iPhone Antenna Seemingly in the Clear for 3G Issues

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

I wrote earlier about an unnamed Swedish scientist who said that the iPhone was not sensitive enough to 3G signals, bad news if true because it would mean that software wouldn’t be likely to fix the problems.

Well, a Swedish newspaper took an iPhone to a company, Bluetest, which sells test chambers for wireless devices with small antennas. The equipment measures how well a device sends and receives signals. The test results:

- The values are completely normal, says Magnus Franzén, an antenna engineer with an M.Sc. in Engineering Physics.

We compare the results with those of a Sony Ericsson P1 belonging to Bluetest’s CEO Mats Andersson, and my Nokia N73. The P1 is a little better at receiving signals and the N73 a little better at transmitting signals. But the difference is small. The difference between the iphone’s and the P1’s receive sensitivity is 2 dB.

- It is not much. At a difference of 4-6 dB one might start to wonder if there is anything wrong, says Mats Andersson.

What we have now is similar to what typically happens in a court case: one expert says one thing and another completely invalidates it.

Still, as the article states this is an antenna test. It doesn’t rule out the Infineon chipset, chipset drivers, or firmware. Statistically, it’s also invalid because it only tested one of each device.

On the other hand, at least it’s something, and since Apple is typically close-mouthed, it’s all we’re going to get (meaning third-party testing) for now. And the paper did ask for people with connectivity problems to contact them:

If you are in Gothenburg and have an iphone with a bad 3G connection, not just that there are few signal strength bars, but that calls are disconnected and downloads are interrupted, let us know. Maybe we can do some more turns in the test chamber.

Doubtless, they will get some resp0nses.