Wired's iPhone 3G Survey: What's Missing?

According to Wired's Gadget Lab, the problems with the iPhone's 3G performance is all about the network. This is based on a (decidedly) unscientific study of 4,200 iPhone 3G users around the world, which they published on Monday. Besides the fact that this spreads the sample in any particular area pretty thin, worldwide as the survey was, there's one thing I would love to see that wasn't done with this survey. More on that later.

In fact, due to incomplete data, only 2,636 data points that were usable, a still thinner sampling. Conclusions were that users in areas with mature 3G networks had much better results. For example, Germany and the Netherlands reported the world’s fastest average 3G download speeds --- about 2 Mbps. The most "0" results (no 3G) came from --- where else? The U.S.

Further data seems to indicate that a theory we've noted before may not be off the mark --- areas where a large number of 3G phones propagate seem to have worse connectivity.

Now, although I personally believe that the iPhone's problems are not network-only, I've never totally ruled out the network. At the very least, I believe the "congestion" problem noted above could have something to do with the issues.

However, in addition to this study, what we really need is a comparison of iPhones with other 3G phones. As I've indicated, I can place several 3G phones right next to an iPhone and they will have great signal strength while the iPhone barely gets one bar.

And yes, I realize that different manufacturers determine their signal strength differently, and that bars aren't enough to determine signal strength --- but it's not just bars. The other phones browse just fine, don't drop calls, don't miss calls, on and on. Frankly, if the iPhone worked with one bar the same as a Q9h with full bars (which is what I see), I'd be perfectly happy, and assume it was a gauge problem.

But it doesn't. The only way to get the iPhone to work well is to stick it into EDGE. And that's not what we all paid for. While this study is great, it's missing a couple of points to make it really meaningful: one, comparison against other 3G phones, where the iPhone seems to fall flat on its face.

Still more: this survey was all about speed, and what some commenters noted and what users are really complaining about isn't speed, but connectivity: dropped calls, missed calls, "Call Failed" errors, and the like. Sure, it's easy to quantify speed, and my type of survey would be more difficult --- but it would also be more useful.

Quite honestly, I also worry that Apple will fix this in hardware, and six months down the line buyers will be happily walking out of the store with much better experiences than early adopters.

Then again, if Apple would just open up communication-wise (they must know what the issue is by now!), we wouldn't be wondering, now would we?