Geeks Blame the FCC for iPhone 4 Antenna Problems
AntennaSys, which specializes in “antenna design, integration and consulting” has the single best explanation of how cell phone antennas have evolved. It also is the best description of how this has impacted the iPhone 4.0 antennae issues — PC Mag, Gizmodo, Engadget — we have seen to date:
“The FCC puts strict limits on the amount of energy from a handheld device that may be absorbed by the body. We call this Specific Absorbtion Rate, or SAR. In the olden days, when I walked ten miles to school in three feet of snow, uphill in both directions, cell phones had pull-up antennas. This allowed the designer to use a half-wave antenna variant, and put the point of maximum radiation somewhat away from the user’s cranium. Of course, most people did not think it was necessary and kept the antenna stowed. Motorola’s flip phone acutally had a second helical antenna that was switched into place when this was the case. But, more importantly, SAR rules were not yet in effect.
Flip phones became yesterday’s style, and phones were becoming more monolithic. Some phones, like the early Treo, kept the antenna in the traditional location at the top of the phone, near one edge, but reduced it to a short stub. Whips became stubs, stubs became bumps, and finally antennas were embedded into the rectangular volume of the phone. The trouble was SAR; if you left the antenna at the top, the user was now pressing it into their head, insuring lots of tissue heating. Enter the bottom-located cellphone antenna.
Just about every cell phone in current production has the antenna located at the bottom. This insures that the radiating portion of the antenna is furthest from the head. Apple was not the first to locate the antenna on the bottom, and certainly won’t be the last. The problem is that humans have their hands below their ears, so the most natural position for the hand is covering the antenna. This can’t be a good design decision, can it? How can we be stuck with this conundrum? It’s the FCC’s fault.”
The rest is just as informative . . .
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Source:
Apple iPhone 4 Antennas…
AntennaSys, JUNE 24, 2010 3:50PM
http://www.antennasys.com/antennasys-blog/2010/6/24/apple-iphone-4-antennas.html
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June 26th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
yet,
“…Motorola has always made phone call quality a priority, and they try a new trick on the Droid X: three microphones, two used for noise cancellation. The trick works: I didn’t get any background noise on the other end of calls made with the X, even when I made the calls standing next to a roaring city bus. RF reception was also spectacular. Thanks to the huge antennas, the Droid X was able to eke out a call where the Incredible failed…”
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2365630,00.asp
“”…Motorola has always made phone call quality a priority, …. RF reception was also spectacular. Thanks to the huge antennas, the Droid X was able to eke out a call where the Incredible failed…”
note: “Thanks to the huge antennas..”
June 26th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
Be that as it may, I think it is important to point out that there was a pretty big breakdown during Apples testing process. As they rushed to push out the iPhone 4 out, they inadvertently released it with a pretty huge flaw.
June 26th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
I’m sorry, is there something new about iPhones, iPads, and iEverything getting horrible reception? I thought that was part of the charm of being an iSlave.
June 26th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Not being an iGeek, it seems to me from the Youtube video that the problem occurs when the connectivity of your hand touches both antenna, creating a short between the 2 that kills the reception.
Then – WHY don’t they just put the slots that makes the physical break between antennas across the top and bottom of the phone, since you don’t grip the phone across the top and bottom and therefore won’t create the short with your hand? Or am I missing something else?
June 26th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Ok – strike that last post. I thought it was specifically covering the gap with your palm that caused the problem, but the antennas run all the way around the phone, so you’re screwed when holding it – like a phone!
Seems they will have to place a non-conductive material around one of the antenna that makes up half of the outer edge of the phone.
June 26th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
The paranoia about cellphone radiation is completely ridiculous.
I’ve been in healthcare for almost 30 years as a management consultant, with multiple degrees and board certifications. In my earlier career I was in radio and television broadcasting, and also hold an Advanced class FCC amateur radio (ham) license.
Millions of people have had long-term, -decades- of up-close exposure to varying levels of RF radiation from hundreds to thousands of watts, as hobbyists, professionals, and military. Many millions more have been using cellphones for many years. Cellphones emit a fraction of ONE watt (a few hundred milliwatts). There is absolutely no epedimiological evidence – NONE- whatsoever to support the claim that exposure to RF is harmful.
