been down to south Austin so I cannot atest to how coverage is “down there” .

In comparison coverage is much better in the Austin area then it was in the Milbrae/San Mateo area in California. I was really surprised at the fact that I rarely had full bars and that my phone would switch to Edge regularly.

I hope my little rundown of coverage is helpful to anyone that is considering a 3G iPhone in the Austin area.