How to Improve iPhone Reception

May 7, 2010 By Greg Mombert

Learn how to improve reception with your iPhone to make the most of AT&T’s spotty network.

With iPhones being exclusive to AT&T, all iPhone users have the same spotty coverage. Some of the blame for AT&T’s service issues can be placed on the iPhone itself, but there are a number of ways to make life with an iPhone on AT&T a little less frustrating.

1) The iPhone’s internal antenna is located in a different spot than most cell phone antennas. When holding the iPhone, make sure and hold it upright, and try not to cover too much of the back of the phone where signal comes from. If you still have poor reception, try using a Bluetooth headset and setting your iPhone upright in a window.

2) If you have strong reception outside your building, but poor reception inside, then it’s likely the layout of the building and not your coverage. Try moving to another location in the building or go outside as walls, metal roofing, and other electronics can cause interference. Keep in mind that tall buildings, trees, hills and large bodies of water all hurt phone reception, so if possible, move to a better location, such as an intersection if you’re downtown, or a higher elevation in a rural area.

3) If you have access to Wi-Fi, you can use Skype to send and receive calls as long as the Skype app is running. The call quality can vary, but the app is free and calls to other Skype users are also free. Calls to phones without Skype cost around two cents a minute, which is still a great deal.

4) For those of you that own iPhones with 3G capability, try turning off the 3G feature. There are still some cell towers without 3G access, so turning off this feature will connect you to older 2G towers that might be closer. You can do this by following these steps: Go to “Settings,” “General,” “Network,” and then change the “Enable 3G” option to off.

5) Keep your iPhone battery charged. Cell phones in general will transmit further on a fully charged battery. When batteries get low, they often have enough power to make calls, but lack the power to search for good reception.

6) If you’re really desperate, you may want to give AT&T’s 3G MicroCell signal booster a try. While we aren’t too found of this solution, it acts like a miniature cell phone tower by routing calls through your home internet connection. The MicroCell costs $150 up front and AT&T deducts minutes from your plan as if you are using their network. You can also pay an extra $20 a month for AT&T to stop deducting minutes from your plan when using the MicroCell.

Showing 7 comments

jsebyr at 9:05am 3rd June 2011 ya a friend of my said the reception on the iphone 4 is horrible. Hopefully they will improve it, you wouldn't think it would be something that hard to fix. Nobody else is having that problem. Jenny Suspense books. Horror books. Thrillers. Ebooks
braxis at 8:15am 24th March 2011 It's a good thing that people come up with ways to ease our life, cause it's true that life with an IPhone can be hard sometimes. I hope in the nearest future we'll get rid of all the small problems we have with smart phones in general.
Exchange Links at 11:50am 19th July 2010 Thanks guys for this! www.ExchangeLinksOnline.com
Ian Bell at 8:50pm 31st May 2010 Here is a good article to check out:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/4g-is-here-...
Zac at 5:25pm 31st May 2010 ND-- Check out the HTC EVO that Sprint will be releasing next week. Should be stellar as long as the network isn't suffering from congestion like AT&T!
nd at 3:13pm 21st May 2010 I'm in san francisco and ready to go back to sprint. I moved from sprint to at&t to get the iphone and now all i get are dropped calls and especially in my home. I can't make a call from my home and I can't live with this because I work from home and so I've had to walk outside the building and sit in the park to take conference calls. To talk to my family I have to go outside and make the calls.

I have 3 phones on my plan and I'm ready to go back to sprint (where I never had any problems with dropped calls and no coverage (in San Francisco I might add)). I'll pay the early termination fees because I can't work and I can't be reached in emergencies and people can't reach me when they come to my place because I can't be buzzed or called while I'm at home.

I should have just gotten 3 Palm Pre phones rather than being excited to get the iPhones. It has cost me more than I care to mention.

I did call at&t and they said that SF has some of the best coverage in their network. Well I just happen to live in Pacific Heights which doesn't seem to have any coverage at all.

I'm mad and I also didn't mention that it costs me over $100+ more a month with at&t than it did with sprint. Which is part of the reason that paying the early termination fees will not only get me coverage but I believe I will recoup the fees in monthly costs over a short period of time.

I'm just doing my research on the palm pre and then I'm ready to go.
moto at 7:18am 8th May 2010 So,give point one about the internal antenna, do you get better reception without a case that protects the back of the phone?