Its an interesting thread this one. I have a 16 Gig Blk iPhone unlocked on the 3 network with varied reception in the 3 zones around Melbourne.

If I sit in my office at work I get 1-2 bars tops, If my boss who has the identical phone sits in my chair with his phone which is on the Telstra's network, it shows Full bars of reception.

I think the talk about the varied bands of 3G might have something to do with this, Although my phone works fine even with 1-2 bars..maybe its something not to be too woried about. I know Im not loosing sleep

I just got off the phone with Apple again. They will be sending field testers out with iPhones on Optus to multiple areas around Sydney tomorrow. Optus engineers will be accompanying them on this expedition. They will be going to areas including but not limited to, Ultimo, Lidcombe, Mt Druitt, M4 between Mt Druitt and Parramatta, Bankstown, Greenacre and Darlinghurst.
Busy day for the Engineers, but they will thoroughly testing the iPhone on the Optus network and making notes of any instances where 3G should be strong but is either not available on the phone or limited service.
I will have an answer on their findings either Thursday or Friday night.
Hopefully they figure this problem out and have a fix for it soon.

great news!

Awesome news! Will be interesting to see the outcome of this.

I got my prepaid Optus working this morning. sitting at my desk in Melb CBD I have 4/5 3G signal bars mostly. Getting in the lift it switches to GSM (square thing with a circle I'm guessing?) but works fine outside. I'll be reporting back but so far it seems to work well, and even data isn't to slow over GPRS. AND I've got 500mb to play with

So Optus are saying the iphone antenna is not sensitive enough to pick up the Optus network across the board, so the issue is with apple. is that the correct interpretation of this latest theory?

Signal strength and coverage is pretty good for me on Vodafone NZ (2100Mhz UMTS).

i dont think that anyone really knows. maybe we will no more later in the week. however i wouldnt be surprised if the reply from optus is that "there is no problem with the network." either because they are telling the truth, or because they want to keep any problems on the quiet for PR reasons.

regardless this "thory" seems to fit with the suggestion that it's only people relying on minimal cell towers who suffer from reception issues. ie. if you are in a city, or area picking up multiple 2100mhz signals, then you are unlikely to ever really notice poor reception.

here's to hoping that optus is forthcoming and can give an honest answer when macrich gets to speak with them again.

I think its just optus being stingy with providing quality coverage. I've just switched from Three.

I live in an outer-metro suburb and the coverage at my home varies from one (tiny) bar to 3 bars. Other outer-metro areas have similar patchy coverage to where I live.

For instance, the other day I was trying to do google maps and then google (browser) search and gave up. I think there was a data connection of some form but it was just slow!

I don't believe that apple would have release a phone to a worldwide customer base without checking it works in different types of coverage.

You can almost imagine a team of people walking around with pre-released iphones disguised as something else.

i know this thread is getting long. but can you explain why customers that have been on the optus/virgin network notice a performance/range decrease when changing phones?

ie. plenty of people are reporting no problems using other phones on the optus 3g network, yet the iphone seems to have trouble.

personally i hope its the 3g software/firmware, mabye some tuning/tweaking can fix the issue.

in my experience there is no problem with the network (obviously the coverage is not as good, but where there is coverage I have had no previous complaints, prior to the iphone.)

Okay, so I'm giving Optus Prepaid a try on my bought from Telstra unlocked iphone 3g.

I live in Hawthorn Vic, so about 5k from the Melbourne CBD. When on Telstra I had 5 bars almost constantly, no matter where I went.

At this moment I'm sitting on my couch and I'm on Optus GSM... I did a network scan, I get all the OTHER networks but Optus 3G isn't even there. I did have it earlier tonight but only 1/2 bars max. I do however have full GSM reception.

Surprisingly web surfing isn't to bad on GSM/GPRS. Shame it's not EDGE though.

yeah this seems to be the issue, and i'd be willing to bet that in the CBD, where you are getting a signal from multiple towers, you would get pretty much constant full signal.

ive also found that if the optus 3g network isn't showing, if you keep refreshing the network screen, or turn airport mode on/off, that it will often "re-apear"

edit- if you have another 3g 2100 mhz phone, try your sim in that, and let us know how it goes?

Already did, I had the sim in my Nokia 6120 waiting for it to Port, and always had full 3G signal. This leaves but two possibilities, a) iphone hardware issue (but why do I get full signal on Telstra Next G and even 3TElstra network when connected to that?) or b) software problem, firmware update required. I'm hoping it's a software problem. If it's hardware, Apple have a lot of 'splainin to do and are in for a nasty shock when people start complaining.

Could it be some problem between the Optus Network and the Iphone that's unique to the iphone?

having no phone/network engineers posting here (yet!), i dont think any of us have much of an idea what really could be possibilities.

the reason that you get good telstra/3 reception would seem to be that they don't use the 2100mhz spectrum.

so i'd agree with you that there is likely a phone issue, if its hardware or software, who knows! (hoping for software though!)

we can't really rule out an optus/iphone clash, but again why would other phones work without issue? i think that the chips inside the phones all come from specific vendors, its not like apple designs it's own chip for 3g. (though they probably have something to do with the software?)

thanks for your experimenting!

can confirm that our office in the city is a 3G black hole and lucky to get one bar ... in southbank near jeff's shed i am getting 2 to 4 bars on 3G. so i am not sure this theory that if you are in the city where there are multiple towers holds up.