[dockramer]

JCH01 - that is a helpful explanation. Could you try to explain the following issue and make a suggestion. I live in Eastern Long Island where there is now a massive influx of tourists that are overwhelming the ATT network (in addition to 50 gazillion new iphones). Recently, my Bold has been almost completely useless in many locations with low or no signal. I had .282 on the phone but switching to 2g mode made no difference. Frequent dropped calls or call failed messages.
I moved my SIM to my old 8800 (2g only) - The phone works fairly well - few drops, no failed calls.

Folks on this thread are debating hardware vs OS. It seems that my test is a good example of the problem. If the Bold in 2g mode continues to drop calls and have signal problems while the 8800 doesn't (BTW,my wife's Pearl works as well as the 8800), there must be a major issue with the way the Bold interacts with the network. OS or hardware? I don't know but it is very frustrating.

I would appreciate any suggestions/thoughts

[txchad]

i'm in the Dallas area and i'm increasingly getting more dropped calls. Probably 8-10 per day. i've called AT&T several times and complained and they said it was the area that I was in. I can be standing in my kitchen or driving through downtown and i get the same problem. It seems to be getting worse every week. when i travel outside a 3G area and on EDGE, it works fine. I work w/ 4 other people who all have bolds and have the same problem. AT&T said there was nothing they could do.

[psuwtb]

FYI, it seems as thought AT&T will be releasing a new O/S next Tuesday that might address some of these issues...

Official BlackBerry OS Updates: AT&T Bold (4.6.0.508) and Verizon Tour (4.7.1.42) - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

[mic_crispy]

Im in dallas too and it used to not be bad at all.. i switched from my 8100, to a 8120, to a 8110 and then to a bold, and used to bold for about 8 months with no issues at all until about a month ago.... now i cant even get service in my house, and every other call outside of my house is dropped / failed. Pretty annoying.

[OzzieDog]

I have been running .282 on AT&T south of Dallas and the last two weeks and on average 4 drop calls per day, also emails and text messages take up to three atempts to send this is all while showing full 3G status. I have no third party software.

[hyedipin]

This topic is just another reason to keep waiting for Bold 2.. Even though nobody knows if it will have the same issues or not..

[JSanders]

Originally Posted by txchad

i'm in the Dallas area

Originally Posted by mic_crispy

Im in dallas too

Originally Posted by OzzieDog

I have been running .282 on AT&T south of Dallas

Hmmm.... for you three users, do you see ANY common thread?

Tower issues, overcrowded 3G bandwidth, etc.

Your issue is likely local (not saying the Bold doesn't have it's own issues on 3G, but I have never had any, at all, on the Bold.

You three should appear simultaneously at one local ATT office and get some answers.

[hyedipin]

Haha, I can see the headline:
Mob of angry Texans raid an AT&T store after being fed up with poor service from the provider.

[mic_crispy]

Originally Posted by JSanders

You three should appear simultaneously at one local ATT office and get some answers.

Oh that wouldnt be too hard.. seeing as im the manager at one of them

[JSanders]

Originally Posted by mic_crispy

Oh that wouldnt be too hard.. seeing as im the manager at one of them

*grumble* I was very serious.

perhaps you might notice some similarity here?

[mic_crispy]

Oh i do. Ive let everyone i can know about it. The OS update next week is very real.

[OzzieDog]

I called customer service at AT&T when I was having random re-starts, they and two different stores told me that is was the battery causing the problems, so they replaced four brand new batteries, that did not correct the problem. The dropped calls and disconnect from the network AT&T claimed that it was caused by the sim card so they replaced it six different times. The random restarts stopped when AT&T came out with the newer version of .167. The drop calls and disconnect/searching for network is still their. I've given up on changing sim cards.
Their could be an over crowding of the 3G network since just about everyone I know out where I live have gone to the dark side and have the iPhone. What I find weird is the three Samsung 3G phones we have in the family have no problems could be they are taking my share of the bandwidth. There is a AT&T tower less than a mile from our house and AT&T claims it has been updated. I also have no third party software of any kind. Maybe the Bold just doesn't like the operator. Rats.

[hyedipin]

Originally Posted by mic_crispy

Oh that wouldnt be too hard.. seeing as im the manager at one of them

Maybe you can tell us when will AT&T get BOLD 2 for real?

[fonejunkie]

Originally Posted by hyedipin

Maybe you can tell us when will AT&T get BOLD 2 for real?

way to thread-crap...

[hyedipin]

Too much fiber in my diet, maybe that's why.

[mic_crispy]

Originally Posted by hyedipin

Maybe you can tell us when will AT&T get BOLD 2 for real?

I wish i had a date... but i have no idea... the 9700 Onyx IS coming, just dont know when.. if i had to guess id say November.

personally id like to see a update to the pearl.

Oh and for the dallas people, "supposedly" we had a update on wed. (hence the SOS on everyones phones then) have you noticed a difference? i updated my OS to the .282 at the same time and i havent had a single problem since..

