reviewLAB.net

Owners of Apple’s new iPhone 3GS love the device, but more than half of them hate AT&T, the smartphone’s exclusive mobile carrier in the U.S., according to a just-released survey.

“There’s no indication that Apple’s AT&T problem is going away,” said Paul Carton, research director at ChangeWave Research. “The better consumers feel about their iPhones, the worse they feel about AT&T.”

Carton said that the latest ChangeWave survey, which polled nearly 200 owners of Apple’s newest iPhone model, the 3GS, showed a “near-perfect satisfaction rating” for the product. More than eight of every ten iPhone 3GS owners said they were “very satisfied” with the smartphone, while another 17% said they were “somewhat satisfied.”

“Extraordinary,” is how Carton interpreted the 97% total. “That’s the highest ratings we have ever had for any smartphone, including previous iPhones,” he said.

But the poll also revealed major dissatisfaction with AT&T, the lone mobile service provider allowed to sell calling plans for the iPhone in the U.S.

When asked to name their top dislikes about the iPhone, 32% named iPhone lock-in with AT&T, while 23% pegged AT&T’s calling and data coverage, service quality and service speed. Both responses, however, came in behind iPhone battery issues, which was the No. 1 dislike.

“One in two said AT&T was a top dislike,” said Carton. “That speaks for itself. The AT&T problem is by far the most significant pitfall of the iPhone.”

According to one consumer who participated in the survey, AT&T’s network coverage and speed is “nothing to write home about,” and “still drops a lot of calls.”

iPhone owners started complaining about AT&T within weeks of the smartphone’s launch two years ago, but the griping reached even higher levels last fall, when several users filed lawsuits that claimed Apple and AT&T were responsible for constantly-dropped calls, poor connections and slower-than-advertised data speeds. A dozen of those lawsuits, all which sought class-action status, were consolidated into one action last month by a panel of federal judges.