Starting on Memorial Day (2009) my cool, very functional and reliable iPhone, started to piss me off.
While on a motorcycle ride that day, I was unable to receive any signal at all. My phone kept showing ‘No Service‘. Traveling with a few other AT&T (non-iPhone users) I found that they had a full 5 bars of AT&T signal. Great. My phone is doing something very strange. Even when I arrived home that evening, the phone was still showing ‘No Service‘. It was not until the next morning that my phone was showing a signal again. I wrongfully thought I was out of the woods.
A few weeks later in Canada, the phone did the same thing; ‘Searching…..‘ and finally ‘No Service‘. Yet everyone else in the group had plenty of access to Rodgers Cellular in Canada. The most unfortunate part of the experience was that my ATM card had been turned off by Bank of America (another sore point) while in the middle of my trip! Cutting me off from money, and to top it all off, I could not call them with my non-functional phone!!!!
Next morning, phone was showing a full signal, and I was able to get a hold of those jackasses at Band of America and get my ATM card re-enabled.
But signal problems continued back in the US. Finally, mid June I got to the AT&T store and explain what’s happening. This is the same sort where I purchased the phone. They insisted that the first thing they needed to do was swap out the SIM card. How that could have any impact on the battery problems I was also having, I was suspicious, but thought maybe it would help with the signal issues. Didn’t do a damn thing.
Returning to AT&T store a couple of days later, I find out that they *cannot* perform any sort of hardware swap, exchange or, really anything beyond a SIM card swap on the iPhone. My options were to wait 2 weeks for a phone to be mailed (no go.. my work requires that they be able to contact me 24×7), -OR- drive 30 miles from work (Tacoma), to the outskirts of Seattle, to the uber-geek Apple Store, buried in the South Center Mall. I hate malls. After a VERY frustrating 3 hours there, I finally had the phone swapped out, got on my motorcycle and headed to the ferry. It’s then I really noticed that I had not ‘3G‘ network. :/ Not a big deal, I was certain I would have it when I arrived here, where I always have 5 bars of 3G. Turns out, it never did.
When I had some time to waste, I headed back to the AT&T store to get my network issue resolved. After 1 hour in the store, I found that they could do nothing, would not even swap the SIM this time.. and they were sending me.. (ta da..) BACK to South Center, or wait 2 weeks for yet another phone.
Yesterday I decided to make a day of it, and go out to South Center to swap out he iPhone yet again. I won’t go into what a cluster it was because nobody told me I needed an appointment the first time, but this time I was prepared, made an appointment at 2:40PM, drove the 70 miles from home to South Center Mall (I hate malls). I arrived at my 2:40 checking time, and within 5 minutes I was in front of a ‘MAC Genius’ (snicker) and they started the diagnosis process. This one quickly recognized that I’m not your garden variety tech moron, looked at me and asked in a hushed voice ‘Well, if you did all the reset tests already, and would just like a new phone, I’ll do that instead of spend 30 minutes doing all the tests’. Bingo! I’ll take the phone. Before it was 3:00PM I was out the door with at FULLY FUNCTIONAL 3G 8GB iPhone. All covered under the original 1 year warranty on the phone. Which is good becaue I was have seriously freaked out if the phone I bought last year was not under any sort of warranty!
This morning I finished ‘rebuilding’ my phone. Upgrading to iPhone version 3.0, restored all my contacts, bookmarks and photos. AND the 3G is still working. I’m now, a happier camper.
But it sure was an odyssey in frustration. And the AT&T corporate store is as useful as a screen door on a submarine.
Easter Egg Alert: Every AT&T hotlink goes to a different non-AT&T website. There are some interesting stories in there.
