Chris isn't taking calls... it's just going to voice mail.. LOL. I left a message and asked him to ring back bit I said "Don't be surprised if it drops out or doesn't go through" ROFL

i don't know the tech's name but you can also try this direct number -

Apple AU tech - 1300321456-8-40101

he has heard of these problems also

Chris just phoned me back and he was very nice. However he said he's not really the right person. The best people are those in the iphone support team and they will log the job correctly so it gets reported.

So, it might be better to leave Chris alone

I just logged it with Apple. It was performing like a little ripper for me. It was sitting on the table alternating between full 3g, back to one bar 3g, full 3g, one bar 3g, and then popping onto gsm and so on. The call went for 40 minutes and it did this routine 3 or 4 times without moving the phone. He did say that this would explain why its flattening its battery in 8 hours.

We're doing a reset now but I don't hold high hopes. If it does the same afterwards it will go for a repair but I'm not sure whether just to hand it back and walk away with optus. Maybe they might give me an extension on their coverage guarantee with all this in train...

EDIT: all the while my wifes nokia 3210 classic is sitting on the table next to me with 100% Telstra 3g signal.

Im using the Voda network and regularly have 1 or 2 bars however this doesnt seem to impact download speeds that much. I just performed a speed test and on 1 bar managed to clock up 550 kbps. Go figure .....

If you can get a number for Apple iPhone tech support then that would be great
So far I have not succeeded.

Giving the details of Chris, the Apple guy, was more a case of people being to get through to someone that does not give you one of the following responses -
- "you are the only person who has called that has had this problem"
- "i have not heard of this problem before"
- "sounds like a reception/coverage issue, call your carrier"
- etc

The hope was that if we focus our issues to one person, then it may help our cause, and make it a smoother process for anyone wanting to report an issue
(The intention was never to single out Chris particularly, or any other specific tech!)

It will be interesting to see how this issue pans out. Apple / Optus / etc seems to have an expensive problem to resolve if this is more than a software problem. This reeks of "not fit for purpose".

I don't get 3G coverage on Optus in North Ryde (Macquarie Park - not exactly the middle of nowhere) and coverage at home is 1-2 bars 3G.

I just tried the field test mode on my iPhone and it works (dial *3001#12345#*) . I also tried entering this as a contact, however it does not recognize it as a valid number and does not call when you tap the contact).

'Slow' iPhone 3G glitch blamed on secrecy - iPhone Insider - Digital Life

Summary -
Vodafone - blames the iPhone
Optus - no comment
Telstra - talk to apple
Apple - no comment

Hi. I'm on Optus in Sydney area. With my work phone (also on Optus) I have no problems at all, both from a new Nokia 3xxx handset and from my old iPaq 69xx. However, on my iPhone, the bars are all over the place.

A busride to the airport breaks up the connection while retreiving emails or newsfeeds. Network speed is slow, compared to my wife's Nokia mobile internet (also on 3G with Vodafone). Calls drop out now and then and sometimes I seem to have missed calls that I never heard coming in.

The most annoying thing that I experience is that after signal has completely dropped, the SIM locks itself again. That means the phone is on standby. Since I have the phone now for a while and dont look at it shiny screen every 5 minutes, it means I am "offline" until I check the phone and enter the SIM PIN... VERY annoying.

I've read that users switch off their 3G, but I have no clue how to do that to compare...

Anyway... that's my 2 cents! Otherwise, I love that phone

Cheers, Vince

Ok I've spent all of this morning on this including over an hour and a half on the phone to Apple. They were very helpful and basically said they thought the phone had issues and should be replaced. They have said if optus won't do it they will but I'm still unsure as to how this works with my Optus Coverage Guarantee of 30 days which is up next Wednesday for me.

The plan from here is to swap a phone with optus. If they won't unless they will extend my 30 days I'm just going to hand it back. If they will allow me extra time to swap it with Apple and we'll see how the new one goes.

We tried everything to get this phone to run as designed but all to no avail. The clincher for me was putting the optus sim out of the iphone in my old Nokia 5210c and it was getting 3/4 3g signal in exactly the same location as the iphone was swapping back and forth from GSM.

EDIT: I did go fishing to see if other people had reported this and he said he'd only heard of one other phone with the same problem. Take that as you will

Good to see its made the headlines somewhere!...

iLounge has now added this thread as link on their story regarding reception issues

Apple, AT&T look into iPhone 3G connection issues | iLounge News

iFail: Will Apple be forced to recall the iPhone 3G?

Could Apple be forced to recall the iPhone 3G to repair the faulty chips? Telco’s never like unhappy customers, and there is growing noise around this issue. They are not going to take the blame if the issue is hardware related, and that puts immediate pressure on Apple to act. If it is further proven that hardware is to blame, there is also the risk of Government intervention, at least in Australia and other nanny-state nations where Governments can and do intervene to force product recalls of faulty products.

iFail: Will Apple be forced to recall the iPhone 3G?

The thing that bugs me is why is it only Optus users having this problem? Does Optus use a different band that Telstra doesn't or is it just pure network superiority?

Yes to both questions.