Norway Article Suggests iPhone 4 Issues Involve AT&T Network

Here’s a new spin on the iPhone 4 antenna and signal reception issue: Norway’s largest newspaper (think, The Wall Street Journal for Norway) suggests the iPhone 4 reception issues are related to AT&T’s U.S. network rather than the iPhone 4 antenna. Here’s a closer look at the claims.

A tip of the hat goes to Appleinsider.com for translating the story. The nutshell version goes like this:

The iPhone 4, HTC Wildfire, Nokia E71, and iPhone 3GS get taken to a remote part of Norway, on the outskirts of cellular provider who services the iPhone in Norway. All phones were subject to the death grip. All phones saw attenuation of signal. But the iPhone 4 did not do any worse nor better in the lineup.

But here comes the more interesting part: the article suggests that AT&T’s U.S. network, rather than the iPhone 4, could be causing the iPhone 4 reception issues. Moreover, the article mentions a Norwegian site named Amobil, which said the iPhone 4, as tested, shows no evidence of poor design and said integrated antennas normally are affected based on how phones are held. The Norwegian article also cited Amobil saying that mobile networks in Norway are “much more robust than AT&T’s network in the US.”

AppleInsider, along with the person who helped translate the Norwegian article expressed his own experiences with the iPhone 4, stating…

Can this save Apple, even just a little bit? Will this continue to spur rumors about a better iPhone for Verizon or a competing network? All this news falls on the backdrop of Apple’s continuation to prove signal attenuation by adding the Droid X to the lineup of videos showing phone signal attenuation.

Meanwhile, we’ve reached out to AT&T for comment about the iPhone 4’s performance on AT&T’s network.

Follow The VAR Guy via RSS; Facebook; Identi.ca; Twitter; and via his Newsletter; Webcasts and Resource Center. Plus, visit www.VARtweet.com.