[JCH01]

Originally Posted by dockramer

JCH01 - that is a helpful explanation. Could you try to explain the following issue and make a suggestion. I live in Eastern Long Island where there is now a massive influx of tourists that are overwhelming the ATT network (in addition to 50 gazillion new iphones). Recently, my Bold has been almost completely useless in many locations with low or no signal. I had .282 on the phone but switching to 2g mode made no difference. Frequent dropped calls or call failed messages.
I moved my SIM to my old 8800 (2g only) - The phone works fairly well - few drops, no failed calls.

Folks on this thread are debating hardware vs OS. It seems that my test is a good example of the problem. If the Bold in 2g mode continues to drop calls and have signal problems while the 8800 doesn't (BTW,my wife's Pearl works as well as the 8800), there must be a major issue with the way the Bold interacts with the network. OS or hardware? I don't know but it is very frustrating.

I would appreciate any suggestions/thoughts

Sorry this took so long, been busy. You live in ATT worst area for drops, if someone tells you otherwise they are not telling you the truth or they don't have a clue. (#2 is So. CA) You may also have a bad phone, it happens.
Keep in mind that both ATT and Verizon started with Analog Networks. Making GSM (2G) work on the old analog network was a LOT easier than making CDMA work as Verizon found out. Now ATT is trying to make REAL 3G work (WCDMA) on a very old network and is finding out things Verizon has known for years, you need more cell sites and you have to fix the old ones. Antenna paterns that worked great on AMPS, TDMA and GSM don't work with UMTS/CDMA. The next big problem you already mentioned, Apple. I don't think anyone saw the push/move to 3G coming at the pace it has. Here in SoCa GSM-850 may go away before year end in many areas or even more of the 1900 band GSM will have to go to add another UMTS channel to handle the amount of traffic that is currently on it. Cut down on the amount of traffic per channel and you cut down the noise floor and the cell site area gets larger again.... Then you have the blood of the system which is getting all this information back to mother, this is either microwave or T1 (or greater) phone lines. Guess what the phone networks can't keep up with the growth in wireless supply and demand so most networks are looking to (hold your breath here phone people) CABLE TV to lease their fiber for backbones to the cell sites. Now for the clincher, ATT is now under controll of the Wireline Personel (if it worked for 100 years why change it syndrome) so things are not progessing as fast as maybe they would have 2years ago. Once some bean counters notice that a certain other carrier is rolling out LTE (4G) already and the numbers start to prove they are falling behind, things may improve. Til then we'll just keep banging away (our heads against the wall) at it. See ya...

[adventphoneguy]

Hello all,

i am the telecom admin at a medium sized corperation and here are my thoughts and theories on this issue.

we switched to Bold's from Treo's about 4 months ago (on the ATT netowrk) and instantaneously had issues and complaints about dropped calls and general odd behavior on the Bolds... randomly rebooting, calls going straight to VM, keys stopped working, and some of them would even stop powering on.

what i began to notice as i started RMA'ing phones and swapping them with spares i had, was that literally every (EVERY) phone that my company has had issues with... the phones were made in Mexico.

we bought about 400 phones, with a mix of mexico and hungary made phones, and so far not one user who has a hungary phone has had an issue, while at least 40 devices that were made in Mexico have needed replacement.

also, if you look behind that battery, you will see that the circuit board is different between the hungary and mexico phones, so there are definately using different parts in the manufacturing process.

my director is currently bringing the issue up directly with ATT, so we will see what will come of that...

my belief (its a fact in my opinion) is that this is not a tower issue, nor is it an OS issue... it is a hardware issue, with mexican made phones.

Those of you who are having issues, check under the battery, on the sticker it will tell you where your phone was made (also the mexican phones have a blue circut board,and the hungarian phones have a brown circut board).

update this thread with where your phone was made, if you having issues... the more data i aquire on this the more i can tell what the issue is and the more firepower i will have when confronting ATT.

thanks all for your time!!

-phoneguy

ETA: we are in San Francisco, and we also have several iPhone users... none of these users have any issues whatsoever with reception or dropped call issues here in SF or the bay area.

[JCH01]

Hungery, have had phone almost a year, (longer than the public) No real problems. Some drops all due to site issues. So. Ca.

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by Jarrod623

lol, att is not working on anything.

I work for them and we are waiting for the 5.0 release.

Get .282 and just turn 3g off for now. Hopfully 5.0 OS will fix 3g drop calls on Bold.

Originally Posted by Jarrod623

Sorry let me rephrase, we are not releasing any OS's (That are coded and Developed by RIM) until 5.0.... Which is not relevant anyway since any release OS can be put on an at&t phone.

Originally Posted by Jarrod623

geezzz....

No! We find out when RIM releases it. However I have a friend at RIM and they are hoping for late Sept. or Early Oct.


For more info on OS 5.0 Search OS 5.0 and read please.

I would like to revisit the earlier posts in this thread, only to say that this gentleman's credibility as an "AT&T Employee" has been greatly reduced. As I see it, 4.6.0.297 is a pre 5.0 OS.