The cellphone radiation fear is precisely like the irrational fear of germs that’s spiked a remarkably widespread adoption of all that hand-pump germicide usage.
Not hard to guess which industries benefit from – and thereby clandestinely encourage both of these fears.
June 26th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
It’s the same thing about digital TV; a lot of viewers complaint that they can’t pick up DTV with rabbit ears inside the house.
There is a good reason why the brits call Antennae “Aerials”……..
Common engineering is not part of the FCC’s rulebook that’s for sure.
June 26th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
“Just about every cell phone in current production has the antenna located at the bottom.”
Then why doesn’t “just about every” cell phone have reception problems like the new iPhone? This looks like fanboi’s are just trying to pass the blame onto someone besides apple. Like just about every other religion, blind faith permeates the jobsian cult as well.
June 26th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
The post was written like a true fanboi. My somewhat outdated Windows mobile phones haven’t had this problem even though they are slab designs. Don’t hear about the current crop of Androids having this problem. In fact, the only smart phone that has enough reception problems that even a very prominent financial blogger switched to a Blackberry is the iPhone. But, it’s all the FCC’s fault. Right.
June 26th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
You have to wonder if Microsoft deployed a phone, they wouldn’t be treated in this manner and given an iPass on such an obvious shortcoming for a phone. Brands and lemmings are amazing.
June 26th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Apparently if you put it in a case it prevents your hand from shorting the antennas together, so that will only set you back another $30 or so.
Or…yet another use for duct tape!!
June 26th, 2010 at 8:44 pm
Seriously, this post is excessively fanboyish.
They argue that:
1) Limits preventing excessive absorbtion of radiation is a big problem! (tell that to the safety people)
2) iPhone’s way to solve this problem (same as everyone else!) is causing the dropped receptions (same as everyone else…oh wait). so why doesn’t everyone else has this problem
Apple screwed up with the design, plain and simple. They put two EXTERNAL antennae’s next to each other and that when a conductive material connects them (your skin), it causes conductive interference. Nobody else has as much problems with their phone connection as this design.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNmXrVNeGzs
This that with your current phone and see if it does the same thing. If not…bad design. Plaine and simple.
June 26th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
I’ve seen it theorized that Apple probably missed this problem because their obsession with secrecy caused them to only test the phones in cases so they wouldn’t be spotted, except maybe the guy who left one in the bar.
It makes sense that this could have prevented them noticing the problem until it was too late to do anything about it without missing the release date with the implicit acknowledging that an Apple product had a problem. May have caused suicides among the faithful. Might have had another Jonestown as they couldn’t face the embarrassment.
June 26th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
I recently wrote a series of articles on “Physics of Wireless Broadband.” It is for Geeks only, but has some interesting images of simulation results showing the Specific-Absorption Rate (SAR) within the human head for a cell phone radiating at 900 MHz.
Current cell phones radiate at just under 3x that frequency (2.5GHz), which corresponds exactly to the frequency used to nuke your food in the microwave oven. At this higher frequency, the SAR will be even less distributed and more concentrated near the antenna.
Back when those images were created in 2002, the antennas were still located at the top.
Rather than blame the FCC, we should probably thank them. We’re probably one medical journal publication away from bringing down the entire wireless industry.
When I would present results back in grad school, people would always see those scary images and ask if cell phones were safe. All previous safety tests for cell phones were performed at frequencies at 900 MHz or below. At those frequencies, yeah, I said I thought it was safe.
At 2.5GHz, I’m no longer sure. Although at much higher powers, these frequencies have been shown to produce cataracts in engineers operating radar systems.
Anyway, here is one of my Geekier articles:
Physics of Wireless Broadband
http://phorgyphynance.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/physics-of-wireless-broadband/
Another one of my articles was picked up by Felix Salmon at Reuters:
Is 3G wireless doomed in cities?
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/12/29/is-3g-wireless-doomed-in-cities/
and subsequently remarked on by Paul Krugman.
June 26th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
The design answer to this situation has been apparent for many years — separate the headset from the cellular transceiver.
