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Two studies, one in Sweden and the other in the US, indicate that reports of dropped calls and poor performance cannot be blamed on the Apple smartphone. The Swedish study by the Bluetest, a testing specialist, found that the iPhone’s 3G performance is comparable with similar phones from other manufacturers.

“The values are completely normal,” Magnus Franzén, an antenna engineer told the Göteborgs Posten newspaper.

Likewise, a poll of US iPhone users by Wired, which mapped users’ speeds to their geographical location, found that performance appears to depend on the quality of the local connection.

“In our view, this data is a strong indicator that performance of the mobile carrier’s network is affecting the iPhone 3G more than the handset itself,” Wired says.

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“This also furthers our thesis that it’s highly unlikely that Apple is going to wave a magical wand and say, ‘3G problems, be gone,’ with a software update. Before Apple can make such a claim, it needs to wait for all of its carriers to optimise 3G network behaviour — in terms of number of towers, how they’re positioned and how much bandwidth each tower can handle.”

Apple already faces one lawsuit over allegations that its advertising for the iPhone misrepresented the 3G performance. It has declined to comment, though chief executive Steve Jobs has said that the company was aware of problems that it addressed with the most recent iPhone software update.

And if a further indicator that networks rather then devices are the chief factor is needed, it appears that the new BlackBerry Bold suffers from the same problems as the iPhone.

In the UK, performance appears to have lived up to expectations. The Swedish and US studies suggest that O2’s improvements to its 3G coverage, as mandated by the industry regulator Ofcom, have paid off for UK iPhone users.

[photo by Elsie esq]