Quotes:

During a recent two-week trip to New York, he said, the coverage was far inferior to what he experiences in California, and made it tough for him to use the map function to get directions.

“I found myself walking around Manhattan frustrated,” Mr. Goodson said. “It couldn’t hang on to the network.”

“I love the camera, the music is great, I use the GPS and map all the time,” Ms. Hwang said. “If I could have a reliable phone, it would be just perfect.”

The resulting technological glitches have given many owners of fancy new phones the urge to throw them out the window and onto the highway.


The reasons for the trouble are complicated. Part of the problem is that the companies are constantly upgrading their networks — creating a patchwork of technology on cell towers, and integrating slices of radio spectrum that carry voice and data transmissions.

Take, for instance, the difference in the way voice and data traffic is carried on the two networks. On AT&T’s 2G network, cellphone towers — even ones in close proximity to one another — use different chunks of the radio spectrum to carry information. As phone users move around on foot or in a car, their phones switch from one frequency to another.

On the 3G network, all of the cell towers use the same frequency to transmit information. On its face, this would seem to make things simpler. But this technology also adds a wrinkle: when phones get too close to too many 3G towers using the same frequency, they can become overwhelmed with radio noise.

“When you have more than three cell sites overlapping, you get interference,” said one infrastructure engineer who works for AT&T, who asked not to be named so as not to upset the company. “You get bad quality, funky sounds. If you’re doing data, the rates get slower and slower until you lose it.”

The newer networks are designed to carry bigger chunks of data so that, for example, people can use their phones to send and receive videos and not just e-mail or text messages. These larger chunks are not able to travel as far before degrading, however. That presents a serious problem, because carriers cannot easily erect hundreds of new towers to be closer to users.

Today’s cellphone users often just learn to live with the glitches. Rebecca Hwang, 29, a San Franciscan who has had a 2G iPhone since December 2007, said her calls were cut off periodically and she did not receive 30 percent of her text messages. But she is still a fan of the phone.


Inserts were taken from an article from NY. Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/te...ail1=y&emc=tnt

› See More: 3G Is Stressing Networks To Poor Service