Faulty Chip Possibly Responsible For iPhone 3G Poor Reception

Rumours have been flying since Richard Windsor of Nomura published a research note singling out Infineon's chipset as the possible cause of the iPhone 3G connection issues.

If Richard Windsor is right then it spells bad news for iPhone users as a hardware issue is unlikely to be fixed by a firmware update, which means iPhone users will just have to live with the poor 3G reception indefinitely.

"We believe that these issues are typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack where we are almost certain that Infineon is the 3G supplier," Said Windsor. "This is not surprising as the Infineon 3G chipset solution has never really been tested in the hands of users. Some people will not experience these problems as it is only in areas where the radio signal weakens that the immaturity of the stack really shows."

I personally haven't experienced any big problems with 3G reception, I usually get a strong 3G signal, Though i live in London and in London we have very good coverage. But looking at the apple iPhone support forums i may be a rare case. Since the release of the iPhone 3G users have been complaining in their droves about poor signal, Dropped calls and switches to Edge during Internet access.

Apple are still not acknowledging that the iPhone 3G suffers from connection issues and Infineon have refused to comment on the iPhone problem.