Last year I blogged about 'Antennagate'. From what I hear, iPhone 4S has left this problem far behind and have a much better RF performance than other rivals.
The Australian operator Telstra operates a scheme where it gives a 'blue tick' to all mobiles that have superior RF performance than other average mobiles.
The following is an interesting comment from their Crowdsupport site:
Telstra offers three classes of coverage, A B and C.
C Class coverage is Blue Tick coverage. These phones are designed in such a way that they will outperform other phones in coverage. That is ,they will hold onto a signal further than B or A class phones
Most smartphones due to the way they are manufactures are B class, because of their thinness and materials (such as glass and plastic)
The Atrix and Defy are Blue Tick because the plastic chassis that houses the antenna stops your hand from attenuating the signal.
The iPhone 4S is Blue Tick because the dual antenna design intelligently switches antennas if one gets attenuated.
Blue Tick phones do not assist with high traffic areas. They only assist users in low coverage areas. So a phone in the Melbourne CBD would behave much like any other Telstra phone. Whereas a Blue Tick phone out in rural areas would have better signal coverage than a B or A class phone.
Telstra empirically tests all it's phones because we reach more of the population and many rural people rely on mobile phones with each passing year.
It may be a good idea that operators in other countries start supporting a similar scheme so users who get very little reception in their houses or places of work can get a phone with better RF capabilities.
Any similar schemes operating in other countries?
1 comment:
I have to disagree because I have 2 mobiles
(1) is a Blackberry 9700 (Non blue tick)wich I mainly use.
(2) Palm Pro (Blue tick)
Reception where I live approx 9 klm north of Perth CBD is very poor with lots of dropped calls and sometimes mobile doesn't even ring...Just goes straight to Message Bank.
Performance of both is equally poor.
Telstra complaints always ask "What mobile are you using?" if I say "Blackberry 9700" the person I'm speaking with immediately retreats smugly behind "Well it can be expected because it isn't a Blue Tick mobile".
That's when I explain I also have a "Blue Tick mobile supplied by Telstra that doesn't perform any better".
The silence on the line is deafening, last time I was told "You need to get a Patch antennae and hang it out the office window" when I explained we were talking about a MOBILE phone with the emphasis on MOBILE I was told it was the only solution.
Perhaps he wanted me to carry a window around under my arm so I would have a window to hang the antennae out of.
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