yes i have noticed that if i hold the phone upside down i often get 2 bars instead of 1.

2.0.1 is now up on software update, i am downloading this to see if it helps! fingers crossed...

Doesn't seem to have made a difference

/agree

will give it the rest of the day though, and test it in a few locations that are known to provide good coverage (on other phones )

After the update I am moving between 1 and 3 bars. I never have anything more than 1 bar at home. Maybe the update did something.

After update, at work the usual 5 bars 3G. At home though it's a different story. No Service here.... been "searching..." for about 4-5 minutes as I type.

Edit: Update 7.55pm. Still either "searching..." or No Service. Man, someone pulled the plug big time around here.

I'd do a restore, but think it'd be a waste of time. I had 5 bars 3G at the office just after the upgrade. grrrr....

Reception at work seems the same, though I'm in Melb CBD. At home I rarely have more than 1, so will be interesting to see what it's like when I get home. But I'm betting there'll be no difference. I went and did a network scan and it still says "could not load network list" but no reason why.

A few hours later and my phone is mostly 1 bar. It does hover on 2 and then 3 bars for a few minutes before going back to 1 for while. Prior to today it never was more than 1 bar of 3G. I also don't seem to be dropping back to 2G which happened often.

Not sure if this is related to something Optus have done or because of the Firmware update.

As I'm typing this it hit 4 bars for the first time ever before 3 bars, then 2 bars and now back to 1 bar. Oh well!

My father bought an iPhone on telstra on the weekend and we had full 3G reception down in northern NSW at Cabarita, where there isn't meant to be any 3G reception, when turning off 3G we had 4/5 bars on NextG reception.

Fast data transfer etc etc

theov

you need to have 3g enabled to use the NextG network as it is a 3g network.

Just switched to optus yesterday after 2 years with telstras 3g network.
Optus is cheaper but nowhere near as good reception, and I live in an inner city suburb.

Telstras network is awesome!

this iPhone sucks worst phone reception I have ever had. Had a nokia 6110 navigator previous to this itouch, also a 3g phone always had full reception on it (Vodafone). I still have the nokia and put my sim back in it today sick and tired of this other so called 3g phone. Told every person from Vodafone to apple no luck what so ever!. So it looks like I bought a pritty expencive itouch and have to keep this piece of $h1t for the next 24 months!!!!. Cheers hope someone is actualy looking into this. I somehow feel nothing is ever going to happen.

I just updated to 2.0.1.
Did not get any bars of 3G at my house prior to the update. Now I am getting at least 2 bars

I'm the opposite, NathR32..... but I just got off the phone with Optus iPhone Tech Support and they tell me that there's a Optus Tech team working on my local tower now and they are "grooming" it. Whatever that means.

They hadn't heard about the carrier update error as yet, but will research it and have promised to keep me updated via email. They will be "talking with Apple" tonight.

Hopefully it gets sorted out for you soon.
I'm one of the few lucky Optus customers that had a successful carrier update.

i think the carrier update is just a "false alarm." seems many people around the world are having the same failed carrier update after 2.0.1, might suggest that it's not even required/problem on apple's end?

also someone on whirlpool claimed to have looked at the .plist and they were identical (i think)

Did you do a straight update, or a restore?