June 26th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
It’s because of the FCC?
And that’s why OTHER PHONES WORK AND IPHONE DOES NOT?
Because only Iphone has to pass FCC
Are you fricking kidding? Totally braindead statement
June 26th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
The design answer seems to have been apparent to most other phone makers who make phones with the same format that can actually make phone calls.
And they didn’t separate the headset from the tansceiver to do it.
June 26th, 2010 at 11:59 pm
@Bob A
You don’t separate the headset from the transceiver to make phone calls, you do it to avoid getting brain cancer.
And I note a distinct Apple hate-boy climate here … with so far as I can see, absolutely no data as the the prevalence of call problems, or even a definitive statement that the antenna design is fer shure the cause of these reports.
All cell phones have connection difficulties from time to time, from a variety of reasons, ranging from too many phones for the cell towers to handle the call volume (an AT&T problem), to bad hardware designs to software defects. I see a lotta clueless piling-on here, mostly from folks who apparently hate Apple’s success.
Just an observation. It ain’t exactly the picture of reasoned discourse. But it won’t effect the complainers, and it certainly won’t effect Apple’s profits. It’s just the droning of vuvuzelas in the blogosphere …
June 27th, 2010 at 12:31 am
@constantnormal
You may want to read more of the so called blogosphere, its pretty much confirmed that its caused by apple’s design. Even apple itself has acknowledged it.
Apple’s official statement:
Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.
The difference is that because Apple decided to move the GSM/UMTS antenna to the OUTSIDE of the phone and in a position right next to the Bluetooth/Wifi/GPS antenna and connecting both of those with your conductive flesh causes interference between the signals. Its a well known problem, except for Apple apparently.
That’s the same reason why a bumper case solves it, even though it covers the antennaes (which you think would make it worse), because they’re not conductive it actually solves the problem.
Steve Job’s own email response to the problem is to change the way you hold the phone. Yeah right.
June 27th, 2010 at 8:06 am
constantnormal:
The phenom has been pretty well documented on Engadget and Gizmodo since the first phones were in the hands of the public, not just acolytes like Mossberg.
Here’s a demo of the problem:
http://gizmodo.com/5573504/unofficial-finger-test-reveals-iphone-antenna-issue-impacts-reception-and-transmission
The irony is tha the problem is caused by another “revolutionary” feature that was supposed to make iPhone owners so much cooler than everyone else. Actually, HTC applied for a patent on the idea last year, but, curiously, hasn’t used it in a production model yet.
Sure, Apple makes some very good consumer electronics for those who are willing to use their devices within the limitations Jobs sets, e.g. only iTunes, no software not Apple-approved.
The snarky attitude here is just a case of “what goes around, comes around.” Anyone who touts their devices as “magical” and relies on snob appeal for marketing sets a pretty high bar for themselves.
It gets old watching the predictable stories about lines of upgraders looking like prospective passengers in the original “V” miniseries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_%281983_miniseries%29 and the general impression conveyed by the fawning media who gave us green shoots and “housing prices never go down” that Apple computers somehow dominate the world, when, in fact Apple is just a blip on the radar in a huge PC market.
June 27th, 2010 at 9:03 am
My last post on this, but this is, like the iPhone 4, is just irresistible:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/27/fry_come_uppance/
June 27th, 2010 at 9:57 am
constantnormal Says:
“And I note a distinct Apple hate-boy climate here …”
So true, as if Bill Gates and Steve Balmer design incredible software. Vista: a spectacular OS.
June 27th, 2010 at 10:55 am
Win 7 has sold 150 million copies since Oct. And all it really is is a Vista service pack with some dazzle added. Not too shabby.
June 27th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Eh, weren’t they originally boasting that adding the antenna to the entire metal band around the outside of the phone would IMPROVE reception ?
Hoisted on their own petard.
June 29th, 2010 at 12:28 am
@ Tim,
According to these doctors and scientists, wireless radiation is not ridiculous at all, but there are 15 reasons for concern.
http://www.radiationresearch.org/pdfs/15reasons.asp
And for a long, long time people didn’t think smoking was bad either.