Crazy EDGE Outage
As many folks have reported, AT&T’s EDGE network is struggling in the midwest. Outages have been patchy but seem to have affected entire cities, or at least large areas. But to my knowledge, there haven’t been any accounts of service dropping within inches…until now.
Here I sit, in downtown Cincinnati, and of the three iPhones in my office, two of them have absolutely no cell service. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Any attempted call immediately fails. They are the equivalent of an iPod Touch, plus a camera. Fortunately for me, mine works perfectly fine and I get to just listen to the frustrations of my coworkers and not experience any of my own. But the rants really fired up when we decided to sit all three iPhones, each with the exact same hardware (purchased within two months of each other), side by side. Here’s what we saw:
Pretty weird. I’ve experienced similar things with people that have other phones on the same network, but never with the exact same hardware. So who’s to blame here? AT&T or Apple? Either way, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the outage, and I can say (from experience) that there are some really grumpy AT&T customers out there.
So what about you, loyal TAB readers? Can anyone reproduce this?
#1 jb says:What kind of case are you using?
#2 Tim says:JB beat me too it. I’m also wondering what case is featured in that photo.
#3 TH says:3rd that on the case …
#4 Ramón says:Edge started behaving erratically Thursday of last week on my iPhone. Friday the touch screen refused to work, so I took it to Apple, and without blinking they replaced it.
That was last Saturday.
THEN, on Monday, AT&T (American Technology & Tyranny) started deducting money from my credit balance, which as of Monday morning stood at about $162.00. Every few minutes it would deduct 03¢, then 05¢, then 33¢, then $9.00 - this went on for hours even though I hadn’t used the phone at all.
I went to AT&T and got shrugs. Then I went to the Apple Store, and the genius guy was super-cool. He told me that he would need my phone for up to an hour. He got on the phone with AT&T and they admitted that their systems was bonkers.
Then he said that I would still need to call AT&T and give them info that he didn’t have - that’s when the fun REALLY started! Nine calls, and hangups later, the last “customer service agent” admitted that EDGE was going crazy, and that it would take a few days to fix.
I managed to get some money credited, but I feel that they shafted me with voodoo accounting, so I’m not sure if they pocketed some dough or not.
#5 Peter Garner says:“…but seem to have effected entire cities…”
You mean “affected.”
My eyes!
#6 Ray Marotta says:Josh,
I live on the east coast on Long Island and cell service has been spotty for the last two weeks, A call to AT&T Customer service told me that they were having “Network Issues” and were working on the issue,
‘
They also recommended when this does happen (Loss of service - to power the iPhone off and on),
Hope this helps….
;; Ray
#7 Bill says:No problems out here in rural Oregon. It is actually pretty speedy. The case is a AGENT 18 EcoShield
Simple and slides in and out of your pocket nicely. A little pricey though.
bill
#8 devin says:no problems here in utah. i would also like to know what kind of case you guys are using…
#9 Chad says:AT&T’s service was going NUTS here in west Tennesee. I visited an AT&T store and the guy basically told me the system was all screwed up and they knew about. That was yesterday. iPhone has been fine since then.
#10 devin says:ahh yes, the agent 18 case. i actually bought a clear one (apparently not eco-friendly enough to get the “ecoshield” name, but same exact case) and was actually not very happy about the fit and quality so i returned it and bought a griffin “iclear”. much better case for the money, IMO, but i have since gone back to no case at all. they all allow too much dust and dirt to get in and ends up scratching and looking like crap. i just hope i don’t drop it and break the screen again, cause next time they promised not to replace it for free. =X
#11 Jeff says:I live in NYC and service has been bad here too. in the middle of my office i just lose reception. Turning the phone off and then on again brings it back so that was a good tip. But for a $400 phone and the “World’s Largest Network” I shouldn’t have to restart my phone to make a phone call
#12 Stephanie Guertin says:I blame AT&T. Their service is pants and has been for a while. (My average call length, for instance? 37 seconds before the phone either hangs up or reboots itself outright.) I’m not buying an iPhone until I can have one on a better network, thanks.
#13 nok says:i live in the Midwest and i’m glad i haven’t purchased this object du jour yet. i do get good reception with my cheap at+t phone so until i can trust the new tech i’ll wait on paying a premium for it.
#14 Matt Radel says:Good eyes Bill - it is an Agent 18 Eco Shield. It is a bit pricey, but well worth it. It has protected mine wonderfully from several drops. I highly recommend it.
I’d also recommend the anti-glare film - great for keeping the everyday dust and grime off the surface.
Good catch Peter - the post has been updated.
#15 mikeg says:NYC has been a little spotty the past few days especially on Saturday.
#16 David M says:Has anyone experienced calls loosing reception over time? I will be talking to someone (sitting at my house) and over a period of time (varies) the call will loose signal until it finally drops! Which could be a part of this issue in the article.
#17 MoBurkhardt says:@ david m
I am experiencing the same issue, although in europe, sweden. After like half an hour of calling the call will just drop sometimes.
This is especially annoying when in line at a hotline:
“your number one in the cue, your number…duuud, duuud.”
Such call dropping might be standard in the USA but in europe this is unheard of, and I suspect it has something to do with the anysim crack…
#18 Gunther Dinsberg says:no probs in Lenox Mass
#19 ray says:I get good cell service. i can make and recv calls. but my edge is completely down. Im in lone tree colorado. its been down since yesterday and ATT keeps telling me its my hard ware. but when i get to my appartment or a different zip code edge works fine. They want me to get a new phone through apple but screw that! i just bought this phone in april and all apple will do is give me a remanufactured one. Seems silly for them to give me a phone they fixed even though i paid full price for a brand new one. if apple wanted to retain a customer they would eat the cost of giving me a brand new one. screw apple.