I seem to have my Optus iPhone 3G in the worst possible reception places and haven't had any problems.

I'm an hour north of Brisbane and at home I'm lucky to see 2 bars, usually only 1 bar of 3G and it's never dropped a call or the internet. There's 3G in the biggest town nearby and a stretch on the road from there into my town where there's only 2G, but everything seems to work.

Another place I visit in Brisbane is in a serious mobile black spot, often getting nothing inside the house and 1 bar outside. The phone cleanly swaps betweeen 2G and 3G, even on the internet.

Other places in Brisbane, I get 5 bars, so it's not -always- poor reception, and as I said, it's always worked, even with poor reception.

I'm actually pretty impressed with both how well it works (and more often than not, I have pretty bad Bar numbers).

I'm even happy with the battery life - for a phone with 9 radios in it. I don't make many calls, but I use the iPod function all day - and the battery only goes down by half by midnight.

Hey guys

I just noticed that 3G coverage in my area (north eastern suberbs of Adelaide) has improved incresibly!! The speed is still, relatively, crap, but I have 3G coverage the whole way into uni almost! Finally the Internet is faster than 50 kilo bits!

I've been running 2.0.2 since I came out and have noticed no improvement until now! It is a miracle. Perhaps Optus is finally upgrading their crappy network! Haha

That would mean spending money!, but they will have to do so sooner or later. "Blind Freddy" can see that the majority of people experiencing problems with the iPhone,in this country, are on the Optus network.

lol - maybe that last article was correct, and that to see a benefit from 2.0.2, everyone else in your area had to upgrade to 2.0.2 as well...

So no one else has seen an improvement? Seriously everywhere i go now i have 3G except in buildings and at home (but i have wifi here so it doesn't matter) I always had GPRS or 'No Service' everywhere before! 3G, its kind of cool for those who are yet to experience it, but i still wish i went with Telstra all those megabits are worth an extra $30 or whatever.

Although, the other day my bro, (who ended up going with Telstra for the iPhone), got a letter to say that his 10MB downloads has been upgraded to 150MB, it would be hard to use that much unless your on youtube and the appstore all day!

bugga, oh well, in two years!

Are things getting any better out there?

My iphone will have been away for TWO weeks due to optus stupidity. I was hoping things would be working better with the network.

no not at all

think most people are waiting for 2.1 (to see if that includes more "improves communications with 3G networks" statements from apple.)

No noticable improvement. I've never had any dropped calls at home despite having virtually no bars 3G. When out and about some areas have full bars others have 1 or 2. I was in the Melbourne CBD today and was in various buildings on various levels and was getting mostly full bars of GPRS. I don't know whether to like or hate the fact that my business now saves $12,000 a year on our mobile bills with Optus as opposed to Telstra.

Does anyone remember that website that you go to to get the location of mobile towers and their providers?
I'm sure it was in this thread at one stage, but can't find it now.

See below:

as a modification to the above quoted directions, you can go to search/advanced search, and filter by carrier. saves having to digg through the towers of carriers you aren't interested in.

Hi Vandozza, wondered where you were,..... Did you see, Nandos worked out the problem with Optus, it's all the "Kid's"

Optus 3G network..what could be a possible solution

Seriously, how is "Your" situation now, any improvement in the Network?

Thanks guys,
Geesh, still got network problems here. I've got to admit though, it has improved slightly since launch. The first bill was a whopper, but Optus stuffed that up as well.