When AT&T said nothing was wrong with their network, Giz reader Manoj went to said Genius Bar where the Genius downloaded stats from his iPhone 3G (purchases in July 2008). The stat dump showed the iPhone 3G had dropped 22% of his calls. But that's good, Manoj was told!
Why? The average for New York City is 30%. That means that despite the high drop rate, his phone was fine and the network was operating as expected.
And people wonder why consumers are clamoring for Verizon to pick up the device. At the same time, however, it's interesting that Manoj didn't complain until recently. My question would be: has it gotten progressively worse? That might show that oversaturation of the network has occurred as more and more iPhones populate the area.
It's still a mystery to me that if such a thing is happening, why isn't ever AT&T customer in that area complaining. You'd think it would affect all AT&T phones. Or maybe they are, and we just don't hear about it because it's not the "device of the moment."