God.

This is very annoying, after 2.1 yes, we are tricked into thinking we have better reception than usual, but, even in spots I used to browse fine my iPhone 3G has become unusable.

Very slow when it is working, and, "Safari could not connect to server" (IIRC) when it's not. Despite full bars 3G.

Is anyone experiencing this?

Only when i was on the train. Apart from that, no issues.

Yeah, Optus was being shit this afternoon.
Even prompted to go to testmyiphone.com.
I think I got 183kb/s.
Then for most of the way home I had 'no network' until I turned my phone off and on again (aircraft mode on and off didn't work) I think it was just Optus being weird and crashing during the peak data time again..

Glad I'm not the only one .

Yep - I agree For another thread I timed loading the mactalk front page. It took between 45 seconds on 3g and 2 minutes on GSM. Youch!

I notice the same thing when i was in melbourne...
at several times..even though my phone said 3g with full bars (on 2.1) i was not able to connect to 3g at all?!! i was able to connect via 2g..
this happened like twice during my 4 day stay in Melb...so...i am guessing Melbournians do get the bad end of the rod when it comes to Optus 3g service cuz...up here in Brisb...havent experience this sort of problem before...(unless there are widespread outages)

I am experiencing this daily, infact 10 different times yesterday!!!!

This in in Brisbane and it's just pathetic to be honest. Shit Optus, very shit....

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think that reception has little to do with downlink data.
I think that the slow data rates has to do with the fact that Optus have over subscribed users and so there is not enough bandwidth available for people to download at faster speeds.

I have an HTC TyTN which is also on Optus HSDPA and i'm getting similar speeds. From what i've seen the iPhone is capable of faster speeds overseas...

I guess it's similar to your home WiFi, you can be right next to the access point with full signal, but if there are 100 people connected at the same time, its going to be a lot slower...

Can this issue be easily fixed? I'd sacrifice speed for the ability to actually browse at all. Was a little bit better today though.

It is completely unpredictable.
I have found since doing the 2.1 update (although perhaps a coincidence) that even when it shows full bars sometimes I am getting no response. Not slow 3G, no response at all. So there are moments where it doesn't work at all or is very slow. Other times it is working faster on GPRS. Go figure!

Yes. I have the same behaviour :P. GPRS seems a lot more stable for me :P.

X3

The only problem is with my noise cancelling headphones whenever it roams onto GRPS I get all sorts of annoying noises. So, I can either ditch the headphones and not hear, put up with all the beeping and so on, or give up!

maybe apple lowered the threshold too low for 3G to kick in???
before the threshold was too high and when we got 3g we were very sure that 3g existed..
now...maybe the threshold is too low and at that low threshold the bandwidth becomes too limited..
just guessing?!?!?
for me i haven't had this issue in Brisb..but then again...had been here just for the last 3 days since 2.1

Optus dumps Wireless Fusion, but will Virgin dump Broadband at Home?
This article I feel can be directly related to using an iPhone on the Optus 3G network.
See my comment there too, I'm Jason.

I get abit frustrated trying to browse websites on the iPhone with Optus 3G......
Sometimes it super fast and sometimes its super slow