Ha, pretty hilarious picture. I feel so stuck right now. I've been wanting to upgrade from my SCH-u740 forever, but decided to see how this new batch did in the wild first...reports have not been good. I'm trying to stay on top of the firmware releases to see what gains they can make, but maybe I'll just get something used/cheap to tide me over for a bit.

This is typical of other units on AT&T... people are just noticing it now because they haven't been on 3G units on AT&T before.

The popular opinion seems to be that it's AT&T's fault, not the phones.  If that's the case, the question is whether or not AT&T is doing anything about it.  It sounds like the 3G service is horrible just about everywhere in the US.

I was gonna say -- I've been seeing spotty 3G reception on my Moto q9h as well.  I just figured AT&T's 3G network sucked.

Hopefully they'll continue to build out their network...

I'm sure it has a lot to do with how hot the signal is where you are browsing.  But to be honest for my needs edge speed is fine.  I basically pull down email and RSS feeds for most of my usage, and edge has been fine for that.  The 3G/edge switching becomes annoying when I'm trying to watch videos.  The switching behavior, when it happens, makes videos hard to load and watch.

You're right, EDGE speeds are more than adequate for most things (don't try the NY Times iPhone app), but I do want to use the extra speed from time to time.

The issue is that AT&T is charging me an extra $10+ per month because I own a 3G phone.  When they charge you extra, you expect the feature to be both functional and reliable, and it's not.

Well, on the iPhone they do that.  But I have 3G units running on the $15/mo unlimited data plan, same as the edge units.